After Ben felt it was okay to leave, he went upstairs to check on Lea, only to find her office door locked… again.
“Lea, this is getting annoying. I don’t care how often you might have done it before, you need to stop locking yourself in there.”
“Go away!”
Ben sighed. “Lea, please let me in. I’m not coming on your trip through Equestria, so you better make the most of the time you have with me until you leave.”
The lock clicked open, and the door swung open as well. Ben walked in and leaned against a wall since Lea was sitting in the only chair.
“So why did you lock yourself in here this time?”
“I was reminded on how little I’ve done to help my family and how much they have to do for me instead. It seems I always cause the problems and don’t fix them. It makes me wonder if they even need me around.”
“Hey, don’t say that!” Ben exclaimed. “If it weren’t for you, they wouldn’t have found each other by now.”
“Yeah they would have. How would that change if I weren’t around?”
“Your family was moving everywhere searching for each other. None of them settled down in a certain place, so them finding each other would be harder. The main reason everyone found each other was because you decided to make your home in Hoofington.”
“I… I guess you’re right.”
“I know I am. Also, if you weren’t around, this place wouldn’t have been made to help all the pokemon who might get hurt, and give a home to any pokemon without one of their own right now. Not to mention, I wouldn’t have gotten to meet you.”
Lea gave a small smile. “I guess I have done a few things to help.”
“Do you want to back downstairs? I bet everyone will be glad if you do. Who knows when you’ll disappear again.”
Lea laughed. “Fine, I’ll come down. Just give me a minute.”
“Alright… Hey! Just so you know, they decided to make a list of people you guys could keep an eye out for on your trip. The people they had when I came up were your dad, Professor Elm, uh… some person named Jessie for Blissey, and an old friend of yours named Alexia.”
“Alexia?! Really? What made them think of her?”
“Apparently Sparks saw someone out the window before everyone got put to sleep and your family thinks he saw her.”
Lea’s eyes widened. “Alright, scratch that. I’m coming down now!”
Later in the day, Bright Ire nervously entered the Pokemon Center.
“What are you doing back here?” Angela asked her.
“I’ve been kicked out of our apartment. We weren’t able to pay the rent in time and they got rid of everything. I used up the last of my bits to help pay for Quarry’s stay in the hospital. Except for him, I literally have nothing left.” Ire started to cry. “I-I was hoping th-that you might be a-able to forgive me enough th-that I could stay here f-for now.”
“Do you really think after everything you’ve done-?!” Caddi started, but Lea interrupted.
“Of course you can. We let Quarry stay here a few days, and until we leave, Grumpig’s staying here too.”
Ire tensed up. “She-she’s here? As in, right now?”
“Don’t worry. We’ve been making sure that she’s either asleep, about to be asleep, or with someone who can put her asleep at all times. Fortunately for us, she doesn’t know Sleep Talk.”
“Wh-what’s that?”
“It’s a type of move some pokemon know that allows them to use one of their other moves while asleep, though they can’t choose which one.”
“If you don’t want to stay in the same building as her, I won’t complain.” Caddi said as she left, not wanting to be around Ire.
“Don’t mind her.” Lea told Ire. “It’s safe for you to be here, but just know that if you pull anything, I won’t hesitate to kick you out.
“I’ll… remember that.” Ire replied, noticing Lea’s eyes flicker blue for a second.
Everyone was finishing up dinner later that night when the subject of discussing the trip came back up.
“I’m thinking of going to buy the tickets for the train tomorrow morning so we don’t forget and have to buy them last minute.”
“That’s a good idea, Lea.” Caddi replied while she eyed Ire in the corner, slowly eating her dinner. “Anything else you was to do that I could help with?”
“Well, I was thinking of going to a few stores in the places we visit, so I’ll be bringing a ton of bits. I’m even going to be bringing one or two of the gems from the safe upstairs.”
Caddi quickly looked at Ire to see if she had made any reaction to Lea’s comment. “Relax Caddi, she’s not going to try anything. You don’t have to suspect everything we say will make her turn evil. In fact, she might be less trustworthy of you now than you are of her because of how you’ve been asking.”
“Why are you so okay with this?” Caddi asked. “She tried to kill you and then tried to basically brainwash you.”
“You and I both know she tried to make sure that second part didn’t happen. Ire could have been perfectly fine with what she was about to do, but she wasn’t and had to be forced to do it.”
“Y’know Caddi.” Angela joined the conversation. “If those two reasons are why you don’t want her in here, then I should probably be kicked out of here as well.”
“But you haven’t-” Caddi started.
“You two would be surprised by some of the things I’ve had to do. But I’ll let you two talk again. Sorry for butting into your conversation.”
“It’s fine.” Lea told Angela. “But anyway, I’m also fine with it because everyone deserves a second chance. And while technically this is her third chance, she deserves it.”
“What has she done to deserve anything?!”
“She’s been through things no one should have to go through at the age it happened for her.”
“Stop keeping us in the dark! You keep bringing up something that happened to her that both of you know about, but won’t reveal what exactly that is!”
“It was my parents.” Ire answered.
As she had argued with Lea, Caddi hadn’t noticed the unicorn get up and come nearer to them and sit in Angela’s now empty seat.
“What about your parents?”
“I was only about six when we went to the park one day. I had had a really bad day, and my parents hoped taking me to my favorite park would help. At first it did, but two bullies from my school ended up being there too. My parents didn’t know, and assumed we were friends, especially since my father and one of theirs worked together. I tried to tell them who these two colts actually were, but they wouldn’t listen, which just made me feel worse. And then I… there was a fire. A really big fire. Neither of them made it out alive. The very last thing I got to say to them was how I hated them. After that day, I wasn’t able to find any place to live. My own relatives wouldn’t let me live with them. I started living on the streets, and eventually I changed my identity because I didn’t want to be Rage Spell anymore.”
Caddi sat there for a second, taking in Ire’s story. “I...I didn’t know. I… that’s horrible.”
“After that, Ire eventually found a home with a bad group of ponies. They ran one of those animal fighting ring things. One day, they just kicked her out for no reason, and she was back on the streets. She started one up herself because it was basically the only thing she knew how to do that would get her money.”
Ire herself looked like she had been deflated as she lay with her head on the table. She sat there for a few minutes before starting to head off to where she had set up a place to sleep. Before she could get far, Caddi stopped her. “Wait! I… I’m sorry. Sorry for how I treated you. I… I didn’t know.”
Ire started to walk away again as she said, “It’s okay. You still don’t”