From the Vast

Chapter 9: Return

Marco had no idea why his sister was so insistent on getting help from that random human and her band, but thankfully he at least managed to make her agree to thoroughly wiping their memories after they were done. On one hand, he could understand some of it- sure, the human in their village might have been an injured child and he knew almost as well as she did how much that fact did tug at their heartstrings, but on the other hand, they were still a human whose days in the village were heavily limited by the rate at which their body recovered, the village didn't need yet another pile of human stuff to take care of in the meantime. Sure, be nice to them until they get better, but afterwards they're out without any memory of said kindness, and there were extremely few things that could've conceivably changed that outcome.

Though, he had to admit that said number wasn't zero, even despite the fact that the human in their midst had something to do with Ember.

And it was that involvement in particular that confused the knight the most as he sprinted his way back into their village, how wildly disjointed the fox's version of the events and the one offered by both the elderly human, and apparently the child themselves if Aria was to be believed, was. They couldn't both be true, and if not for him physically being there and psychically reaching into that woman's memories together with his sister, he wouldn't have given the human version of the events even a single moment of consideration... but he was, and he did see it all, raw, genuine and untampered.

Something wasn't adding up and even if Aria's attempt to reconcile the two versions of the events failed, he would give it a stab of his own. The real question was how was he going to bring the subject up- the last thing he wanted to do was to give the fox a panic attack, and her mother would certainly not take kindly to the choice of topic either. He'd have to be more diplomatic about it, but how to go about that was the big question here-

"Outta the way!"

The shrill, rough shout coming from nearby made the Gallade reflexively dash back a couple paces, just in time to evade a large, reddish blur that then tried to come to a stop, attempting to accomplish that task through the means of Ori's leg stabbing the snowy ground to act as impromptu brakes, the contraption coming to a stop the hard way not too long afterwards. Namely, by breaking, the corroded metal parts holding the front wheel giving up and snapping, the whole metal assembly braking even faster as the front part of the frame plowed into the ground, the passenger on the Scizor's shoulder getting launched forward head first into a tree, the whole plant shaking as the Mawile bounced off and dove into snow.

Once all present were done processing the events that had just transpired and Ori had disembarked the now broken metal contraption, head spinning lightly, Marco finally had enough clarity of mind to speak up, a mix of concern and annoyance in his voice-

"Mikiri, are you alright?"

"Ya, ya, ya, I've been through worse, this is nothing. Wonder what broke there, ugh."

The Mawile proceeded to demonstrate her perseverance by wading through the snow that was almost as tall as she herself was, stepping out of the worst of it seemingly fine- though the small gash on her forehead did serve as evidence to the contrary, a couple drops of rust-colored blood flowing down her face.

"Ah, it was this bit. Annoying, I think I have enough scrap to make a replacement... oh, Ori, you alright?"

"Affirmative. You should probably try to test the integrity of it more next time before asking me to help."

"This was the integrity test."

"Didn't Aria ask you to not touch any of the girl's items?"

Marco's tone was now firmly on the side of annoyance, in equal part at the two's antics, at the Mawile seemingly going against what had been asked of her, and at his coworker slacking off while acting as a test dummy.