LEON'S POV

I was unsurprised to find a brand new upstairs area in this mansion. After all, we have not even seen the full capacity of the building yet—even after looking from the outside.

Hydra being a new addition to the staff seemed interesting. I didn't bother reading into his emotions, as doing so would probably get me questioned by him. He doesn't appear to have any inhibitors preventing his aura, so at this point, he could read my mind if he wanted to.

The rest of the group had settled into a weird spot with themselves mentally. We haven't talked about a genuine escape after the trouble Zantai and Vince got into. It's incredibly lucky that they're still standing.

What seemed to be more important right now, however, was Sam's absence. She would usually chime in with an unwanted announcement about whatever was occurring at the facility...but today seemed to be different. Our calls aren't being answered, and Sammy isn't here to answer any questions. The closest we have to a staff member is Hydra, but everyone is too afraid to even approach him.

Loki was the closest we've reached to properly contacting the other Lucario. She seemed quite happy with the encounter, but both Zantai and Vince seem to suggest otherwise about his personality. It looks as if they've managed to convince a good portion of us that he's a monster; a machine only made to contain and hurt us. While I could see that being the case...he didn't say anything about that—not that he would, anyway.

Our only chance to figure out what was going on was through Loki.

"You all need to figure it out for yourselves." The Zoroark was quick to reply. Laker was the first to approach Loki about asking Hydra what was going on, but even after her positive interaction with the other jackal, she still refused to do it herself. "I can't be doing everything for you, ya'know?"

"Right, but I don't exactly want to be eaten by a monster." The Weavile picked at his fangs with a claw.

"Arceus's sake, he's not a monster, Laker." The black fox scoffed and crossed her arms at the other dark type. "If any of you would just simply talk to him you'd figure that out."

"You can't blame us for thinking that after what happened with Vince and Zantai." Vanta paced up to sit on his haunches and groom the back of his paw. "Not only that, he works with Sam."

"I get it, but he's here to help us. We both know how strict Sam is on her own rules." The Zoroark shook her head in denial of the Umbreon's statement.

Digging further into this conversation would only lead to an argument, so I stepped forward and cleared my throat.

"Either way, we should be thankful we have more to explore. Have we searched the new location to its full extent?" I questioned with a de-escalating tone.

"Not anything past the gym." Loki answered, her expression returning back to a neutral one.

"I see...would it not be beneficial to further investigate?" I offered, earning a small nod from the fox.

"Alright, then you both can explore that. I'm going to speak with Hydra." Vanta ordered with a small exhale.

"Thank you." Loki heaved a sigh of relief.

It didn't take very long for Loki and me to be on our way into the gymnasium. The room itself was too big to even try and put it into measurements, so I didn't bother trying. Narrowing my eyes to look further, I noticed a large door in the center of the court.

"Hey...has Inu opened that room yet?" I motioned toward the entrance in question. The Zoroark seemed to shrug in response, her eyes also locking onto the door as if it was also her first time seeing it.

"I haven't seen it, maybe Inu already tried to look in there?" Loki concluded, her turquoise eyes glancing back at me.

There was only one way to find out, after all. It took me a few seconds to make a light jog toward the steel door and wrap my paw around the knob. A gentle turn was all I had to do to figure out the door was locked.

"Strange...does Inu know more about what's behind this?" I turned to the black fox once again. Another shrug...

"Dunno...she was too excited to leave the gym so I just let her do her thing. I'm glad she found something that makes her happy, though..." Loki seemed to stifle a small chuckle.

"Right...well there must be a way to enter." A subtle placing of a paw against my chin was all I needed to start thinking. Breaking through the door would be viable if it weren't for the fact that there could be anything behind it. Maybe I could try and search for Inu to ask her about this?

"Hey, there's a vent I can fit in." The Zoroark pointed a claw up above the door. Conveniently, there was a mesh blocking a vent directly overhead.

"I could get you up there..." I huffed and kneeled down to offer her my paw. Loki leaned forward to press her foot against the surface of my palm to be quickly lifted up into the air. Her claws jabbed through the mesh to yank it off and mantle herself into the vent.

"I'll try and unlock it!" Her voice reverberated as she crawled further through the tube.

"Be careful!" I called back, doing merely nothing but standing there in hopes she would return with the door unlocked.

LOKI'S POV

I could've sworn I had never seen that door before. Whatever it was, I was soon about to figure out what was behind it.

It didn't take much crawling for me to reach another vent hatch, and I quickly leaned my head over to gaze into the room. The area below was nothing but pitch-black darkness. I didn't want to, but I shoved the latch up to push myself through the vent.

After a heart-stopping fall, I somehow landed on all fours, the feeling of cold tiling only making my concerns worse.

Suddenly, a blinding light flickered the moment I tried to stand up straight. I was stunned for a brief moment, my eyes luckily shielded by my forearm.

I was in a long hallway leading to multiple doors, similar to the one we discovered when walking up the new stairway. One door was open, however, so my first instinct was to stalk my way closer to it. Upon first glance, the room was just a small storage closet...until my eyes trailed down to another vent opening in the corner of the room.

The vent was emitting a gentle tan light, and it drew me close enough to kneel down and look closer. I heard a familiar voice on the other side...

"Hello?" I uttered through the cracks, clearly startling the voice on the other side.

"Arceus! You freak!" Inu's voice snarled from the vent entrance. "What the hell are you doing up there!?"

"Inu..?" I whispered. "Am I in your room?"

"Hell yeah, you are!" She scoffed. "Are you hiding in there?"

"N-No! I'm...in a new room I found at the gym!" I stammered my defense out. Hopefully she doesn't mind, it is for the sake of exploration.

"Whatever, just tell me about it later...I couldn't care less about that right now." Inu seemed to brush me off.

That's strange...although maybe it's not. If I thought someone was in my vents I would probably be pissed off too. Either way, I turned to leave the room. "I'm leaving now..!" I announced.

It's strange how we haven't found this until now. The hallway was similar to the one we recently found, but this is bland and made of white tiles. I wonder if we're even allowed in this room?

"The door..." I muttered to myself. Only now had I realized that I was meant to unlock the door for Leon.

Before I could even walk down the corridor my vision was cut off by the lights flickering off. I chalked it up to this area being motion triggered like I previously experienced...but moving didn't seem to work. If anything, it felt as if the lights were turned off on purpose.

In the distance, I heard a blood-curdling shrill—one that a Pokemon couldn't make, that's for sure. The sound shot a chill down my spine, leaving me frozen in the middle of the hallway.

Was that sound coming from the other side of the corridor? Was it coming towards me?

Whatever it was, I heard it again, followed by a door creaking open. I couldn't see which direction was best to go in, so my initial instinct was to find the nearest closet and jump in it.

Why am I breathing so hard?

...

The screaming stopped for now, but I can still hear someone walking around. Their footsteps are very gentle, almost as if they're trying to be quiet. After the gentle taps faded away, I waited for another minute.

Waiting for a while only caused a heavier pair of footsteps to make their way closer to me. They were the polar opposite of the gentle ones I heard earlier, and it was nearing me at an alarming rate. I lunged forward to the knob to try and prevent them from opening the door, but the figure on the other side was much stronger.

I stumbled back as the entrance was swiftly opened, leaving me a sitting duck.

"Are you alright?" A very baritone voice shook the walls of the closet. I finally opened my eyes to see Hydra looming over me, his paw already offered to me.

Hesitantly, I placed my paw against the Lucario's as he easily lifted me up to my feet.

"Y-Yeah, thanks. I thought I...heard something bad." I managed to explain, my eyes locking with his bright scarlet-red irises.

"You're not supposed to be back here, but I guess that is what Sam deserves for opening this up for you all." Hydra cleared his throat and backed away, seemingly motioning for me to leave the closet.

I followed through, the only thing guiding me through the darkness was his bright eyes.

"What is this room?" I tilted my head to sneak a glance at his barely visible face. "Err...I guess they're multiple rooms."

"This is where Sam stores information about all your past lives." He answered bluntly.

Past lives?

"W-Wait, so everything that the memory gems could give us is in those rooms?"

"Correct, except if Sam made this room semi-accessible she would have either destroyed the evidence or censored it."

"Censored?" I tilted my head with curiosity.

"Blurring out the names of data is something she's known to do, so I wouldn't be surprised if she wanted you all to discuss who the information belongs to." The taller jackal crossed his arms as he turned the corner, a small light from the open main door now noticeable.

Leon was on the other side with his arms crossed, a small frown staining his features.

"Yeah...I know." I chuckled sheepishly. "I got a bit distracted."

"I can tell." The smaller Lucario sighed. "No matter, the door is open thanks to Hydra."

"Did you speak to Vanta?" My eyes landed on Hydra once again.

"I did, but he seemed very distracted once someone called for his help." The taller Lucario placed a paw on his chin. "Now that I mention it, there was a lot of commotion downstairs."

"Commotion?" I groaned. "Are they arguing again?"

"Maybe, the energy is quite tainted down there." Leon turned to the gymnasium entrance. "Perhaps we should make sure things are okay."

I could only nod in agreement.

GALANT'S POV

Vanta has been yelling for quite some time now. I didn't want to leave my room just yet until things had settled down, but I can only hope things are alright. He doesn't seem frightened...just sounds like he's disappointed in someone. If I were to leave now I would probably get an earful from him too.

Who could he be yelling at, though? Nearly everyone is busy doing their own things.

"Don't feel like it?" Vince commented from the bed behind me. He was laying down, presumably napping before he heard the yelling from outside the door.

"Yeah...I'm just waiting for things to settle." I chuckled in response, turning to grin at the Greninja.

"I feel ya." He sighed. "Vanta's a good leader, but I've yet to see him happy."

"No reason to be happy here." I shrugged, noticing the argument had cooled down.

I hovered my bladed hand over the handle until an even louder yell made me flinch.

"This is getting ridiculous." I groaned and tightened my grip on the handle. "I'm going."