Skive saw it while the librarians were bantering. Far in the back of the library, framed perfectly between two rows of bookshelves, was an innocuous little door. It was about the Eevee's height, the same mismatched color as the chair he'd sat in; for a kid so sure of his own smarts, he sure hadn't hidden his "private collection" very well.

And so Skive had taken off. He didn't know much, but he knew Sneasels were impressively quick on their feet, and he was no exception. Wind breezed past his face as he raced down the alley between shelves, spines and cross hallways a mere colorful blur as he whizzed by. He couldn't take on a Chandelure, but he could get what he needed and be out of here before they realized what was happening.

The door had no handle, so Skive simply slammed into it at full speed; like the others, it swung open gently and clicked shut behind him. He glanced around frantically, pausing for only a moment to catch his breath. He needed to get the right book and leave, now.

This room was definitely not as well-kept as the main library. Perhaps twice the size of a nice bedroom, it was crammed full of books stacked in tall piles and stuffed haphazardly into a few shelves, loose paper jutting out from many a volume and strewn all about the round table in the center. A wide variety of artifacts leaned in several layers against the left wall: stone tablets, coils of vine, boxes overflowing with bland-looking rocks, glass jars of glittering powder. Four torches in the corners served as the light source, all of them small but burning with bright purple flames, bathing the various white surfaces in an eerie glow.

The only organized thing here was the white bookcase on the opposite wall, wide but not very tall. Skive crept closer to it, and smirked. It was jammed full of thick binders, each sporting a name and a crude drawing of a different Pokémon on the spine. This was definitely it.

He scanned the labels as quickly as he could. They weren't in any apparent order, except for having evolutions kept together, and Skive wasn't the fastest reader. Whoever had drawn the pictures wasn't the greatest artist, either. He could hear his heart pounding frantically in his head and feel it in his scorched back-- and then he saw it. Under a little scribble of what could have been a shaggy dog, DEINO.

Skive grasped the binder and yanked it from its place, knocking the adjacent DURANT and ZWEILOUS onto the floor. He opened it and rifled through a few sheets to check: notes, illustrations, more notes in the margins, arrows and labels and newspaper clippings and pages torn from other books. There'd definitely be something useful in here.

Tucking the binder under one arm, he spun on a heel and burst towards the door at full speed. It felt like he'd been in here for ages, though he knew it had only been seconds. With any luck, the librarians hadn't even noticed his absence. Even if they had, he could more than outrun both of them.
The door slammed open as he sped through it and made for the library entrance straight ahead.

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Fourth excerpt about the library story by

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I apologize for so many sneasels lately...