19 Hotel

Now that they had a way to hide their identities, there was a lot of things they wanted to do. Gilly really wanted to get a shower, Aurora wanted to sleep in a real bed and Blaze wanted some good food but first of all, they had to get to a monster center.

They packed everything that still was not and recalled every monster before they left the temporary hideout.

Aurora was leading their way to the monster center, with Blaze and Gilly a step behind her. Blaze truly gave the impression of a soldier protecting a small girl while Gilly seemed oddly out of place. Looking at her like that, Blaze couldn't help but smile under his mask.

"Why are you laughing?" Asked the distorted voice of the girl.

She had sensed his smile even though she couldn't see it.

"You don't look like a bodyguard at all."

"It doesn't matter that I don't act like a bodyguard at all. There are many gym leaders that act strangely as well, they are still super strong. You can't guess the true ability of someone just by their demeanor."

"That's true but those clothes don't fit you at all."

"As long as I can hug our cute Aurora whenever I want, I don't mind."

She rushed a step further and caught Aurora into her arms.

Aurora struggled to get free, she liked hug but now was not the time! Not in the middle of the street with all those strangers looking! That was embarrassing. She had the same question as Blaze in her mind. How was it even related to what they were talking about?

In any case, they ended up reaching their destination soon enough.

"Welcome to our monster center, what can I..." The voice of the nurse trailed off as she looked dubiously at the trio that entered her place of work.

Aurora made some hand-signs the nurse didn't understand and Blaze translated for her.

"The young Stardust mistress would like you to heal her monsters if you please."

"I can, sure, but, would you please remove those scary masks? You're not from a dangerous team are you?"

"No, we are private security guards from the Starfuel company." He explained pointing at the logo on his mask. "We are here to escort and protect the stardust heiress on her journey. We are not allowed to remove those mask in public due to security issues."

"Is that true?" With all those well known name thrown in his sentences, the poor nurse had no idea how to react.

"It is." Claimed Gilly cheerfully. "Her father even made the announcement on a press conference yesterday. The family was attacked by Dragonlaw, and our cute Aurora got hurt so we're sticking with her now."

And she raised aurora in the air for another hug. Even though Aurora was struggling to get free, the nurse saw their closeness and was about to believe them, Blaze just gave her a final argument to convince her.

"Would you be reassured if we both gave you our monsters as well? We only have one each though."

The nurse agreed with a nod.

"Fine then, please place all your p-balls on this tray and I will take care of their treatments momentarily. There is a PC in the corner if you wish to use it while waiting."

Aurara made the sign for thank you and Blaze translated again before everyone gave their pets to the nurse. As for using the PC, they had nothing to do with it.

Although he didn't need it, Blaze found surprising that he had not been banned from the system. If he was the one in charge, he would bar known criminal from using the system to store or retrieve monsters. Aside from enforcing the six monster limit, It wasn't an essential service but locking someone out could be very annoying. Anything to slow down and disturb wanted criminals was a good thing though.

Fortunately for him, the one in charge, Bill, wasn't thinking like him and wasn't under the direct control of the league. He had made sure to remain independent to ensure that no one would use his system in any nefarious way. With that in mind, he had also erased his name from any documents in relation to the PC before it became a worldwide service. Now, there was only a few who knew who made the thing.

Blaze just knew because he remembered the character from the game but since he had been born here, he had not heard his name once. He wondered what would happen to the system once Bill died.

Everyone sat down on waiting chairs in the lobby and after about ten minutes, the nurse came back with their balls.

"Here, all done! Everyone is healthy." She said with a jovial smile.

"Thank you. Do you also know of a good hotel nearby?"

"There is that one two streets further after the mart that way. Was that helpful? I'm sorry, I'm bad with directions."

"It's fine, we'll find it."

All three thanked her and walked to the exit. As they left, Blaze caught the television screen from the corner of his eye. The news line read:

<Alemany looking further into the bomb incident, "New disturbing elements have been found." states the commissioner.>

What were they about to pin on him again? Wasn't the story pretty clear already?

Once outside, they took the direction of the hotel and since a mall was on the way, they stopped there to buy a lot of things they still had on the list. In the end, there was a literal mountain of things on the counter in front of the cashier. It wasn't unusual for someone starting a journey only to find they forgot a bunch of things before buying them in bulk so the workers weren't surprised at all from the large transaction.

They then got to the hotel were the reception made a similar scene than the one in the monster center. In the End, Blaze had to get out his laptop to show them the video of the press conference of Richard Stardust. Only then did they accept to let them in and rent a room.

They requested a single room with at least two bed and ended up in one with three. Then, they each took a turn to get into a well deserved shower and got back out refreshed in both mind and body.

"I needed one so badly!" Gilly declared as she was helping Aurora with her hair.

The small girl was dressed properly now but Gilly was sat with only a towel wrapped around her.

"Shouldn't you put back on your clothes?"

Sure he didn't mind watching his girlfriend going around with only a towel but Aurora was there, it was unfair to tease him if he couldn't even enjoy the sight properly.

"I can't, my clothes are dirty. I just took a shower, I won't put back on clothes that needs to be washed."

Blaze had just done that exact thing, he had come out of the bathroom wearing the new uniform, just like how he got in.

"The uniform can't be that dirty, we received it today."

"Yeah but I transferred the grime and sweat onto it by wearing it before I could get properly clean. Instead of complaining, since you are wearing yours, could you take all our dirty clothes and bring them to the laundry room? Take care of it for the group this time and I'll do the next one."

Blaze had nothing against it and they were pretty much done for today so he had nothing to do, he accepted easily.

"Fine, Is there any of them that need some special treatment?"

"No, I don't think so. You won't mess up the colors right? I trust you with this."

She had sacrificed a lot of her wardrobe already, if he was to bring back clothes with washed off colors or everything tinted in pink, it would be worse than the end times in this room. He would never commit such a mistake.

He assured her it would not happen and left with the mountain of clothes that had to be washed.

While Blaze was taking care of the clothes very carefully. Aurora and Gilly had a lot of time together.

Since she had left days ago, Aurora had not been able to really pay attention to her own hair. To go to sleep she had to undo the complicated thing her mother had done to it but once the morning came, she was unable to fix them back properly. After just a few day, it had become full of knots and dust, making them impossible to arrange in anything else than a simple ponytail.

Her mother would have been horrified to see her current hair. Thankfully, Gilly was there to help out now that she had taken the time to wash their whole length properly. Aurora didn't really care about her hair, she never had, but she agreed on the fact that they were better when clean and not left to act on their own volition.

Since they were alone Aurora thought it was a great time to talk about Blaze's nightmare. She asked the other girl about all the details.

"Even if you ask me that, there isn't much more to tell."

Even after telling her everything she knew, Aurora was still left disappointed by the lack of substance. In summary, the guy was having nightmares almost daily he didn't know why and they were always horrible. Gilly told her the contents of some and it made her shiver. By the end of their talk, Aurora was pretty caught up with everything, including the bruises of Gilly, mostly inflicted because she insisted on sleeping at his side.

(Why are you doing it then?)

"It's because I can't sleep well when I'm away from him, I get restless. Even though I know I will get some bruises sometimes because of his nightmares, I don't mind them. He doesn't wish for them, it just happens when he struggles to break away from them. I like the bruises better than sleeping alone."

Aurora didn't really understand why she was thinking that way but she could see that Gilly found it really important. Maybe she was scared of sleeping alone, sometimes, the night time was scary. Maybe she just loved him to much. She didn't think too much about it and instead, jumped on the next subject.

The two girls talked about movies, helped each other with their hair and by the time they were done Blaze was still not back. This wasn't unexpected, he had a lot of clothes to take care of, Gilly had even given him her underwear to wash. Aurora hadn't done the same, she would do it herself, there was no way she was letting that guy touch them. Being a 'part of her' or not wasn't the point.

With nothing else to do, the girls turned on the TV and wasted time switching the channels over and over again, unable to find something to their liking. In the end, the most interesting they found was a comedic parody of a cooking show with a cook using very unsuitable monsters to help in his task resulting in all manners of mishaps.

Those weren't the most productive of times, but spending an evening watching TV with a friend was still very enjoyable for Aurora. She had not spent time with a real friend like that since her last life. She was very happy right now, even though she felt that she was missing her old friends. She wished that Cassia was here with Gilly and her.

When Blaze finally came back, aurora was soundly asleep in her bed. The television was still on and Gilly was watching from under the sheets of another bed.

"Welcome back. Did everything go well?"

"Yeah, all your clothes are safe."

"Great."

He came up to her and piled everything that belonged to her on top of her.

"I'm not folding them."

"Aw come on! It's the easiest part, can't you finish what you started?"

"If it's the easiest part, why are you complaining? I already have mine and Aurora's too since she's asleep."

"Well, you can't blame her for that, you keep waking her up in the middle of the night with your nightmares."

He could have taken it as if she was saying it was his fault but he chose not to, that was clearly not what she meant. If anything was to blame, it was whatever gave him all these nightmares.

"Why aren't you asleep too then? You've been woken up way more often than her."

"I can't sleep if you're not there."

How cute, he gave her a peck on the nose but still forced her to fold her own clothes while he took care of the rest.

He laid down on the third bed and fell asleep almost immediately. It was easy for him, he was always so tired. That night, he dreamed that Aurora had decided to kill him for the stash of points their dream version had accumulated. She had somehow mind-controlled Gilly who was cutting off his fingers one by one with a pair of gardening scissors. Her mother was standing behind, taking notes and nodding in satisfaction at her daughter's work.

When he woke up, he found Gilly in his bed again. For just an instant, his mind got confused with the dream and told him to kill her and Aurora before they managed to get him first.

He felt disgusted at the thought, wiped his face from the idea and the fatigue with a hand and got up from the bed. It was almost morning already anyway. The memory of that idea kept gnawing at him from the inside though. He hated himself for even thinking it briefly in his confusion. He occupied his mind with something else.

Today they would need to set off in order to go catch some more monsters and train like hell.

During the week they were hiding, they had made detailed plans on what they wanted their final teams to look like. checking on that list, there weren't that many that could be found in the region they were currently in.

In truth, with them three, there were more than sixty monsters they wanted to catch to have on hand in case they needed it but sadly, they could not bring them all with them.

Obviously, there was the limit of six imposed by the PC system but more importantly, the entity of light declared they would only be able to bring six with them once the ten years were over and this number included their starters.

When playing the old games, Blaze had the tendency of catching everything he saw, even if he didn't plan on using them at all. Here thought, it seemed like the wrong thing to do. Leaving a pixelated sprite in a box wasn't the same a catching a living breathing creature in a ball and leaving it in the clutches of Bill's machine.

He was pretty sure he would catch more than six anyway in case he found a way later to bring more with him but keeping an excessive amount would not be of any real use.

Based on the first plan he had made with Gilly, a few changes were made to take Aurora into account. Both of them needed functional teams on their own but that would also complete each other well. Additionally, both needed something that could fly and carry them.

With Aurora having Magus with herself, he didn't need to put a second grass type in his roster. He did love them a lot but he felt that variety would bring them further. (1)

Surprisingly, he needed nothing living in the region. First, he wanted a fire-dragon even though it wasn't really a dragon to cover his flying needs and the main fire to keep as a front. In Gleanne, the only way to get one was to buy a salacinder from a breeder at an exorbitant price. It was better to just wait.

Second, he wanted a crowned dracosaur. This would be the main true dragon of his team. The only way to get one was to find a fossil of one or once again, a specialised breeder. No fossils of their race had ever been found in Gleanne so he had to give up on that as well.

Third, he wanted a revight, those were in his favorites. They had a ridiculous amount of resistances and immunity with their pairing of ghosts and steel. The only way to get one of those was to evolve it all the way from a haunbla, and those were only found in historical places over in what he would call Europe.

Then, he wanted a gueultrap, those he was madly in love with. Not to the point he would like to fuck one but, those things were so cute, and more importantly, so deadly too. Not only was it immune to dragon powers but also to poison and was resistant to almost everything else. It was true it did not have a huge amount of stamina as its main body was frail but it was the kind of creature that would kill almost instantly anything that fell in its huge jaw of literal steel. It only needed one successful hit for the opponent to be done for. That one too he couldn't find here in Gleanne.

Finally, he though he needed some ground type to round up his weaknesses and ended up choosing to recruit a pinking, a poison-needled king. He did not remember them being the best and they did not appear often in tournaments broadcast on television nowadays but it was a good all rounder that could learn a lot of different techniques. Plus, it was poison too, that wasn't the most useful typing ever but it was great against fairies and more interestingly, how many fools in future worlds he would visit would succumb to the unknown poison?

The conclusion was that there was nothing he needed here. There were indeed some second picks but he wouldn't go out of his way to find them, securing the main team was much more important.

With this in mind, there were still three creatures they needed to catch here, all three for Aurora. She needed a seekrid to raise into a seerknit, a demuret to evolve in a deviret and a subanio.

The seerknit was essential to teach her how to use her own psychic powers, it was one of the most pressing monster to recruit. Not only that, it was also a fairy which was extremely valuable against dragons and it was a good creature to have around in all kinds of situations.

The deviret was to become her counter against psychic monsters and a backup for dragons. In nature, devirets did not know a lot of ice moves and were much more turned toward the dark but since dragons had no particular resistance to the dark, she should be fine anyway.

The subanio is very important as well since the rumor says they have some powers over auras too. It would make for a great help to Aurora. Plus, with its fighting and steel typing, it covers a lot of her weaknesses and makes for a great guardian in general. The only problem was that he wasn't sure they would find one here. People knew there were some around but no one figured out exactly where they were yet. This meant that either they would be really lucky and encounter a solitary one traveling for some reason or they would have to wait to go in another region to find one.

Since Aurora had already picked up a flying monster in the shape of that small osprigeon, she was already covered there too and would only need one last creature to complete her team. The girl already had a certain water frog in mind for the last spot but like everything Blaze needed, it couldn't be found here.

The team Gilly planned was way more eccentric. In fact, it didn't make sense at all. (2)

When he tried to convince her to take in some more useful things, she told him that they didn't need any more fighters since they were already over-complicating things for their own two teams. She decided to go with a bunch of helpers instead and some random things they had no space to cover in their own team. An electric monster like she had first told him she would pick, a second dog because she really like dogs, a bird to fly with them, and two empty spots in case something good came her way.

With all that said, their plan was simply to go towards where they thought they could find the three creatures they needed. Since the subanio was a huge unknown, they planned on crossing the mountains to go get one of the seekrid that lived on the other side.

Going through there seemed like a huge pain, there was only two way about it, either you walked through the caves or over the mountains. Since Blaze had read the lord of the rings and also knew that you shouldn't be able to walk above the mountains in the game, he felt that they would probably end up taking the cave path.

At least they would cross those with two grass type and a fire/dark one. With those three, they should be able to handle everything that had been reported to be present in the caves, as long as they didn't go too deep that was. Their small helpers still needed a lot of training, even with the type advantage, they would lose if they fought something strong.

Of course, as an alternative, they could have used the helicopter to get to the other side but then, he would have had to learn how to fly the thing properly. It would take a lot of time he didn't have. it would be more efficient to go through and use the caves as a training ground.

He could have paid someone to fly them to the other side but then again, he would need money he didn't have. He had looked it up one time Gilly wasn't looking, it would cost him around five hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a damn ring! Even if he used every single remaining points they had to buy raw cash, it would still only give him 150k. He was four hundred thousand in the red even if he did! Hell, even combining it with the money Aurora brought with her it wasn't enough.

He was better off using those points to buy a set of three master balls. In his frustration, he did just that. He didn't know when he would get them but at least he wouldn't be tempted to waste points on some money.

While he was fuming about the ridiculous price of things, the others woke up too. They dressed up and all sat down around the breakfast he had made, toasts again, this time not burnt since he had access to a toaster. Aurora would eat or rather drink some mashed fruits.

Aurora told him she was glad he hadn't had any nightmares that night. She had not been woken up by him and thought it was great for all of them. He told her the truth.

"I did have a nightmare, you were just lucky to not be woken up by it."

That answer soured the mood a bit but he felt that just pretending to have slept well would have been worse. Honesty was a better thing in the long run. They did not talk about it further.

After breakfast, they rushed to get out of town. They wanted to get to the mountains as fast as possible, they had a lot to do after all. This time though, they stuck to the road. They had no reason to cut through the wild since the cave entrance was just by the road.

***

(1) Honestly, if it was me instead of Blaze, I would go all grass, maybe a bit of steel in the mix. Good thing the guy is 'smarter' than me.

(2) I can't make up any more names today, I'm spent, we'll talk about her strangely built team another time.