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Description
Jake's heart thundered furiously against the inside of his rib cage. All thoughts were pushed aside except for the burning thoughts of concern that consumed his mind. Judging from the sounds that explosion had undoubtbly came from the cavern shrine where Sarah and the elder were battling a group of grunts and stop them from destroying the shrine inside. But if his fearful thoughts were true…no, he couldn't let himself think that way. All he had to do was get to the shrine, help defeat the rest of the grunts and deactivate the charges that hadn't gone off; easy. That is, until he reached the inner sanctuary.

A cold lump caught in Jake's throat when he finally made it back inside the cavern shrine. Any spark of hope he had for Sarah's safety had been instantly extinguished by a new layer of rubble that carpeted the ground with no sign of the other PEF member in sight.

"Jake, we told you to slow down," Haze called out as she ran up beside him and Dagger.

Jake ignored her, solely focused on the disaster that befell the cavern's interior. He should have stayed behind, he thought; maybe this wouldn't have happened if he just stayed to help. It was too late now though.

"Sarah?...Sarah!" Jake desperately cried out despite the bleak circumstances, but there was no response besides the haunting echo of his own voice.

His already fevered mind drawing up conclusions in what had happened…none of them were good. Having already forgotten about his fatigue, he wasted no time jumped down into the rubble, clawing away chucks of dirt and rock. Every scoop cut and scraped up Jake's hands till flecks of blood dotted the ground around him, but he didn't care nor slowdown in hopes that the next scoop would reveal the other PEF member underneath. Haze and Dagger had other thoughts and tried to pull their own partner away from the debris, Jake resisted tough, ignoring their words of concern about the area being too dangerous, that the cave could collapse completely at any moment.

'Damn it, this is all my fault. I should have stayed here, I…Damn it.'

Jake continued to mutter under his breath, repeating his chastising against himself. He had left a fellow PEF member behind, putting faith in a higher power that it would all work out, but now, he felt like he was paying an ultimate price for his mistake.

"Jake?"

It was like he could hear Sarah's voice in his mind calling out to him. If she was, it most likely to say, 'Jake, why did leave me behind? I trusted you.'

"Jake?"

He would do anything to end this stupid torture of the sound alike in his head just to hear Sarah's real voice again.

"Jake, what are you doing?"

Wait a moment, that didn't sound like just a voice in his head Jake thought. And it wasn't words of punishment that that he heard either. If Jake could pass out from sheer exhaustion right then there, he would have. But with that exhaustion came a jolt of relieving energy that kicked him up to go and hug Sarah who was merely standing at the cavern's main entrance above the piles of dirt and debris.

"Oh thank Arceus," Jake whispered, more to himself than to anyone else in particular.

Sarah hugged him back, but giggled and asked curiously, "You know, I'm all for a victory cheer, but a victory hug?"

Jake blushed a bit and immediately let go at the realization of his actions, too embarrassed to look back at Sarah directly.

"I'm just glad you're alright."

"What, did you think the cavern caved in and I got buried alive or something?"

Oh if only she knew how right she was, but at the same time just missed Jake flush a bit more in embarrassment. He mentally promised himself that he would have to stop letting his imagination get the best of him next time.

"Gee, glad to hear that you had high hopes for us back here," Fade said sarcastically, sneaking up from behind Sarah.

"I, well, I just thought…y'know, um- what happened to the other grunts?" Jake stammered to quickly change the topic.

Sarah sighed softly, an expression of disappointment etching the corners of her eyes, "They got away. After you left to chase down the commander, the remaining grunts started to gang up solely on us. It was pretty tough, but we held them back; that is until one of them sent a wild attack into one of the charges on the roof of the cavern. I had already disarmed most of the charges and threw them outside the cavern, but there were still enough to cause a chain reaction and blew up probably 3, maybe 4 that were left. With the cave collapsing, we all ran for it outside; well not before the elder and I rescued the rest of the pokemon we had knocked out first. By the time we made it out, the rest of the grunts had already escaped. That's about it for us, how about you?"

Jake gave an equally disappointed sigh in return, "Same thing happened here; well without the whole cavern collapsing and all. The commander got away with the data he was carrying along with a few grunts that got in our way. We at least freed the pokemon they were controlling, but now we don't have any new info to bring back to HQ."

"Not true," Sarah smiled optimistically, "We may not have stopped Team Sigma from getting away, but they left without destroying the cavern like they intended."

Jake looked on in confusion until Sarah politely pointed to the far side of the cavern. Pieces of destroyed Team Sigma equipment could just be seen sticking out of the rubble, now useless on account of being crushed beneath. But what Sarah was really pointing to was not the equipment, but what the equipment surrounded. Behind the tight semi-circle of crushed electronics were the half buried wall paintings depicting what looked like three strange creatures surrounding a blurred image of some kind of jewel. Jake remembered that he saw most of the grunts working around the drawing when they first entered the cavern. They were obviously trying to decipher what the depictions meant, at least that what he thought they were doing. Another thought hit him and he instantly relayed it to Sarah that they could have a team come up here and analyze it themselves to figure out the mysteries behind the pictures.

"By the way, what happened to the elder," Jake suddenly realized that he had forgotten about the woman who had helped them in the cavern as well.

"She's actually outside, rounding up volunteers to help care for the pokemon that were injured in the cavern. She's even going around reassuring the town that the PEF is not their enemies and that they have been lied to by Team Sigma."

That was good to hear, Jake thought; now they won't be cast out by a riot next time they come here.

"Let's go outside and see if they need any more help with the injured pokemon," Sarah suggested.

---

Many of the towns' people were still a bit hesitant to the PEF members' presence; some even still whispered concerns behind their backs as they passed by, but after some time and more reassuring words they all began to warm up to each other. Soon enough, some of the fog even started to disappear from the air to reveal the glistening rays of the sun from above in a relieving glory. Jake explained that it too was Team Sigma's doing in an attempt to hide their presence in the town and create a distraction from their real intentions of collecting data from the cavern. Many thank-yous were given to the PEF members for all their help and promised safe passage for any new PEF members that came to patrol around the area.

"I can't tell you both how grateful my town is for your intervention," The town elder spoke, a wrinkly yet pleasant smile curling on her face, "I also can't tell you how sorry we are for misplacing our trust the way we did."

Sarah offered an equally pleasant smile to the elder in return, "Honestly, we forgive you, there's no real need to apologize. Team Sigma can be deceptive like that and do anything to get their way. It's our job to prevent them from hurting innocent folk like you. I hate to say goodbye so quickly though, but my friend and I have to get back to report to our Admin."

Jake felt a slight rush of color graze his features at the mention of Sarah saying they were friends.

"In the meantime, I hope that we can ask that more members of the PEF be allowed to visit the town now and possibly study the cavern shrine. It would be a big help in finding out what Team Sigma is planning with the information that they had learned here."

"Of course dear," the town elder smiled once again, "We'd be honored to have others visit our town and promise to give them our full hospitality."

"Thank you so much miss elder; and if anything arises, feel free to give the PEF a call."

The elder nodded happily, "Thank you too, and be safe on your journey back home."

"We will."

"Arceus finally, I'm tired. Let's get out of here," Fade grumbled, earning him a swift smack to the back of his head by Sarah while no one was looking.

---

Another mission down and another report to file and give to Admin Dakota. That's what Jake thought when they all arrived back at HQ. Luckily the debriefing was the only thing he hated about the PEF because of all the paperwork, but Dakota was always one to be very lax on procedures and preferred oral reports over the paper forms.

Jake and Sarah herded themselves back into the Intel room where they conveyed their report, alternating and often finishing other's sentences.

"It was then that the Team Sigma grunts started setting charges around the interior of the cavern-"

"And the commander tried to make an escape. I told Jake to go after the commander while Fade and I took care of the grunts in the shrine."

"Honestly though, I still wanted to stay behind, y'know, to make sure the charges were dealt with and-"

"I already told you, I had it covered. Really, you think you could have disarmed all those charges AND dealt with all the grunts at the same time?"

"Well maybe…I mean, it's not like I didn't think you couldn't handle it. It just I thought-"

"That you're better than me?"

Jake's face lit up in the brightest shade of red, too stunned to make a coherent sentence while Sarah watched with a devious smile as he squirmed. After a minute to calm down, the two agreed to finish the report, especially after Dakota had a good laugh over the affair, detailing each of their parts when they were separated. As much as Dakota was disappointed in that the Team Sigma commander had gotten away. The fact that their point of interest, the cavern shrine's drawings, were still intact and the town was now in acceptance of the PEF allowed for a new line of research to be drawn for the PEF.

"Hopefully this will give a new clue into Team Sigma's plans," Dakota said, deep in thought which was a rare sight, "In any case, thank you for you report. Go and get some rest, you all look exhausted."

They couldn't have agreed more; Jake, Sarah, and their teams felt spent and tired, more than ready to find the nearest bed to crash on. After the day they had, they gladly accepted the dismissal and left the Intel room to go find their rooms to put an end to their day.

Not too long after leaving their debriefing, Jake and Sarah found themselves still walking together through the corridors of PEF HQ in silence. They both kept glancing at each other, but only for a moment at times until they realized that the other was glancing back.

"So, today was pretty rough huh?" Sarah finally broke the ice.

Jake fumbled around in his mind until he found something that at least resembled a response, "Uh, yeah."

Sarah giggled softly at his simplistic answer further throwing Jake into a blush of embarrassment.

"Well, I mean that, yeah, it was pretty rough, but I wouldn't give up a good challenge like this. Would you?"

Sarah shook her head, "Nope. As much as I miss my family and friends, I don't think I could just quit. Especially with what kind of difference I feel like I'm making here."

"I feel the same way."

For a moment, they just walked in an acceptable silence until Sarah stopped and tapped Jake's shoulder.

"Hmm, something wrong, Sarah?"

Sarah shook her head and averted her eyes before speaking, "My room is actually down this other hall, but, um, I just wanted to say bye before I go…and I hope we get to go on another mission together sometime soon."

Jake hid a little smile of excitement at the prospect of going on another mission with Sarah, but responded in a much calmer manner, "Yeah, same here. Hope to see ya around."

Sarah only looked back once with an airy smile before disappearing beyond another corner.

"So were those plans for date then? Cause me and Dagger could give you a little more privacy next time," a voice right next to Jake's ear whispered which made him jump.

His face lit up again in a bright shade of red as he glared at Haze who was smirking to herself. Dagger even had what looked like a twitch at the corner of his mouth, like he too was smiling.

"Oh shut up," Jake said simply before storming off.

Description
Jake's heart thundered furiously against the inside of his rib cage. All thoughts were pushed aside except for the burning thoughts of concern that consumed his mind. Judging from the sounds that explosion had undoubtbly came from the cavern shrine where Sarah and the elder were battling a group of grunts and stop them from destroying the shrine inside. But if his fearful thoughts were true…no, he couldn't let himself think that way. All he had to do was get to the shrine, help defeat the rest of the grunts and deactivate the charges that hadn't gone off; easy. That is, until he reached the inner sanctuary.

A cold lump caught in Jake's throat when he finally made it back inside the cavern shrine. Any spark of hope he had for Sarah's safety had been instantly extinguished by a new layer of rubble that carpeted the ground with no sign of the other PEF member in sight.

"Jake, we told you to slow down," Haze called out as she ran up beside him and Dagger.

Jake ignored her, solely focused on the disaster that befell the cavern's interior. He should have stayed behind, he thought; maybe this wouldn't have happened if he just stayed to help. It was too late now though.

"Sarah?...Sarah!" Jake desperately cried out despite the bleak circumstances, but there was no response besides the haunting echo of his own voice.

His already fevered mind drawing up conclusions in what had happened…none of them were good. Having already forgotten about his fatigue, he wasted no time jumped down into the rubble, clawing away chucks of dirt and rock. Every scoop cut and scraped up Jake's hands till flecks of blood dotted the ground around him, but he didn't care nor slowdown in hopes that the next scoop would reveal the other PEF member underneath. Haze and Dagger had other thoughts and tried to pull their own partner away from the debris, Jake resisted tough, ignoring their words of concern about the area being too dangerous, that the cave could collapse completely at any moment.

'Damn it, this is all my fault. I should have stayed here, I…Damn it.'

Jake continued to mutter under his breath, repeating his chastising against himself. He had left a fellow PEF member behind, putting faith in a higher power that it would all work out, but now, he felt like he was paying an ultimate price for his mistake.

"Jake?"

It was like he could hear Sarah's voice in his mind calling out to him. If she was, it most likely to say, 'Jake, why did leave me behind? I trusted you.'

"Jake?"

He would do anything to end this stupid torture of the sound alike in his head just to hear Sarah's real voice again.

"Jake, what are you doing?"

Wait a moment, that didn't sound like just a voice in his head Jake thought. And it wasn't words of punishment that that he heard either. If Jake could pass out from sheer exhaustion right then there, he would have. But with that exhaustion came a jolt of relieving energy that kicked him up to go and hug Sarah who was merely standing at the cavern's main entrance above the piles of dirt and debris.

"Oh thank Arceus," Jake whispered, more to himself than to anyone else in particular.

Sarah hugged him back, but giggled and asked curiously, "You know, I'm all for a victory cheer, but a victory hug?"

Jake blushed a bit and immediately let go at the realization of his actions, too embarrassed to look back at Sarah directly.

"I'm just glad you're alright."

"What, did you think the cavern caved in and I got buried alive or something?"

Oh if only she knew how right she was, but at the same time just missed Jake flush a bit more in embarrassment. He mentally promised himself that he would have to stop letting his imagination get the best of him next time.

"Gee, glad to hear that you had high hopes for us back here," Fade said sarcastically, sneaking up from behind Sarah.

"I, well, I just thought…y'know, um- what happened to the other grunts?" Jake stammered to quickly change the topic.

Sarah sighed softly, an expression of disappointment etching the corners of her eyes, "They got away. After you left to chase down the commander, the remaining grunts started to gang up solely on us. It was pretty tough, but we held them back; that is until one of them sent a wild attack into one of the charges on the roof of the cavern. I had already disarmed most of the charges and threw them outside the cavern, but there were still enough to cause a chain reaction and blew up probably 3, maybe 4 that were left. With the cave collapsing, we all ran for it outside; well not before the elder and I rescued the rest of the pokemon we had knocked out first. By the time we made it out, the rest of the grunts had already escaped. That's about it for us, how about you?"

Jake gave an equally disappointed sigh in return, "Same thing happened here; well without the whole cavern collapsing and all. The commander got away with the data he was carrying along with a few grunts that got in our way. We at least freed the pokemon they were controlling, but now we don't have any new info to bring back to HQ."

"Not true," Sarah smiled optimistically, "We may not have stopped Team Sigma from getting away, but they left without destroying the cavern like they intended."

Jake looked on in confusion until Sarah politely pointed to the far side of the cavern. Pieces of destroyed Team Sigma equipment could just be seen sticking out of the rubble, now useless on account of being crushed beneath. But what Sarah was really pointing to was not the equipment, but what the equipment surrounded. Behind the tight semi-circle of crushed electronics were the half buried wall paintings depicting what looked like three strange creatures surrounding a blurred image of some kind of jewel. Jake remembered that he saw most of the grunts working around the drawing when they first entered the cavern. They were obviously trying to decipher what the depictions meant, at least that what he thought they were doing. Another thought hit him and he instantly relayed it to Sarah that they could have a team come up here and analyze it themselves to figure out the mysteries behind the pictures.

"By the way, what happened to the elder," Jake suddenly realized that he had forgotten about the woman who had helped them in the cavern as well.

"She's actually outside, rounding up volunteers to help care for the pokemon that were injured in the cavern. She's even going around reassuring the town that the PEF is not their enemies and that they have been lied to by Team Sigma."

That was good to hear, Jake thought; now they won't be cast out by a riot next time they come here.

"Let's go outside and see if they need any more help with the injured pokemon," Sarah suggested.

---

Many of the towns' people were still a bit hesitant to the PEF members' presence; some even still whispered concerns behind their backs as they passed by, but after some time and more reassuring words they all began to warm up to each other. Soon enough, some of the fog even started to disappear from the air to reveal the glistening rays of the sun from above in a relieving glory. Jake explained that it too was Team Sigma's doing in an attempt to hide their presence in the town and create a distraction from their real intentions of collecting data from the cavern. Many thank-yous were given to the PEF members for all their help and promised safe passage for any new PEF members that came to patrol around the area.

"I can't tell you both how grateful my town is for your intervention," The town elder spoke, a wrinkly yet pleasant smile curling on her face, "I also can't tell you how sorry we are for misplacing our trust the way we did."

Sarah offered an equally pleasant smile to the elder in return, "Honestly, we forgive you, there's no real need to apologize. Team Sigma can be deceptive like that and do anything to get their way. It's our job to prevent them from hurting innocent folk like you. I hate to say goodbye so quickly though, but my friend and I have to get back to report to our Admin."

Jake felt a slight rush of color graze his features at the mention of Sarah saying they were friends.

"In the meantime, I hope that we can ask that more members of the PEF be allowed to visit the town now and possibly study the cavern shrine. It would be a big help in finding out what Team Sigma is planning with the information that they had learned here."

"Of course dear," the town elder smiled once again, "We'd be honored to have others visit our town and promise to give them our full hospitality."

"Thank you so much miss elder; and if anything arises, feel free to give the PEF a call."

The elder nodded happily, "Thank you too, and be safe on your journey back home."

"We will."

"Arceus finally, I'm tired. Let's get out of here," Fade grumbled, earning him a swift smack to the back of his head by Sarah while no one was looking.

---

Another mission down and another report to file and give to Admin Dakota. That's what Jake thought when they all arrived back at HQ. Luckily the debriefing was the only thing he hated about the PEF because of all the paperwork, but Dakota was always one to be very lax on procedures and preferred oral reports over the paper forms.

Jake and Sarah herded themselves back into the Intel room where they conveyed their report, alternating and often finishing other's sentences.

"It was then that the Team Sigma grunts started setting charges around the interior of the cavern-"

"And the commander tried to make an escape. I told Jake to go after the commander while Fade and I took care of the grunts in the shrine."

"Honestly though, I still wanted to stay behind, y'know, to make sure the charges were dealt with and-"

"I already told you, I had it covered. Really, you think you could have disarmed all those charges AND dealt with all the grunts at the same time?"

"Well maybe…I mean, it's not like I didn't think you couldn't handle it. It just I thought-"

"That you're better than me?"

Jake's face lit up in the brightest shade of red, too stunned to make a coherent sentence while Sarah watched with a devious smile as he squirmed. After a minute to calm down, the two agreed to finish the report, especially after Dakota had a good laugh over the affair, detailing each of their parts when they were separated. As much as Dakota was disappointed in that the Team Sigma commander had gotten away. The fact that their point of interest, the cavern shrine's drawings, were still intact and the town was now in acceptance of the PEF allowed for a new line of research to be drawn for the PEF.

"Hopefully this will give a new clue into Team Sigma's plans," Dakota said, deep in thought which was a rare sight, "In any case, thank you for you report. Go and get some rest, you all look exhausted."

They couldn't have agreed more; Jake, Sarah, and their teams felt spent and tired, more than ready to find the nearest bed to crash on. After the day they had, they gladly accepted the dismissal and left the Intel room to go find their rooms to put an end to their day.

Not too long after leaving their debriefing, Jake and Sarah found themselves still walking together through the corridors of PEF HQ in silence. They both kept glancing at each other, but only for a moment at times until they realized that the other was glancing back.

"So, today was pretty rough huh?" Sarah finally broke the ice.

Jake fumbled around in his mind until he found something that at least resembled a response, "Uh, yeah."

Sarah giggled softly at his simplistic answer further throwing Jake into a blush of embarrassment.

"Well, I mean that, yeah, it was pretty rough, but I wouldn't give up a good challenge like this. Would you?"

Sarah shook her head, "Nope. As much as I miss my family and friends, I don't think I could just quit. Especially with what kind of difference I feel like I'm making here."

"I feel the same way."

For a moment, they just walked in an acceptable silence until Sarah stopped and tapped Jake's shoulder.

"Hmm, something wrong, Sarah?"

Sarah shook her head and averted her eyes before speaking, "My room is actually down this other hall, but, um, I just wanted to say bye before I go…and I hope we get to go on another mission together sometime soon."

Jake hid a little smile of excitement at the prospect of going on another mission with Sarah, but responded in a much calmer manner, "Yeah, same here. Hope to see ya around."

Sarah only looked back once with an airy smile before disappearing beyond another corner.

"So were those plans for date then? Cause me and Dagger could give you a little more privacy next time," a voice right next to Jake's ear whispered which made him jump.

His face lit up again in a bright shade of red as he glared at Haze who was smirking to herself. Dagger even had what looked like a twitch at the corner of his mouth, like he too was smiling.

"Oh shut up," Jake said simply before storming off.