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Literature Text
PMD: Explorers of the Final Frontier
Chapter 193: Hospitality in Snowhaven
Ace groggily awoke in what appeared to be a hospital bed. As his vision slowly began to come back into focus, the Pikachu’s eyes glanced over at a blurry pink figure at the other end of the room, which soon took shape into an Audino wearing a nurse’s cap, busying herself with a pile of papers on a desk. Upon noticing him stir, the Audino walked up to Ace’s bedside, and chirped merrily “Ah, wonderful! I’m so glad to see you’re finally awake! How do you feel?”
“Ugh… tired… and… a little sore…” the Pikachu groaned weakly in response, before asking “Where am I…? Who are you…?”
“You’re in the Snowhaven Town medical center.” the Audino nurse replied calmly. “You were brought here unconscious by a mysterious Pokemon who calls himself Shadow Knight yesterday. When we got you into this hospital ward, you were in a really bad way. We almost thought we were going to have our very first casualty… But, I can see that now you at least might last a little while longer. We… heard about your condition… I’m so sorry…” After a brief pause, the nurse added “My name is Nurse Isabella, by the way, but you can just call me Bell. I’ll be taking care of you for the extent of your stay here.”
At that moment, as all the memories of the previous day suddenly flooded back to him, Ace asked concernedly “There were eight other Pokemon with me… Where are they?”
“Don’t worry, your friends are all fine.” Bell assured with a soothing smile. “Mr. Bo has kindly offered to let them stay at his house until you’re well enough to leave.” The Audino then slowly exited the room, and a few moments later, walked back in carrying a bowl of what looked like steaming hot porridge. “Now eat up. You need to get your strength up.” she said as she lifted a spoonful of the oatmeal to Ace’s mouth.
“You don’t have to spoon-feed me, I can handle this myse-” the Pikachu began to insist as he grabbed onto the bowl with his left paw, and attempted to grab the spoon with his right, only to quickly realize and remember that in place of where his prosthetic paw once was now remained only a bandaged stump. “…Ah.” After a brief awkward pause, Ace asked embarrassedly “Can I… get a tray…?”
“Certainly.” Bell agreed with a smile, bowing courteously, before exiting the room once again to retrieve the item in question.
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Meanwhile, on the outskirts of town, Luke was sitting alone outside in the snow, staring off into the horizon, when suddenly, a familiar voice softly rang through his ears from seemingly no particular direction. “Luke…”
The Lopunny then frantically began looking in every which direction in an attempt to locate the source of the voice, until finally his eyes fell on a ghostly transparent blue figure slowly fading into view directly in front of him. Upon suddenly recognizing the blue ghostly image of the familiar Quilava dressed in a red cloak in front of him, Luke gasped in astonishment “Zorn…?”
“Luke…” the ghostly rendition of the Quilava wizard repeated, “You will go to the Swamp of Shadows. There you will learn from Celebi, the master of the mystic arts who instructed me…”
As the bluish ghost of Zorn slowly began to fade out of sight, Luke called out “Zorn, wait! What do you mean ‘Swamp of Shadows?! Zorn!!” However, no response was received, and the Lopunny was left to ponder what he had witnessed alone in silence.
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Meanwhile, inside the small log cabin that served as the residence of the famed old Abomasnow Mr. Bo, Ginger was staring with a cheery smile on her face at her reflection in a small glass ball decoration on a moderately sized evergreen tree in the living room, when suddenly, the sound of the front door was heard opening. Upon turning towards the door, and seeing the now familiar white bearded Abomasnow walking in with a large brown sack, Ginger giddily ran up to him in a tackling hug, and cheered “Santa!!”
With a hearty chuckle, the Abomasnow set down his bag of items just inside the door, gently petted the Eevee’s back, and replied “It’s good to see you too, young lady. But I already told you before, I’m not Santa Claus. My name is Mr. Bo.”
Ignoring Mr. Bo’s correction, Ginger requested in a somewhat sadder tone “Mr. Santa, all I want for the holidays this year is Ace to get better from his cancer…”
A long moment of uncomfortable silence ensued, until finally, the silence was broken by Pepper walking into the room, and inquiring “Has anybody seen Luke?”
Cutey Punny, who had just entered through the front door after Mr. Bo moments ago, responded “I just saw him and that Shadow Knight guy who helped us yesterday borrowing a small recreational plane from the airport a few minutes ago. They said they were going to the Swamp of Shadows or something, I think.”
“What?!” Pepper gasped in alarm.
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As Ace was just finishing eating his meal with his left paw in the tray that had been set up on his bed for him, he suddenly noticed a Chikorita he recognized as Pepper dash into the room up to his bed, and exclaim urgently “Ace, Luke is gone!”
“Pepper… what…? What do you mean Luke is gone? What are you talking about?” Ace asked in startled confusion.
“I mean he took off!” Pepper elaborated. “He and that Batman wannabe borrowed a plane so they could go to that swamp you took Jenni to that one time!”
“The Swamp of Shadows?” Ace inquired, before a memory from the previous day suddenly hit him. {“Ace, you have no idea just how long I’ve waited to get my revenge against you for what you did to me so long ago!” the male Ditto, Dopple, proclaimed angrily. “But fortunately for you, our, ahem, employer, wants you all brought to him alive. He never said anything about not tormenting and beating you to a pulp first, though!” The criminal Ditto began laughing maniacally.}
“Just what’s all this kafuffle about now?” the Audino nurse, Bell, suddenly asked in slight discontent as she walked into the room.
“We need to contact the Northern Desert Kingdom.” Ace replied seriously.
“Oh, I’m afraid that’s not possible at the moment.” Bell informed.
“Why not?” Pepper asked.
“I’m sorry to say that all our communication lines have been down since early this morning.” the Audino nurse explained. “The technicians are working on it, but nobody can seem to figure it out…”
“They’ve been jammed.” Ace responded bluntly. “We need to evacuate this city immediately!”
“Excuse me, sir, but might I inquire what’s going on?” Bell asked curiously.
“The mission we were just on yesterday…” Ace began, “The two criminals we forced into retreat were hired by Blade and the Coalition to bring one or more of us to him alive. When Blade finds out they failed, which he likely already has, he’s going to come looking for us. He’s going to send his entire army to tear this city apart piece by piece, and they’re not going to stop until they’ve found us.”
