Raymond had taken this alleyway on his way home from work more times than he could count. Today was no different – trash bins overflowing with refuse from the cafes, stacked pallets from shipments and the odd pile of garbage he figured was likely home for a cafe owner's Trubbish. He paused his walk to glance down a smaller alley – it was darker, and there was a sizable dumpster for him to hide behind and take care of business. He ducked into the alley and unzipped his pants. He closed his eyes and sighed in relief as he emptied his bladder behind the dumpster.

A stinging pain exploded across his neck, and as his hands flew up to it to stay the blood, it overflowed through the cracks in his fingers, up and over, down and under his hands. Onto his shirt, the ground, everywhere - his legs buckled under him and his world flipped. His desperate attempt to keep the blood from flowing between his slick fingers was going nowhere, and his eyes, wild with fear, caught sight of a small figure skulking above him. The sounds of his cries were twisted instead into a carrying gurgle, and his mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood. Small glints shone in the dark, seemingly floating, and then a wide grin of cruel teeth unzipped in the ether. He caught sight of blood-soaked claws coming up to the opening maw, watched it sup the blood from them, and heard a strange sound. It was inhuman, but eerily familiar: a sadistic giggle, barely audible.

This wasn't quite how Raymond had expected things would have panned out when his time came. Everything slowed to a crawl, and the once obscured figure above him came into sharper relief, illuminated by what little light filtered into the alley. He raised his arms towards the figure desperately in a vain attempt to push it off of him - splatters of warm blood hit his face and with a terrible combination of the sounds of wet tears, crunching bone and popping sockets, he turned his head slowly to watch an arm sail several feet away, mangled to the point that it was nearly unrecognizable.

This must have been quite the sight to any onlooker, he thought inexplicably, but the painful silence in the alley impressed that there wasn't a soul nearby. He turned to look back at the blood-soaked Weavile atop him and swatted fruitlessly at it with his remaining arm, mouth agape, his cries of pain little more than constant, soft gurgles now. The creature grabbed hold of his other arm and savaged his shoulder; flesh tore, bone broke and then the world went black. Once more, though unheard now, the sick sound of tearing flesh, drawn out, until finally, with a loud, wet "pop" the second arm came loose, jostling Raymond's lifeless head about. This arm too was tossed aside nonchalantly and then, with an inexplicable grin, the Weavile plunged its hands into his chest, directly below his sternum and pulled him apart.

A second figure appeared from behind another dumpster and walked over to the corpse. "Hardly a fight in him. Pitiable." There was a pause. "It is done, mon roi," echoed in the alley.

A second, ethereal voice like a low, metallic rumble filled the air, "Take it. We must leave."

Ignace frowned at the large sign above the cafe. It was the last possible cafe d'Artagnan could have been alluding to in his cryptic musing, and if it was indeed his target, he was already too late. He passed by the front door of the cafe and found an entrance to the alley he was looking for. As he walked down its length, the all too familiar scent of spilled blood filled his nostrils. "Figures. Too late again," he muttered, his broad shoulders slumping. "All because d'Artagnan can't fucking give any of us a straight answer." He came across the body and knelt down before it to better survey the scene. Viscera was splattered about, and the smell of blood mingled powerfully now with the stench of urine and feces. The victim's face had been largely mauled beyond recognition and his arms were several feet away, one of them mostly a bloody pulp. He pulled a thin camera from his pocket and started taking pictures. As he zoomed into the exposed chest cavity of the poor soul, someone behind him screamed. Ignace sighed and stood to turn to the terrified civilian, who recoiled immediately and screamed again. He flashed his badge and barked, "Stop screaming please ma'am, I'm Detective Charles DeGaulle with the LPD, I've got every reason to be at a murder scene. You'll have to clear the area, you're interfering with an investigation."

The sight of the badge cut her screams short, and the terrified woman nodded meekly before she retreated back a step. "What happened?"

Ignace turned back to investigating the body, "This is a rather bloody, sensitive murder scene ma'am, please leave the alley." His eyes scanned the bloodied pockets where arms once connected with shoulders and then down to the splintered rib cage and frayed skin. "Claws," he muttered, "Pokemon claws. Great, that narrows it down to only a roomful of fucking species."

The woman did not budge, but rather yelped. "A p-pokemon did this? Why? Is there a wild, c-crazed pokemon running about?" she stammered.

He grunted in annoyance and stood again to face her, this time waving her off. "No reports that such a thing is happening ma'am, I wouldn't worry about it. Now please, clear the area or I will remove you from it myself." The woman retreated from the alley, and satisfied she was far enough away, he stowed his camera and pulled a penlight from his blazer, turned it on and ran it slowly across the body. His eyes spotted several hairs. "This'll help figure out who tore this poor sonofabitch up," he mumbled. Little victories, he supposed, and drew a pair of tweezers from his pocket and picked small hairs from the shoulder socket and the blood that had pooled around it then dropped them into a small plastic bag. Suddenly, voices carried on the wind from the end of the alley; he turned about and saw the woman speaking rather animatedly with a Lumiose police officer.

His stomach dropped as several more approached the pair and one pointed towards him in alarm. He turned about immediately and set off down the alley - if memory served him right, there was another alley that connected with this one that he could make a hasty retreat through. His ears caught the cries for him to stop as they echoed towards him and with a grimace he broke into a run. As he rounded the corner he ran almost immediately into a high wall. "For fuck's sake, drifblim, get me the fuck out of here." He pulled a pokeball from his belt and tossed it into the air and jumped to grab hold of one of the creature's yellow arms as it rose into the sky.

By the time it had risen high enough for him to see the rooftops he heard shouts from below. "This is the Lumiose Police Department, stow your Pokemon and get back down here immediately or we will be forced to pursue!" came a voice, "We repeat, we will pursue if you do not comply!" Empty threats, he thought privately, it was unlikely they'd come prepared to pursue him at all. Still, better out of the air sooner than later.

A gust caught the drifblim and pushed the two towards the tremendous tower in the center of the city. With a placid coo, the Pokemon pulled Ignace almost obliviously along. Ignace let out a sigh of relief and then smirked to himself. While it had been several months since he'd last been able to simply walk away from an investigation, he at least didn't have to fight his way out of this one. All of Lumiose stretched out in every direction around him. "Well damn," he thought, "I should do this more often." The skyscrapers that ringed the entire city let in small shafts of brilliantly orange sunlight that glistened across the rivers that ran through the city in several directions, while the buildings themselves let off glares so bright he thought it might actually make his landing difficult. He took a moment to admire the tower in the center of Lumiose and ponder the consequences of landing on top of it for lunch before glancing back down at the ground.

Here and there confused onlooks gazed up at him, some pointing, some calling out, some decidedly uninterested. So much for sooner rather than later. A second gust caught the drifblim, eliciting another coo of content from it that blew the pair towards a large clearing - a park, fortunately for Ignace, and not a river. "Set us down in the park drifblim," he called up. With a coo of approval, the duo began their slow descent.

Amid mutterings and awkward glances, Ignace touched down and returned the drifblim to its pokeball. He ducked into a nearby cafe immediately and scanned the sky. He was right - empty threats. Still, they could have very well tried to pursue on foot, though it was unlikely they'd ever quite find him. Or so he hoped.

"Monsieur? Can I help you?" came a voice from behind.

Ignace turned around to face the waiter. "Sorry, is anywhere fine?" he replied, gesturing to the myriad empty tables. The waiter nodded and took down Ignace's order for a coffee before vanishing behind the bar. He pulled his C-Gear from his pocket and switched over to its Pokedex application. "Blue fur, claws, easy enough to figure out right?" he mumbled, punching filters into the application. He chuckled at the incredibly small number of results it spat back out at him. The waiter arrived with his coffee and he thanked him. "Well, it was either a male Meowstic, a Sneasel or a Weavile," he mumbled, then took a sip from his coffee, "Tossing meowstic out. Psychic types don't strike me as the stabby, rip and tear sort." He gave the entry on meowstic a quick read. "And given he hasn't been crushed into a fine powder, I'm betting sneasel or weavile." He took another sip from his coffee and stared intently at the entry upon the screen before he finally shrugged. "Least I've got the general line down." He finished his coffee and gave the waiter a curt nod before leaving.

It was darker now, far easier to duck any watchful eyes and return to his home with little interruption, though it didn't seem that the police were doing much to look for him, though he did pass a few rather harassed looking officers that were listening to unintelligible blabber on their radios. It was the the fourth murder in the last three weeks of this kind of brutality and seeming randomness, and they certainly didn't align with the few murders that Lumiose did see. He ascended the steps to his apartment and stopped in front of his door. It probably would be better to tell Ricard the news now. Plus he could call d'Artagnan a worthless sack of birdshit again.

He strode down the hall and fished out a keyring from his pocket. After fumbling with the myriad keys attached to it for a few seconds, he unlocked the door and let himself into the apartment. Ricard was in his chair, as always, staring intently at d'Artagnan and occasionally signing furiously at him.

"Your prophecies are about as helpful as wings on a dodrio. You didn't have anything else of worth to offer Ignace?" signed Ricard.

The xatu clicked his beak impatiently and stared back at Ricard.

"Don't take that tone with me d'Artagnan, I have every right to criticize the efficacy of your prophecies when there are lives at stake!"signed back Ricard. He stopped abruptly and turned to look at Ignace, embarrassment creeping across his face. "Ignace, I had no idea you would be coming by so soon," signed Ricard. "There's some pizza on the table in the kitchenette. Help yourself."

Ignace chuckled and signed back, "Didn't stomp my feet hard enough, sorry. Glad I caught this exchange though." He gestured between the xatu and his friend. "Maybe I'll go a bit easier on your xatu now that you've already laid into him." He pulled a slice of pizza from the box on the table and took a bite. "Pizza though, Ricard? Bit low-brow for you isn't it?"

Ricard contented himself with making a rude gesture at Ignace and grinning.

A voice echoed in the room, low-pitched and weary in tone, emanating seemingly from somewhere behind the xatu: "If the two of you are quite done?" Ignace waved his hands sarcastically at d'Artagnan and walked back to the desk. "The sight does not illuminate all, but rather raise flickering embers through which the tapestry of our destinies are read."

'There he goes again with this talk,' signed Ricard. He turned to the collection of accounting books before him and turned a page, thoroughly disinterested. Ignace strolled over and picked up a ledger; he caught sight of several numbers with more zeroes than he thought he'd ever see in his life when Ricard snatched the book from his hand and waved him away from the desk. For a scrawny, short, deaf-mute, he was surprisingly vicious about keeping Ignace from sticking his nose into the books.

The xatu clicked its beak again and continued, a hint of disdain in its ethereal voice, "This 'talk' is more than you give it credit for, Merchant. And you, Mortician. The sight is unclear at the best of times, incomprehensible at all others - to have even a chance at clearing the fog that hangs heavy over our hearts and homes is to give all your faith to it."

Ignace had busied himself with making a cup of espresso in his friend's immaculate kitchen and grabbing another slice of pizza after Ricard had taken the ledger from him before he walked back to Ricard's desk and looked disinterestedly at the xatu when it had finished its speech. "That's all fine d'Artagnan, but you have to understand, like Ricard said, people are fucking dying out there, and me showing up two minutes too late doesn't help anyone," he explained. "I mean this last one you told me was probably the least helpful of them all. What the fuck was it, 'So falls a heartless man…' something something, I don't know. He was in the alley of Cafe Ultimo. The last fucking cafe I checked."

Again, the bird Pokemon clicked its beak, though now its tone was reproving and almost smug, "So falls a heartless man, bereft of function and form, not spirit and kindness as heartless men are so wont to be. An end at the end - one step closer now, a king will ascend."

Ricard signed at Ignace rapidly, "That makes sense, but only now that we know you arrived too late."

The detective raised an eyebrow. "How do you figure that?" he signed back.

"An end at the end, it means multiple things. Dead body found outside a cafe named Ultimo, and it was the last cafe you checked. Think about it," signed Ricard excitedly.

Ignace sighed and signed, "Yeah, yeah, and I found him in a dead-end offshoot of an alley too, so it all stacks together, but that doesn't fucking change the fact that I basically just wasted my time. I was fucked from the start and wasn't going to save this poor bastard because this 'tapestry' demands that I fucking show up too late."

The xatu flew up to Ricard's desk and perched itself atop a stack of books. In doing so, several more stacks fell over, though in slow motion, onto the floor and into a perfect stack again. "You are neglecting one side of this coin, Mortician."

Ignace threw the xatu an ugly look and signed furiously, "So what's the first part fuckin' mean then?"

"So falls a heartless man, bereft of function and form, not spirit and kindness as heartless men are so wont to be," repeated d'Artagnan, "It is not the role of the Conduit to explain, only to relay. I am not possessed of the knowledge you seek, only the understanding that you have not yet fully illuminated this piece of the tapestry."

Ignace threw his hands into the air and signed, "I'm going to review my evidence and turn in Ricard. I'll deal with this cryptic bullshit tomorrow. Maybe something will come to me in the pictures I took."

Ricard waved at Ignace's retreating back and then looked up at d'Artagnan. "He is rather irritable d'Artagnan, but it would not be remiss of you to be a bit kinder. Ignace has cast the worst lot of us three."

The xatu flapped its wings indignantly. "So soon you spring to the Mortician's defense, yet you let him bring the Conduit to blows."

Ricard chuckled mutely. "You are our guiding light d'Artagnan; your service is never taken for granted, cross as the heavily obfuscated information you give us may make me. But I will try to get Ignace to be a bit kinder in his words and gestures when I next see him and do the same, if you agree as well."

d'Artagnan clicked his beak again, though it was far softer now. "I shall make every effort."

Ignace flipped through the photos of the corpse on his computer disinterestedly. Papers, open anatomy books, a few old history books and compendiums of historical myths concerning Lumiose and Kalos as a whole were strewn about the apartment, their aged pages and battered covers mingling perfectly with the general squalor of the room. He had long since given up on properly using hampers for his laundry, and now his floors resembled a lumpy mess of stained carpet and lumpy clothing. Dishes were stacked about various fixtures in the room and had long since overflowed the sink. The dusty blinds over his window might as well have been boards nailed over it, he never raised them. He took another sip from his mug of coffee and rubbed his temples. Nothing about these photos seemed particularly unusual, they were just graphic products of a particularly vicious weavile. Or sneasel. He wagered anyway.

With a sigh of frustration he heaved himself out of his chair and strode to the large, wheeled corkboard that defined the center of his flat. Adorned with a large map of Lumiose and stuck with pins of the last few murders he traced invisible lines between them for the fifteenth time. No rhyme nor reason presented itself, as he expected - it seemed that the murders were not based on any sort of locational significance.

So what was he missing?

"So falls a heartless man, bereft of function and form…" he muttered. "Bereft of function and form. Heartless. Did he mean that literally? Literally heartless?" A smile split across his face. "It should be easy enough to see on the pictures I took."

It was not. With a shout of anger, he slammed his fist into his desk. "A bloody fucking mess, great. If there's a heart in there it's minced to fuck and back. And if it isn't I can't fucking tell." He pushed himself away from his desk and leaned back in his chair, groaning in frustration. "I need another fucking prophecy from d'Artagnan."

A minute later, he had barged into Ricard's apartment. "d'Artagnan, I've figured it out. Maybe. I need another prophecy to be sure. And I have to fuck up and show up late. And then I have to check the fucking chest cavity." A stone slipped into his stomach. He could at least argue that he was trying to stop murders, but this was actively letting one happen, and on a gamble no less.

Ricard gave Ignace a confused look. "I only caught a bit of that, can you say that again?" he signed.

As Ignace signed the statement to Ricard, d'Artagnan replied, "I shall do my best to remain civil if you do the same, Mortician. Is this fair?"

The detective nodded at the xatu. "Yeah, fine," he signed, "You got a prophecy for me or not?"

A long pause, and then a soft glow emanated from the eyes upon the xatu's chest. A quiet, ringing tone emitted from somewhere seemingly far away and then d'Artagnan said at last, "No. The embers flicker, casting nothing of the tapestry into relief. This isn't something so simple as fate demanding we no longer meddle however, but rather something else. A foul wind is brewing, and it will snuff out the embers that have, admittedly, rather poorly guided us. Still, better a one-eyed guide than a blind one. A force beyond my power would rather we have the latter. Or perhaps worse, none."

"So...what? What do I do?" asked Ignace flatly. "Just keep my thumb up my ass? Wait for this spooky power to just fuck us?"

"Find some kindling," replied the pokemon matter-of-factly, "Is what I wager. Feed the fire, stoke the flames and steel the embers against this bitter wind."

"What the fuck do you mean find kindling? Grab some twigs? Charcoal? What are you talking about d'Artagnan?" replied Ignace in exasperation.

The xatu replied with its approximation of laughter, a soft clicking of its beak and an odd song that hit unnatural lows. "I am the Conduit, I know precious little about the form your kindling will take. I do have something concrete to offer, however."

Ignace nodded. Attentive. Hopeful. "What?" he asked.

The laughter paused briefly and the xatu said simply, "Take a raincoat with you tomorrow. It will rain, beyond a shadow of a doubt." Ignace scowled and the laughter resumed.