Session 25, VP2

Lauren led the way across town, with single-minded focus. Though speed was not usually one of Lauren’s strengths, guilt and shame lent wings to their heels: even Bronze quickly fell behind. The sky was dark and cloudy by the time the group reached Hilde’s house. Lights were on in the kitchen and living room, and the shadow of someone could be seen. 

Before their friends could move to knock on the door, Lauren held their hands up to call for a halt. Hesitantly, Lauren explained that Hilde’s mother, Riina, had not been pleased to learn that Lauren had “stalked” her daughter. Though their previous discussion had been civil, it had ended on quite a sour note. 

Now prepared, Ariela strode forward and knocked on the door. There was a brief delay before Riina opened the door. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she looked like she was a mess: clearly, she had been recently crying. Her expression was initially one of muted confusion, before her eyes found their way to Lauren’s face. Without a word, Riina lunged forward, aiming to slap Lauren across the face, only to be stopped by Ariella’s staff bringing her up short. The rage in Riina’s face was readily apparent, and she seemed unlikely to listen to anything the group had to say. 

Subtly, Sylvie soothed Riina’s anger with her budding empathic powers. As her flame of anger became snuffed out in a wave of despondency, Riina agreed to talk with the party indoors. The group explained that they had come by after hearing the news about Hilde being sought by the law. They were certain she couldn’t have stolen the dagger, and wanted to help clear her name. Though quieted by Sylvie’s psychic soothing, Riina responded with a small measure of her earlier vitriol, claiming she had been told that Lauren had talked Hilde into stealing the relic. 

Though this was news, Gyda’s behavior was not; the trainers explained their history with Gyda, and why she was untrustworthy. Riina wasn’t entirely convinced, but Lauren pointed out that it would make no sense for them to come to their house like this if Lauren had truly convinced Hilde to break the law. Riina wanted to believe that her daughter was innocent, but unfortunately, the detectives on the case had evidence to the contrary: video footage from the museum, showing Hilde grabbing the dagger and leaving. Despite knowing that it was the Ditto to blame, our heroes currently had no way to prove that. 

First things first, they needed to know where Hilde was. Riina confirmed that she had not seen or heard from Hilde since before her shift at the Ohmslo Art Museum. The trainers discussed the possibility of Gyda having kidnapped her amongst themselves when something sparked in Lauren’s brain. 

During their shopping trip at the Ohmslo Ohmodome, Hilde had mentioned that she had been storing some Pokémon-related supplies at her friend June’s house. It wasn’t a certainty, but if Hilde had seen the news naming her as the culprit, she may have gone to ground at a friend’s place. Suspicion and worry warred in Riina’s face, before she wrote down June’s address for Lauren. She said that she would stay at home in case her daughter returned. Our heroes swore they would do all they could to help Hilde out and took off into the night. 

Finding June’s house wasn’t difficult. Seeing lights on here as well, they knocked on the door. After a few moments, a young woman opened the front door slightly, leaving the chain on. It didn’t take psychic senses to tell she was nervous. When she denied that Hilde was there, it was equally evident how bad of a liar she was. 

The trainers managed to convince June they were friends of Hilde’s, and to let her know they were here. June agreed to meet them in her backyard in a few moments. Sure enough, both Hilde and June stepped out of the glass sliding doors to the backyard. Hilde was a mess, understandably. Through tears, she explained all she knew of the situation, and how scared she was. Lauren and June did their best to reassure her. The party then recounted what they knew, before proceeding to gently question Hilde. They were hoping for a usable alibi, but she had evidently been relaxing alone in a park on her break when the robbery transpired. 

While they discussed options, Sylvie and Lauren received a psychic ping from Donner. He communicated that he had been trying to make his way towards their location but had just seen flashing lights speeding to where he felt the group. Running into the authorities right now would be the worst possible outcome. The party got Hilde up and ready to go, as June gathered all her friend’s things into her backpack. Lauren led the group through some backstreets, to a nearby park they seemed quite familiar with. 

Once they were safely hidden in a secluded copse of trees, they resumed their planning. Bronze and Ariella decided to see if they could poll any Ohmslo natives on if they had seen Gyda anywhere. The pair managed to find a small group of friends, drunkenly making their way home. Unfortunately, they had no useful information but were able to direct the pair to the bar’s whereabouts. 

Meanwhile, Lauren had Hilde call her mother to let her know she was safe. While the rest of the group spitballed ideas, Sixten prowled the perimeter for intruders. He suddenly brandished his axe, as Donner came limping through the brush, twigs and leaves in his hair. Both men looked mildly confused, but Lauren introduced the two. Though Sixten was still on edge, he sheathed his mighty weapon…for the moment. 

In the bar, Ariela ordered some drinks as Bronze questioned the barkeep. They dimly recalled hiring Gyda to perform music one evening a week or so ago. Unfortunately, the barman hadn’t seen her since. When Bronze turned back to Ariela, it was to see the willowy woman drunkenly leaning on the bar, eagerly telling her neighbor about a book. 

Seized by inspiration, Bronze turned back to the barkeep. She gestured to Ariela, and asked if the man could recommend anywhere that they might be able to rent a room for the night. After Bronze was given the name of a nearby motel, she inquired if there were anywhere a bit more discrete. The barman wrote down an address on a scrap of paper, which Bronze took with her thanks. 

The party was reunited shortly, learning nothing new beyond Ariella’s low alcohol tolerance. Still, Lauren recognized the address Bronze had procured. The facility was technically a storage unit warehouse, but the owner had converted a few, small units into temporary rooms. Having gone through some dire straits in his own life, he knew that sometimes, all someone needs is a roof over their heads to get through a rocky patch. 

Keeping Hilde in the back of the group, our heroes made their way to the warehouse and purchased a temporary room key from the guard on duty. As expected, the unit was barely more than a bed and bathroom. Ariela immediately went to a much-needed sleep. The rest of the group debated how to split up. Lauren wanted to return to their folks’ house, lest they worry, but didn’t want to leave Hilde alone. 

It was eventually decided that Lauren and Donner would return to the Halvorsson household, while everyone else would sleep in or outside the storage unit. Before leaving, Donner and Lauren joined hands with Sylvie in an attempt to psychically feel Gyda’s presence in the city: to no avail. 

Reinhold and Bronze decided to sleep outside, the better to be alerted if anything happened. Sylvie gently lessened some of Hilde’s anxiety with her powers, and everyone fell asleep soon after. 

Lauren woke to the sound of pouring rain and skull-splitting thunder, the edges of a nightmare just out of reach. After getting ready for the weather, they made their way down to the kitchen. Rather than get soaked outside, Donner was doing his morning exercises indoors. Lauren watched for a few seconds, before greeting their friend. Donner blushed slightly, before explaining that Lauren’s parents had left breakfast. Having recognized the jam left out as Lauren’s favorite, Donner hadn’t wanted to start without them. Once the dishes had been cleared and cleaned, Lauren brought up Donner’s leg brace again. Despite feeling embarrassed at being unable to figure it out, Donner fetched the brace. 

Lauren took the time to demonstrate how the brace should be put on as Donner listened intently. When the instruction was done, Donner hesitated for a moment as he reached to take the brace back, weighing something in his mind. He ended up thanking Lauren and retiring to the bathroom to change and apply the brace. Across town, the rest of the party had a bit ruder of an awakening. The downpour started without warning sometime in the early morning, startling Bronze and Reinhold. The pair retreated inside the storage unit before they could catch a cold. 

Ariela was feeling slightly better from her prolonged poisoning, but the hangover certainly didn’t help. Thistle was quite literally climbing the walls in excitement as he explored the new space. Their missing friends arrived a bit later, with a few umbrellas and ponchos. Even with these accessories, the two of them were drenched. Still, it was better than nothing. The group gathered up their belongings, and set off to Hilde’s house; this time, Donner and Sixten stayed behind with Hilde. 

As our heroes walked, the water fell like rapid-fire arrows from the heavens, making it difficult to see beyond even a short distance. They reached their destination without incident. When the door opened, Riina waved the group inside with bags under her eyes. 

Lauren reiterated that Hilde was staying at the storage unit for the moment, while the search for her was still active. Though Hilde was safely away from the authorities for the moment, it would do no good if they couldn’t clear her name. To that end, our heroes asked Riina if they could use her TV- or “magic picture box” to most of the party- to review the security footage the detectives had left with her. 

Riina left the group to themselves in the living room, getting some rest from her rather stressful past few days. For hours, the party sat in front of the screen, replaying the video frame by frame. Their eyes strained and aching, they scrutinized the footage from every angle they could think of. Knowing that the “Hilde” on screen was actually a Ditto gave them a good starting point. 

With an intense amount of study, they were able to note several discrepancies with the footage. Small errors, true, but ones that were undeniably not simple graphical errors. Listing the errors with the exact timestamps from the footage, our heroes notified Riina. Eager to end this mess, she quickly led the party to the detective’s station. 

The motley group only had to wait a few minutes before being called into the detective’s office. Riina explained who everyone was, and why they were here. The detective was intrigued enough to give the trainers some time to go over their findings. He pulled up the security footage on his laptop, before casting it to a larger screen in the room. Bronze and Lauren stood on either side of the projection, pointing out each one of the timestamps they had taken down. To their internal groans, the detective asked to roll through the footage a second time when the first concluded. 

At the end of the second run-through, the detective mulled over the notes he had taken. The group was ecstatic when he said that their evidence seemed to be of merit. Though Hilde would still need to be questioned, there were enough new details now to justify calling off the manhunt and issuing a public retraction on the news. It wasn’t a perfect win, but this was still more than had been hoped for. The detective thanked them for their time and efforts, before seeing the group to the lobby. 

Lauren quickly called up Donner to relay the good news. Riina and the party agreed to meet with Hilde and company back at their place. As soon as Riina saw her, she swept Hilde up into a tight hug outside their front door. It took a few moments before she became re-aware of the weather, but she then corralled everyone inside. Hilde was caught up on what had transpired, and the feelings of joy were palpable in the air. Both mother and daughter said they didn’t know how to thank our heroes, insisting they at least stay for a home-cooked meal. With high spirits, talk turned to the lighter side of things: particularly, the beauty found on the group’s journeys in the wild. 

When dinner was over, everyone basked in a blanketing feeling of contentment. Riina slipped out of the room for a moment, before returning with a small box. With an encouraging smile, she put the box down in front of Hilde. Lauren felt themselves smile slightly, their psychic senses already telling them what was inside: a Pokédex, purchased from the mall before they had sold out. 

The rest of the night was filled with sweet laughter and fond tales. There was no denying that the hours would soon beckon our heroes to return to the Halvorsson’s, and then back to their own trek. But, for now, there was time to enjoy the feeling of a job well done. As the rain continued to slam down…