ALEXANDER

The two grey-helmeted guards stood outside the door of Sheila's room, just like his father had told him. Franco, the captain of his father's guard, stood in front of the door, wearing the same clothes as the guards, minus the helmet. He was shorter than Alex, but muscularly built. He had dark curly hair, and by his side sat a patient Ninetails. At a young thirty years of age, he was still spry and strong.

"You're late," he said, almost bored.

Alex stopped and smiled. Banette hovered around to his side. "My apologies. Leo's back. I had to go and see him."

"You could have seen him after you inspected the body," Franco responded. "Your father gave you a job to do. It doesn't matter. Just do your job first next time. Come in and let's take a look." Franco turned and opened the door, and his Ninetails stood up and followed him into the room.

Alex entered Sheila's room, and was greeted with a slight stench. Franco must have noticed how he wrinkled his nose. "It smells like death. Get used to it. Over there." The captain of the guards pointed to a shape underneath the bed sheets.

He looked uncertainly at Banette, who frowned. Alex took three slow steps and pulled back the bedsheet. The stench didn't bother him anymore. Poor old Sheila looked so peaceful. There was no blood, but upon further inspection, there was a small, stick-like object protruding from her neck. Alex reached out to take a closer look.

"Don't touch it!" Franco said quickly. Alex pulled his hand back. "That's what killed her. It's a poisoned thorn. I've seen its type before."

Alex was puzzled. None of this made any sense. "Someone went through an awful lot of trouble to kill her," he said sadly. For as long as he could remember, Sheila had been kind to him. "Who would want to do this to her?" He turned back to Franco. Ninetails was sniffing around the room.

Alex looked at his Spirit Pokémon. "Banette," he said. "See if you can locate her spirit." The ghost-type Pokémon nodded and slowly melted into thin air.

Franco started walking around the room, inspecting the walls. He traced his hands around the stone, trying to find any clue about the killer. "You want to know who would want her dead?" he asked Alex. "You need to ask the questions and try to answer them yourself. Who would want her dead? Did she have any enemies in Mt. Pyre?"

Alex racked his brain but couldn't find anything. "I don't think so..."

"So then her enemies must be outside of Mt. Pyre," Franco finished the train of thought for him. "Isn't this strange? This was too clean, too perfect to be carried out by any person with a grudge. Ah ha!" There was a scraping sound on one of the walls. "Someone's interfered with the structure of the walls." His voice sounded unsure.

Alex started thinking again. "Whoever it was sure went through a lot of trouble. Did any of the guards report anything suspicious?" He already knew the answer.

"Nothing," Franco said. He grunted as he pulled the stone in the wall out, the others it was resting on collapsed to the hard floor with a rumble and a thud. Where once the wall was, there was a small tunnel.

Alex felt a sense of dread wash over him. What is the meaning of this? A poison thorn, and a secret tunnel. "We should go in there," he said finally.

"You're too rash, rookie," laughed Franco.

"Ninetails, nine!" cried the captain's fox Pokémon. It gracefully padded over to its Spirit Partner. When it passed by Alex, he saw a shiny glint in its mouth.

"What do you have for me?" Franco asked. "Found it under the bed, did you?" He grabbed the object out of the Pokémon's mouth. His eyes got wide and he just stared at it.

Alex got curious. "What is it?"

Franco looked up at the young investigator. "I hope you're ready," was all he said before he tossed the object to Alex.

He caught it out of the air. It was a gold-plated coin. Alex peered down at it, and his heart dropped. Emblazoned on one side of the coin was a crude engraving of a tree on fire, on the other was a reptilian shape, looking like the face of a dragon Pokémon.. Not now, he thought. Not here.

Franco approached Alex and began to spoke in a hushed voice. "Do you know what that means?" he asked. "I'm sure you do."

"The Draconids?" He asked unsurely. "The dragon's face is their mark. I thought they were last sighted in the south, near Mauville?"

Franco sighed. "They're everywhere. And look at the other side of that coin. That's not just any symbol. Somebody wanted Sheila dead, and they made sure the job got done."

Alex didn't understand. He looked from the coin, back to Franco.

The captain continued. "A poisoned thorn, a tunnel in the walls, no sign of any suspicious activity. This was the work of an assassin. Somebody was hired to take this poor woman out." Franco grabbed the coin and held the side with the fiery tree up to Alex's face. The flames glinted bright in the light of the lamps in the room. "The Empress herself has been after this particular assassin for the last ten years."

"You don't mean... him?" Alex asked. He had often heard his father talk about him. The Draconids had been a problem for almost as long as the Empress had unified Hoenn under her rule. They would appear here and there, randomly attacking Imperial barracks and supply stores, without any rhyme or reason. The Lords and Governors of Hoenn treated the Draconids as a nuisance for a while, until everything changed.

There was a time, five years ago, when Alex was a little younger than Leo is now, when high profile figures were being killed off. First it was a city treasurer from Rustboro, then two Sootopolis Navy Admirals a while later. Countless important men and women were being targeted and eliminated. Every crime scene was different, but there was always a similarity: the killer would find a way to leave his mark.

"Aye," Franco said solemnly. "Burningtree. Damn it! If he's able to get into Mt. Pyre, none of us are safe."

Alex sighed and looked away from the coin. Heck of a first assignment, father, he thought. He turned back to Franco. "How are we going to catch him?" Nobody had captured Burningtree before. He was a ghost, a shadow, a creature of darkness and deception. It was said that no one had ever seen him... and lived.

"We don't," Franco said after a short silence. "I'll inform Lord Specter." He made to walk out of the room, Ninetails following behind as always.

"So that's it, then?" Alex asked. "Burningtree is behind it? We're not even going to go after him?"

"It's a lost cause, aye," Franco said, stopping in the doorway. "But you're not done. As much of a murderous slime as this assassin is, he's still a business man. Burningtree may never have been captured, but the people or person who hired him is not out of reach." He nodded to Alex. "Look into Sheila's history. Find out who wanted her dead. If you find the employer, it's as close as you're going to get to the assassin himself. Your Pokémon's back."

Alex turned and smiled. Sure enough, Banette was there, hovering in the air as always. Its eyes looked sad and its mouth was frowning. "What is it, boy?" he asked as he heard Franco's footsteps getting quieter down the corridor. "Did you find Sheila's ghost?"

The ghost Pokémon nodded sadly. It put a little hand on Alex's head.

He was still in Sheila's room, but it was dark, and all the candles were snuffed out. Alex looked over towards the bed, a figure in black was standing over a sleeping woman. He wanted to call out, to shout, to warn her, but then he remembered that this was a nothing more than a memory- a vision Banette was showing him.

Alex saw the old nurse's eyes open in fright, and the figure cupped her mouth with a gloved hand. There was a sickening slapping sound, and after a few seconds, Sheila closed her eyes again.

The figure stepped back, and the old woman's arm dropped, and out of it fell the golden coin with a clink. Alex tried to glimpse the assassin's face when he passed by, but it was too dark.

Alex whirled around and saw the killer hunch over, and enter back into the hole in the wall. Then, the man spoke in a deep voice. "The accomplice has been taken care of. Let's go get our payment." Was he talking to someone? Alex sniffed. Is that smoke? he wondered.

He opened his eyes and vision was over. "That's it?" he asked Banette. The Pokémon nodded.

Alex and his Banette looked at each other. What had he learned from the vision his Pokémon received from Sheila's ghost? He thought about what the killer said. The Specter family of Mt. Pyre were masters of the ghost-type Pokémon, allowing them to commune with the dead. It had been the assassin's one mistake: speaking when he thought no one would hear.

"The accomplice," he said quietly to himself. "The killer mentioned that 'the accomplice was taken care of.'" He thought about what that could mean.

Alex looked at Sheila, dead, lying peacefully, but for the poison thorn protruding from her neck. "She knew something. There's more to this story that what's on the surface. Why would an assassin like Burningtree, if it even is him, waste his time with an old, retired nurse like Sheila?" He knew that if Franco was here, he would applaud Alex for asking the right questions.

He was going to get to the bottom of this, to bring whoever ordered the hit to justice. I'll get Burningtree, too, if I can, he thought determinedly. I won't let father down.

Banette gave a scared, sad look at Alex as the boy left the room, ready to report to Lord Specter what he had seen and found.