2. Catch Me If You Can2,137 words

8. Blank Space

The sun had sunk nearly to the horizon by the time Paige could leave the police station. She crunched through the gravel walk leading from the police station to the street, musing quietly about her day.

Chronologically, she had met Rafe’s new friend and helped her report a missing pokemon, which had resulted in an argument with the receptionist over what form the report should be filed as, and after Milotic had left she met with Nurzak about her problem with Crack yesterday and was updated on the new recruit that she almost blew the cover of...alright, she probably did blow that guys cover...and after that Dharak the terrifying dragon pokemon with cardboard cutout wings appeared and got Tapu Lele in hot water with the Chief.

Paige sighed and dragged her wings off her flanks. She usually finished her work day before Rafe finished his tutoring job, but she was mildly sure that Rafe was already home by now, as he usually left the school just two or three hours after everyone else.

She took a running start and stumbled into the air. She let herself find an updraft before she tried to glide over to the school building. It was about three blocks down and would have been a marathon to fly over to without a breeze to carry her.

She flew over the grounds and paused over the main building, circling to see who was still there. The classroom Rafe normally taught at was empty, and there were no signs of anypony leaving the building or loitering near it.

Satisfied, Paige pumped her wings and left the thermal, anything to carry her away from the school she had long since left behind as she headed for home.

The pink, orange and gold sunlight stretched the shadows of buildings and ponies as Paige flew overhead, her own shadow too far off to the side for her to see without craning her neck. She steered herself towards her house, even though her route was usually to go by the beach to drop off Rafe.

She realized very quickly how lonely it was to fly home without anyone to talk to, and began to count the buildings she passed by. There was the shave ice shop, the bookstore, Milotic, the post office…

Huh.

The peacock serpent pokemon spotted her from the sidewalk. She was looking tired, bleary eyed and just a little bit destitute.

Paige glided down to greet her. She might as well, she wasn’t in any hurry.

“Hey!” Paige grunted as she let herself fall to earth a little too hard. “What’ve you've been up to?”

“Oh, hello, miss Paige.” Milotic wasn't floating, Paige observed. She was coiled up on the ground, tail drooping and sunken eyes. “I was just looking around.”

“For?”

“My darling Cynthia, of course!” Milotic grumbled. “What else?”

Paige sighed. This was just what she was afraid of. “Auntie, didn’t you come to the police? All you're doing out here is tiring yourself out.”

“I don't care.” Milotic tossed her head and refused to meet Paige’s gaze. “She’s here somewhere, and she needs me now more than ever. I can’t wait for the police!”

“Yeah, the night shift ponies are pretty lazy.” Paige shrugged. “But, The deputy I have in charge of missing pony cases is pretty reliable. She should be on the case within the next week.”

“That’s exactly my point.” Milotic spat as she tried to slither away.

Paige winced as Milotic her scratched her scales on a jutting crack in the pavement. “Hey, stop! Look, Auntie, stop, you are way too tired to be doing this search yourself--”

“Aqua Ring.”

A film of water ran over Milotic’s scales, stemming the bleeding over the cut and making a scab form over it, which promptly popped off and dissolved into water, leaving no trace of the injury. “You were saying?” Milotic smirked at Paige.

“I was saying that you still look too tired to be doing this search all night.” Paige finished.

“You needn’t worry, Paige. I am much stronger than you think.” Milotic turned to continue on her way.

“You know the way to the beach?” Paige asked suddenly.

Milotic paused. “...No. Why?”

“Well, I was just thinking.” Paige put a claw to her chin in mock deep thought. “That once the sun goes down, the biggest gathering of ponies is usually the beach for dinner and luaus for tourists. And since the pokemon got along so well with tourists during the day, maybe they will stick around at night. And if there are so many pokemon all in one place...maybe you’ll find a human?”

Milotic’s eyes widened, snapping her head to stare at Paige. “I…” She composed herself. “It’s worth a shot!” Slightly.

“Then follow me.” Paige turned towards the direction of the sea breeze and gestured with her wing. “C’mon, it won’t be any trouble.”

It took a bit of effort, but Milotic floated off the ground and swam through the air beside Paige. The sounds of ponies’ conversations and the smells of cooking food soon began to waft over the breeze as well. Ponies walked by, some going home for the night, others headed to the same destination as the pair. For the most part they were ignored, but not out of fear. The two didn’t talk, but they stole quick glances at each other when they thought one of them wasn’t looking.

“What did you call me back there?” Milotic asked suddenly. “Auntie?”

“Oh. I said that without thinking.” Paige realized as the ground went from street to grass to sand. “Yeah, it’s a bit of an islander thing. Er, a Hawhinnian thing, now that I think about it. Everyone’s a cousin or an uncle or an aunt.”

“Everyone’s family.” Milotic sighed. It wasn’t melancholic, but Paige wasn’t sure if it was happy, either.

“Is it okay if I call you that?” Paige asked as Milotic slithered ahead towards the water.

“...Yes. It’s better than Milo, anyway.” Milotic looked back at Paige one last time. “See you tomorrow?”

Paige cracked a grin. “I hope so, auntie."

Paige walked slowly up to the shadow of a cottage made of clouds among a field of other cloud homes. With a grunt, she kicked off the ground and flew up to the door of her parents house. In place of a front lawn, an herb and vegetable garden lined the squishy cloud path up to the entrance, beads of water gathered on the leaves lit by the dulling orange of the fading sunset, the smell of wet plants and earth saturated the air. She fished a bent,worn key from a hidden pocket sewn into her saddlebags, humming as she unlocked the door and stepped inside.

A fluffy yellow bug pokemon buzzed over her head and softly landed on the keyrack. “Cutie!”

“Howzit, Lil Cousin?” Paige chuckled as she set down her things. “You planning on staying here?”

“Cutiefly!” Lil Cousin exclaimed without thinking, then on second thought nodded his head.

“Say, have you seen my parents around?” She caught Lil Cousin’s eye after a moment, then reconsidered. “Can you point to where they are, I mean?”

Lil Cousin pointed with one leg towards the sliding door leading from the livingroom to the back lawn and pool. Paige walked up to it, pressing her beak against the glass to see her parents lounging in the jacuzzi. On closer inspection, they appeared to be feeding each other some sort of finger food and watching the sunset.

She rapped her knuckles loudly on the glass and waved to them, then called “I’ll be in my room” to them. Her mother gave her a thumbs-up, and Paige left to rummage something from the refrigerator.

Paige didn’t even let Lil Cousin into her room. She had important, classified work to do, and she couldn’t afford a security breach of any kind.

She sat down at her desk, setting her cold dinner of tuna salad off to the side. She had already taken out some files from work, but she kept them on the side for now. She retrieved a folded sheet of paper that Under Chief Nurzak had given her that morning and spread it out on the worn wood of her desk.

The paper didn’t look all too remarkable, just a slightly folded and crumpled blank sheet, but when Paige took out her fountain pen and scribbled her name right in it center, the ink didn’t dry. Instead, it soaked into the page, like a sponge, then the whole page began to shiver.

It straightened itself out, like it was being pressed by an invisible iron before Paige’s eyes. Then, after the iron, a squadron of invisible quills scratched out looping borders in the margins of the paper, dividing the rest of the space into four even sections, each labeled with a name: Nurzak, Mason, Paige and Lele.

{The Blank Chatroom Is In Session.} These words appeared in the at the top, surrounded by looping calligraphic border designs. Now they could talk by writing whatever they wanted in their own box.

{Hello, Every Pony♡!} Appeared in Tapu Lele’s section, making her look like a dork right off the bat. She even adorned the message with a little heart, how embarrassing.

{HELLO.} From Mason. All caps, no punctuation or grammar. Except for the required Period at the end, which was how the chatroom knew to send the message you had just written.

{We meet at last, Mason and Tapu Lele.} Paige wrote.

{YOU BLEW MY COVER.} Still sour, huh?

{Hello, Sarge!} Tapu Lele continued to have no sense of self-preservation.

{What’s today’s discussion?} Paige helpfully tried to keep the group in focus.

{NURZAK CALLED MEETING.} Mason sent. {WAIT FOR HIM.}

Paige rolled her eyes and tapped her pen on her desk. After about a minute, Tapu Lele sent another message.

{While we wait, someone please tell me what is this operation cross examination you are planning?}

Paige started to write a response, but Mason beat her to the punch.

{OPERATION CROSS CONTAMINATION.} He corrected.

{We are planning to expose the Cheif’s illegal dealings to the press and have him publicly releived of duty.} Dangit, some typos...

{What is he doing?} Tapu Lele asked.

{COLLECTING RARE ANIMALS, CHIMERAS HTBRID PONIES, ETSETERA.}

{*etc.} Paige corrected. {He collects them, but we don’t know where or why. He probably is adding some pockaymons to his collection.}

{*pokemon.} Tapu Lele corrected.

{WE KNOW ONLY WHAT CASSARINA WRITES. NURZAK USES THIS CHATROOM TO COLLECT INFO FROM CASSARINA.}

{Wow! This paper has a lot of uses then! Is it magic?} Tapu Lele wrote. Paige was beginning to suspect she was acting ditzy on purpose.

{IT IS HATSU.}

{Cool! What is Hatsu?} Did Tapu Lele ever just use a regular period?

{A Hatsu is kind of magic discovered by Islander Ponies.} Paige sent. Better that Lele was in the know. {It takes a lot of practise to manifest one. The Blank Chatroom is Mason’s Hatsu.}

{Only Mason has one?}

{NO. NURZAK AND PAIGE KEEP THERES SECRET.}

A message out of the corner of her eye. Oh, in Nurzak’s section! Paige and Mason crossed out their boxes in order to clear out the messages their conversations had accumulated.

Then, Paige took a moment to actually read his message, blotted by tear stains and stray drops of ink.

{~~Cass~~ Floria did not come home today I ~~spkeo conver~~ talked to her teachers and ~~she he~~ they said that she didn’t come back after lunch ~~listen i kno~~ Cassarina took her they are getting bolder we need to attack ~~now~~ soon.}

Oh.

{What is your plan, Chief?} Tapu Lele sent.

{Under Chief.} Mason corrected.

{It’s Chief to us.} Tapu Lele replied. {I’m not going to give MR • BAROdius any respect after the stunt he pulled today.}

Paige suspected she purposefully made the period in Barodius’s name too big so that it wouldn’t send right away. Kind of clever, really.

{Cheif?} Paige sent. {Do you have a plan?}

A few moments after Paige thought he had walked away from the Chatroom, Nurzak’s plan shimmered into view in his window. Paige quickly grabbed an old bake sale flyer off her desk and scribbled down the plan’s main points. But as she skimmed Nurzak’s message, she found less to write about on the flyer, and soon she was frantically writing for him to reconsider.

{I suspect that Barodius took Floria to get us to act faster and expose ourselves so we must be covert and I will be the only one to go after Floria so as not to involve anyone else if I am captured I will not tell you whether or not I am successful so that you all can react organically to any news except for an emergency I will not use the Blank Chatroom for updates I will send my copy back to Mason for now I will be in contact with Tapu Lele with her hatsu Z-Crystals I will leave tonight do not come looking for me continue Operation Cross Contamination Lele will take my place in spying operations GOOD LUCK.}

Everyone was writing to Nurzak now, trying to convince him not to go, trying to get him to rethink things, not to be hasty, to at least get a second opinion.

But when Mason cleared his section and wrote that Nurzak had sent his Blank Page back to Mason by folding it into an airplane and letting it fly back to him, they all stopped.

He was already lost.

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