They get to the other side of the pass without any real incident - discounting 'Intrepid sticking her nose into things' - and onto the road down toward Cerulean City proper. A little bit later - there's a distant cry, and a very upset flareon runs onto the road a bit ahead of them, spinning and looking around.

"Hey!" Ellie calls. "What's wrong?"

She spins toward Ellie and runs closer, wailing - then jerks her head back the way she came.

"Something must be wrong, come on," she says to her partners, starting to jog over to the flareon.

She makes a worried noise, and both she and Intrepid follow in Ellie's wake - Flicker tries the umbreon language, some other eevees know it - 

Nope!

She does however start leading them down a side road - easily missed what with all the bushes crowding the margins - frequently glancing back over her shoulder.

They're still following.

She leads them to a small homestead, a little bit run down but mostly well taken care of. The door's open, and the flareon wastes no time running inside, wailing at Ellie again, then leading her to a bedroom on the main floor - which has an older man collapsed on the bed, skin pale and drenched in sweat, cheeks flushed, breathing a bit strained, apparently unconscious.

Oh hell oh hell-

First aid, first aid, what is the first step- Check pulse, call emergency services. Okay, she can do that. She gets the operator on the line, responders are dispatched, and the operator begins to talk her through what to do until they get there.

It's about ten minutes before the rescue pidgeots arrive.

Unhappy worried flareon remains unhappy and worried!

She does anything she's directed to, and stays out of EMS's way, but she is so stressed about that and does not want to be left behind but ambulances don't take ride-alongs. So instead she is going to worry.

Ellie can call a taxi to get them all to the hospital.

Intrepid does her best to help reassure the flareon during the wait. Taxis aren't as fast as ambulances.

Beats walking.

"It's gonna be okay, you know? We'll be there soon."

Small whine.

"I know it's scary, but he's in good hands."

She nods.

By the time they get to the hospital, the doctors will have had enough time to make a diagnosis.

The flareon doesn't mind Ellie and the other eevees being in the room, and she's fortunately the human - Mal's - next of kin.

It seems that he ate something very poisonous, though they're not sure how he managed that (it's not exactly a local plant), and quietly the doctor admits there's a worry of foul play, and Officer Jenny's been contacted. The prognosis is currently fairly good - Mal's healthy for his age, and he got help really quickly - but he's likely to be hospitalized for at least a little bit, and he might be sleeping or sedated a lot for the next few days. They'll need to wait for him to wake up to make a more certain estimate on how long his recovery might take, though.

The flareon is - rapidly shifting to angry-determined, actually, her eyes narrowing.

Yeah, this is worrisome.

"I wonder if the flareon knows something," Intrepid sends to Ellie. "Officer Jenny might have a typing board, but you gotta be able to read to really use one - maybe we can offer her a chance to use the collar?"

"-Can we talk to you?" she says to the flareon. "In private?'

She nods.

Over to a quiet corner then-

"So. It seems like you have some reason to believe in the foul play hypothesis. Intrepid's collar, here, lets her talk to me directly. It should also work for you, if you want to share what you know with me."

She hesitates...

Then nods.

"All right." Ellie unclips the collar from around Intrepid's neck and transfers it to Flareon, mindful of her ruff. "Just uh. Try thinking at me."