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Hilda peered under a bush, eyes straining in the evening light. “Are you sure he’s not inside?”
“You helped look!” Hilbert called back, intently climbing a tree, “There’s no way he didn’t get out at this point.”
Hilda made for yet another bush. “This is real bad. You know he’s gonna go looking for N, and once he tracks him down to that fair or whatever it even is, they’re gonna… I don’t even know, ban N too, I guess.”
Recently, N had been traveling to various public events to teach people how to be better in tune with their Pokémon. Although he usually always stood side-by-side with Zoroark, there was one popular venue that Zoroark had managed to get completely banned from, forcing N to entrust him with Hilbert and Hilda. N had left exactly one hour before this point.
Hilbert perched from the tree and scanned the ground below with a comedically heavy flashlight. “He can’t’ve made it that far yet! It’s only been ten minutes, I think.”
Hilda ignored him, too busy squinting at something stuck on one of the bush’s branches. “Get down from there and come look at this.”
Hilbert ungracefully scrambled down from the tree and shone his light on the branch. “That’s black fur, his is more grayish. I’m going back to my tree.”
“What? It just looks black because of how insanely bright that thing is. Turn it off, you’ll see it matches.”
Hilbert shone the light directly in her face, searching for the off button. Hilda let it slide for about half a minute before deciding he was doing it on purpose and snatching the still on flashlight from his hands.
“Hey, I paid for that so it’s mine!” He tried to snatch it back, but Hilda held firm.
“Just look at the damn fur and I’ll give this thing back!”
“I’ll look at the fur when you give it back!”
“Arceus above, we do not have time for this,” Hilda muttered, letting go of the flashlight. Hilbert fell backward from the sudden release in force, causing the flashlight to be flung and land exactly four inches away with a heavy thump. The light shone far off into the dense summer forest.
Hilbert glanced at the fur again. “Still black. Even more than before, actually.”
“Wha—are you colorblind?”
“No, but you must be to think that’s gray.” He made for his flashlight, then froze, staring off into the woods.
Hilda didn’t seem to notice. “Well, it’s our best shot. Unless you have a better idea, I’m gonna try and have Emboar smell it. If we’re lucky, we might pick up a trail.”
“Umh, yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna help anymore..”
Hilda followed his horrified stare, but couldn’t see anything. “Are you like, seeing stuff right now? If you are, keep doing that ‘cause it means Zoroark must be nearby.”
“No! It’s right…” Hilbert pointed to a large rock, which Hilda could actually see.
…But behind the rock was a very familiar silhouette. The forest’s dense trees blocked most of the flashlight’s glow, but it was unmistakably N.
Hilda’s expression turned to one of horror as well. “Damn it, didn’t think he’d be back so early. Zoroark must’ve gotten out sooner than we thought and crashed the whole event.”
Hilbert took in a shaky breath. “Guess we have to go and apologize.”
“Maybe we can convince the staff it was our fault..?”
“Can’t just stand here debating it forever.”
“Yeah.”
The two gave each other one final look, before nodding and slowly walking forward. They tripped on their words as they grew closer.
“We’re really sorry, it’s—”
“We looked away for five minutes, and—”
“If they banned you, we’ll—”
“...didn’t know he was that fast—”
But the silhouette did not respond, instead vanishing the second both Hilbert and Hilda looked away to stare at the ground in shame. A cold breeze fluttered past, and the trees seemed to close in on them.
Before either could say the words “It’s just Zoroark,” something let out a low, close-sounding howl. Instinct took over, and they were suddenly dashing through the woods at record speeds.
She ran as fast as she could without tripping, but no matter how far she went the woods all looked the same. Fog crept in so slowly she hardly noticed, and the trees seemed to be moving in to suffocate her. The darkness grew darker, and there was no noise other than her footsteps, the grass crunching beneath them, and her own breathing. She had completely lost sight of Hilbert.
Hilda strained to see anything resembling him, but was quickly stopped when she stumbled over a root. She caught herself with a roll, and stood back up to face her pursuer, grabbing a Pokéball from her belt.
Something slammed into her, launching the Pokéball out of her hand. Hilda fell flat, and kicked her attacker off as hard as she could. She faintly heard an “oof,” but ignored it and made for the general area of her fallen Pokéball. She felt around blindly until she brushed up against it, snapping it up within a second and releasing Emboar.
Not wasting another second, Hilda called out, “Fire Pledge!” Emboar obeyed, sending a flare through the fog and lighting up the area…
…only to reveal that it was not Zoroark, but instead a bruised Hilbert on the ground.
Her fear turned to disappointment, and she let out a sigh. “Okay, so Zoroark’s here somewhere but we missed him. And we’ll keep missing him, and he’ll run off and crash N’s event or whatever and we’ll be tired for nothing.”
Hilbert stood up and rubbed his shoulder. “What? You’re not even gonna apologize for kicking me? What if you broke something?”
Hilda stood up as well, dusting off her pants. “Then it’s broken and ‘sorry’ won’t fix it,” she turned to leave, “We’ll just have to go home and hope he doesn’t do that.”
Hilbert stood still for a second, before slowly following her. The air felt heavy, and even Emboar was unusually quiet.
Hilda was the first up to the door. “I’m gonna go make some coffee. You want—?!”
Right there on the carpet, Zoroark lay curled up peacefully. He was fast asleep, but stirred and raised his head when Hilbert shoved past her to take a look.
“Wha—” Hilbert dashed over and put a finger on a confused-looking Zoroark. “No, he’s real. How did… what the… how the hell did he get home first?!”
Hilda threw her hands up. “Whatever, let’s just lock the door and be sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Hilda slowly sipped at her coffee, still waiting for N to get back. Hilbert sat in the seat next to hers, watching the ads on the TV. Zoroark was in Emboar’s usual spot under the table, much to Emboar’s dismay.
“Hey, uh Hilda?” Hilbert said without looking away from the screen, “What if, like…”
“If what? Spit it out.”
“Don’t make fun of me, but uh… What if Zoroark never left?”
Hilda thought about this for a moment, absentmindedly giving Emboar a scratch behind the ear. “If there was another Zoroark running around, we’d have to go looking for it. Could cause all sorts of trouble.”
Hilbert shook his head. “Nah, just feel like that whole thing felt too… real compared to Zoroark’s usual ones. Besides, how would it know to transform into N?”
Hilda shrugged at the same time as she realized he couldn’t see her. “Doesn’t really matter. Either it was N’s Zoroark and you’re worrying over nothing, a wild Zoroark and it’ll cause more trouble soon, or we’ve both gone crazy.”
“...I don’t believe it.”
“Whatever.”
Hilda smirked, and slipped Zoroark a small treat she’d kept in her pocket. She waited until the TV got loud to whisper to him.
“Looks like it worked.”
Her revenge was absolute; Hilbert would be overthinking this for a long time.
She couldn’t even remember why she was mad at him, but it was probably worth the effort.