When Sal came outside his Pokeball into the confines of his trainer's room, all of his teammates stared at him expectantly at the edge of the bed.
"So, uh, buddy," Harvey said, "I don't know what happened last night, but are you alright?"
Memories of the levitating Skarmory rushed back to him. Despite not knowing what would've happened if that bust did catch him, Sal nodded, having calmed down in his personal bubble.
"Good. Whatever it is, just don't overwork yourself today, okay? We have more time on our hands than yesterday, so feel free to take a break whenever." Harvey turned to pick his dirty clothes off the floor and scratched his hairy behind. "I just need to get changed, then we'll head down for breakfast."
The other three still watched over him, with Mari showing the most concern on her face.
"Right," she said, "Now we're all awake, do you mind telling us what's going on?"
Sal cradled his legs, hugging himself. "I'm not sure you'd believe me if I told you."
"Like I said, this world is strange enough as it is, so whatever you tell me won't faze me."
"Either way," Roy said with a grin, "It'll be one helluva story!"
Sal obliged and retold his story, from the bumps in the night to the bust chasing him.
"Hey," Roy said, "Wasn't this on an episode of Detective Pikachu?"
"Which one?" Mari said. "There are, like, bajillions of them."
"Ugh, who knows? But anyway, there was this one bit where the bronze bust of this dead guy started floating and harassing that Pikachu and his partner, which they spent the whole episode solving the mystery of. Turns out it was possessed by a lonely Misdreavus who just wanted some company to scare, or some kiddy crap like that."
"You reckon that's what happened?" Sal said. Roy just burst out into laughter.
"You kiddin' me? Of course not! You really take things at face value, don't you, Salmonella?"
Sal would've furrowed his brows if he had any.
"Still," Mari said, "It wouldn't surprise me if something did possess that bust right here. It doesn't sound too far-fetched, after all."
"What do Leek Pokemon have to do with it?" Roy said.
"No, you dolt. I mean the, never mind." Mari groaned as she went to sit inside her bed. She twitched her head-leaf towards Sal, gesturing for him to join her, and leaned in to whisper in his ear.
"Listen," she said, "Ignore what that clod says. If you hear whatever it is by the end of tonight, come to me and we'll check it out together. If it turns out to be a monster, my leaves will tear through them like ribbons, you hear me?"
Sal nodded. As much as he wanted answers immediately, he still had work to do for the sake of his and his trainer's future, so he decided to put that aside in favour of enjoying a good breakfast.
They met in the dining room again with a massive fruits basket in the middle of the table for all the Pokemon to enjoy. The tender berries nourished Sal after last night's scare, even spoiling him with some other exotic berries he didn't know the name of. The humans had a full plate of some other kind of breakfast, with Zed having several plates worth of food to himself. Sal watched him scarf plate after plate down, and wondered if his stomach had the same technology as his trainer's bag did. No matter how much he ate, it still looked as if a light breeze would've knocked him over.
"Well well," Elora said, slurping tea from her cup, "I heard there was a bit of commotion last night."
"Oh," Harvey said. "Sorry about that, we didn't mean to disturb you. Sal wandered off during the middle of the night and came back screaming. I don't know what he saw but something must've set him off."
"Oh really?" she said, humming to herself. "Strange. I can't say I've ever known this house to be haunted. Well, I'm sure that'll add extra points to the contest once the homeowners come here. That will make this quite the tourist attraction if it takes off." She let out a short, elegant laugh. Harvey joined her, although his laugh was more akin to a maniacal Gengar than anything belonging to a human.
Once they were done, Elora led Sal to the same study room where his equipment lay before him, untouched. The painting was as exactly as he left it. Puffles got into the same place on the desk as before. Some degree of normalcy had re-entered Sal's life at last, at least, if a Smeargle painting a realistic portrait of a mostly-mute Houndoom was considered normal.
Before Elora left, she tapped Sal on the shoulder, turning his attention towards her.
"Sal, come with me please. Puffles, you can stay there for a minute."
Sal nodded slowly, not sure where this was going, and Puffles stayed in place. The Smeargle followed the human out, and they got a few paces down the hallway before Elora suddenly picked him up by his sides, putting the two at eye level. His back was to the wall as his legs dangled in the air. Sal caught her gaze, which, for the first time, looked like it could penetrate his tiny skull.
"Don't talk to Puffles, ever. Not about what you saw, not about what he's doing here, nothing. He will attack you without warning if you do. Just do your job from now on. Is that clear?"
Sal's mouth hung ajar. He hadn't seen Elora that frazzled before.
"I repeat," she said, raising her voice, "Is that clear?"
Sal nodded his head rapidly, wanting to be free from her grasp. At last, she smiled, her lips creasing up her otherwise dainty face. Sal felt even more goosebumps prickle up than before, and she let him go back to his workspace. He stared blankly into the canvas. Why was Elora so reluctant for Sal to have a conversation with her own Houndoom if she couldn't know what the two were actually talking about? The way she picked him up as if he was her puppet made him feel small again. A few moments passed with Sal shrinking in his state before he shook his head and picked up his tail-brush. Working on the painting would take his mind off things. At this stage, he had to start working on the actual colours and refine his underpainting.
First, he blocked in the shades of the Houndoom with warmer grey tones for highlights and cooler blue tones for shadows. Getting the shapes of each of the shadow regions was important before blending. He carried on, forgetting about his previous telling-off with Elora and got into the zone again. That was, until the rumbling started once more. Not as intense as last time, as his paws didn't pick up any movement, but still listenable in the background. Sal found himself tapping his foot rapidly on the seat. With explicit instructions not to talk to his model, it was a lot harder to drown out the doom-bringing drones. As he was halfway through blending in between midtones and shadows, he sighed and tossed his equipment to one side. That drone pierced into his head all the way to his brain and festered there like some sort of disease. If he didn't find some way to drown out the noise, his head would've probably exploded. He climbed down the seat and looked to Puffles, who gazed at him with his head cocked.
"Sorry," Sal said, "I need something to put on in the background otherwise I'm gonna flip out. Feel free to stretch your legs if you need to."
Sal jumped to the door-handle, letting the Houndoom leave first before getting out himself. Vaguely remembering his trainer had a radio somewhere in his bag, Sal headed to where Roy was so he could fish through his belongings. He never knew where half his trainer's possessions lurked in there, after all.
His first instinct was to look for the back garden, if there was one, as he was sure Roy had to flex his combat muscles somehow. But with the layout of the manor looking the way it did, a convoluted mess of passages and corridors, Sal couldn't trust his own intuition.
Puffles stopped in his tracks behind him. He looked to the Smeargle and tilted his head to him, then to his back. Sal stood there for a moment, then realised what the Houndoom was trying to say.
"You want me to climb on your back?"
A nod. Sad padded over to him and slowly got on his back. Before he could properly orient himself into a comfortable position, the hulking beast of a Pokemon leaned on its hindlegs. Just in time, Sal wrapped his paws around the Houndoom's horns, hanging on as if his life depended on it. Puffles was on all fours again, and with a mighty roar, he charged through the hallway with Sal in tow. The air flew by Sal's ears, whistling around him. Soon enough, they were out of the dim corridors and into the bright, sunny landscapes. The Houndoom slowed his pace down and before Sal was allowed to soak in his surroundings, Puffles shook his body, booting the tiny Smeargle off his back. Sal groaned as he got back to his feet, giving him a view of the garden before him.
True to Roy's word, there was indeed a maze over the field, made of topiary, and even with that included, there was still a huge chunk of greenery that allowed all sorts of flowers to grow in with a different variety of colours. The scent of roses wafted lightly in the air. As for his team, Roy, Mari and Anorak were having a free for all in the wide garden area, while Harvey and Elora watched in the distance, sitting next to each other on sunbeds.
Mari shot a razor leaf at Anorak, who swung out of the way using his slingshot web, when Sal walked into the fray.
"Training, are we?" he said.
"Yup," Mari said, "We've been putting this off for way too long, so I'm glad to be working up a sweat again. So what's up?"
"I need Roy to do me a favour, if he can come with me."
"Yeah?" Roy said, loosening his shoulders, "Go on, spill it."
"Can you get out the radio for me? I think it's in Harvey's bag."
"What for?"
Sal looked to his side. He didn't want to explain he heard the noises again, so he had to settle for something less crazy-sounding.
"I just need something to listen to in the background while I'm working."
Roy shrugged and walked over to where his trainer was. He gestured to the bag and his trainer gave him a thumbs up, allowing him to fish through it. He dug his whole arm into the thing. It took a minute before he found exactly what Sal was looking for: a small portable radio he could easily perch on top of his paint cabinet. Roy handed it over to Sal, who clutched it in his paws.
"Thanks." He looked down to Puffles and nodded, aware of Elora's presence. They walked into the house again and back to the studio not long after. Puffles got back in his usual place, and Sal set up the radio on his side. It took a few knob adjustments before he found the channel he wanted, settling for classical music before continuing to paint the subject.
Something Sal didn't miss about his classes with Santa was the silence. His teacher was very strict on certain methods, like not over-blending or using more paint strokes than necessary, which was fair enough. One thing he forbade that never made sense to Sal was listening to music while he painted, as he considered it distracting and took away attention from the piece. Sal personally found he didn't listen to the music anyway and just had it on in the background, so he didn't see any harm in it. Besides, when there may or may not have been a ghost underneath the manor, the rules could've been bent a bit.
The hours flew by. At that point, Sal had finished up the main shades of the piece, giving the Houndoom in the canvas form: a tangible, living thing at last rather than just a combination of pigments on a flat surface. Any fledgling Pokemon would've stopped there. What separated the amateurs from the masters, though, were the details in the subject. Each whisker, each tuft of fur and each reflection in the subject's eyes had to be accounted for. For this, Sal had to look very closely to capture every detail in his head, like a photographic memory, to translate it onto the canvas. One piece of equipment he hadn't used in a while, but was nevertheless important to finalising the piece, was a magnifying glass. He fished it out of his toolbox and closely inspected the Houndoom's figure with it. Just in time as well, as the radio switched from its usual broadcast of orchestral tunes to the news.
"In recent news, two disappearance cases have popped up in two different regions. The first of which happened in Sinnoh, where seventy-three doctorate students in their fifth year are reported to be missing. Friends and family have expressed their worries, not seeing those affected in weeks. All that is known is each student underwent a program in secret, the details of which they were not allowed to disclose."
Sal paused to look at the radio, then looked back to the Houndoom. As long as he wasn't in the same region as them, it was none of his concern.
"And our top story today in Kanto, an entire family has also been reported missing after a week of silence, where an investigation will be commenced as soon as possible. William Daniels, the CEO of Pokemon Education and Welfare Fund, or PEWFund for short, has cut ties with his company unexpectedly and has not been heard from since. The rest of his family, including his wife, Vanessa, his two sons, Felix and Richard, and his daughter Elora have also not been heard from. Their manor in-"
Crash. Sal got knocked to the floor, bashing his head on the hard, wooden surface. It took a few seconds for him to register what had happened, but Puffles had leapt off the table and attacked the radio, knocking Sal's cabinet over. Paint tubes scattered all over the floor. Brushes rolled to the other side of the room. Meanwhile, the Houndoom wrestled with the radio in his maw, digging his fangs into the electronics before throwing it against the wall. Once a source of tranquillity for Sal, it was now just a mess of wires and loose plastic casing. Sal stood up in his haze in an effort to get the beast to stop, but the beast stared back at him, piercing through him with Death's gaze. When he realised what was happening, Sal ran towards the door in an effort to get away. The beast followed. It pounced on him, pinning him against the wall with its heavy paws, snarling at him with a set of sharp teeth, so close that flecks of spit dribbled down Sal's face. He covered his eyes, expecting the worst.
DOON. DOON. DOON.
The floor rumbled again, sending ripples through each of their bodies. The beast looming above Sal whined, releasing its grip on the tinier Pokemon. When Sal opened his eyes, he saw Puffles had tears streaming down his face. There was a hollowness to them, not blank white like before, but deep grey with a hint of red. While all of this was going on, Sal's heart pounded like a drum. He grovelled to one corner of the room, hoping Puffles had reverted back to his old self. The Houndoom padded towards the door, as each step he took echoed in the room. He stood on his hindlegs to push the door open, and gave one final look at Sal with bloodshot eyes before leaving.
DOON. DOON. DOON.
Sal groaned as he nursed his head. Not only was he reeling from the injury, the droning noise below continued, making it feel like his head had been pumped with gallons of water. He crawled to where all his equipment had scattered and picked up each piece, one by one. Sal turned to the painting, which miraculously, hadn't been overturned in the aftermath, and let out a sigh of relief.
"Bless my tail."
With all of his paints in one place again, Sal left the room. The hallway spun before his eyes, like a washing machine stuck on a full cycle. Then, the whole room tilted before him, sending him crashing towards the wall. The breakfast he ate rushed back from his stomach into his throat, and before he knew it, it spewed out his mouth. Sal collapsed, and the light left his eyes.
When he next stirred, all Sal heard were muffled voices. He guessed they belonged to his teammates as their tones of voice sounded familiar to him. His eyelids lifted up, but all he saw was black. His head pounded. The events of the spinning hallway before he fainted were all fuzzy as well.
Something gently tapped him on the cheek, and Sal's vision came back. He got up, and Sal's team stepped back, allowing him to get back to his feet and orient himself to his new surroundings. He was in the back garden again.
"Buddy," his trainer said, "I'm getting really worried about you. First, there was that incident last night, and just then, you were lying face down in a puddle of your own puke."
Sal looked down to his feet and patted all around his coat frantically. It was clean. He looked back at his trainer, who smiled weakly.
"We took care of the mess for you. But, Sal..." Harvey crawled over to the Smeargle and put his arms around him, lightly embracing him. "I'm sorry for being so selfish. I know I should've asked first before signing you up to this thing. None of your work is worth this much stress. If you're not feeling up to it, we can always call this deal off. Screw the money. We can find some other way to pay off the rent, I don't care how. Just tell me if you want to continue or not."
Harvey backed off a little and put his hands on Sal's sides. The two locked eyes with each other. In a heartbeat, Sal nodded.
"Are you sure?" Harvey said, narrowing his eyes at him. Another nod. His trainer smiled and went to hug him again, along with the rest of his team, who huddled around the two.
"Just take care of yourself, buddy. We've still got plenty of time, so finish at your own pace."
"He's almost done," Elora chimed in, standing above the team. "I saw the work he did today and all he needs to do is finalise it. However, his well-being still matters so for now, we'll call it a day. We shall regroup at the dinner table."
The team dispersed, giving Sal a view of Elora as she went back in the manor. There, he had time to soak in his surroundings, as he was back at the garden, except it had turned cloudy with gradually blackening skies in the distance. Harvey sat down, watching Sal with a worried look. Mari was the first to come up to him.
"Did it happen again?"
Sal gazed at the flats of his shaking paws.
"I don't know what's going on any more."
"Well, can you try to explain anyway?"
Sal shook his head. The memories of hours past were all a blur. There was the feeling, deep in his gut, that told him he would have to do some investigating tonight, where he would get all the answers he needed.
"Do you mind if I tell you all when we're alone?"
"But we are alone," Roy said, eye cocked.
"Later tonight, I mean. I need to think on it for a bit."
His team nodded. They all headed back inside for dinner, where they stayed at the table in silence. As usual, Zed tore through portions no human would've been able to consume by themselves. The Houndoom was nowhere to be seen. Memories of their last painting session came back to him in pieces, where Sal remembered the broadcast that set him off. Before Puffles broke the radio, there was the news report that announced Elora's name. He was willing to chalk it up to coincidence if there happened to be another Elora, but the fact the report mentioned the manor as well was too specific to dismiss.
Sal stared at Elora in front of him, or at least, tried to stare through her. He kept a close eye on the way she moved and the way she ate. Her elbows were on the table. Her face was a mess from the steak she ate. At one point, she brazenly put her dirty cutlery on the table. Sal grasped at straws at that point, just so he could get even an inkling of what was going on in the manor, but something about her table manners didn't seem to fit at all. Even last night, she made a mess of herself, looking back at it.
"Hey," Harvey said, putting a hand on his paw, "I would eat if I were you. You need to keep up your strength for tomorrow."
Sal nodded and sampled his own meal. After being sick, the dinner in front of him felt like a mountain of food instead of a balanced plate, but he chewed on, piece by piece, as he knew he had to fill his belly up once more. Thinking about mountains of food, he looked at Zed's finished plates, all stacked on top of each other like a leaning tower of porcelain, then looked to one of the doors, which he thought must've led to the kitchen. As far as he knew, Elora and Zed were the only ones in the manor. Who cooked all of that in the span of one day?
"Sho," Harvey said in the eating the last morsel of his meal, "That butler eatsh like a monshter."
"Well," Elora said, dabbing at her face with a dirty handkerchief, "He has quite the healthy appetite, after all."
"Yesh." He swallowed. "But I can't even start to imagine how much time this would've taken to cook, and I don't think there's anyone else here aside from you guys, so where's all of this coming from?"
Sal gulped. Harvey must've read his mind, or had as many suspicions as he did about Elora. The mistress flashed a nervous grin and rubbed her hands together.
"Well, er, Zed was working on it all day, um, weren't you?"
Zed nodded without so much as a blink.
"The man's gotta feed his appetite, after all!" Her accent started to slip.
"Yeah, I get that," Harvey said, pointing his fork to the two, "But how can one guy do all of this, plus our meals, plus clean-up duty afterwards? You'd need a whole team to do this sort of stuff."
Elora set her cutlery down with a clang.
"Er, well, Zed's a very dedicated butler. It doesn't matter how long it takes, he'll just do it, you know."
"All at the same time while still being good?" he said, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, I don't know much about cooking. I've lived off noodles for years now, but I've seen enough cooking shows to know you can't do both, so what gives?"
Sal noticed something flicker in Zed's form, if only for a brief second, with shades of black and red flashing by. For the first time, he thought he saw something completely different to the implacable man. Elora brought back his attention when she laughed, not the elegant, tea-drinking laugh one might've expected from her, but a kind of harsh, chain-smoking laugh. She rose to her feet, bashing her knee on the table as she nursed it, and lifted Zed by his shoulder-pads.
"Well, Zed! It looks like you've got a lot of cleaning up to do, huh?" She got behind him and pushed him towards one of the doors. "Go on, get to it! I'll bring the plates in later."
Zed made a few unintelligible noises, but before he had a chance to complain any more, Elora shoved the butler into the white void of the kitchen and shut the door, leaning against it as she sighed.
"I expect you must be done with dinner now!" she said. "How about we go continue our game? Zed will take care of the rest!"
The team collectively looked at the kitchen door, then back to the table, and reluctantly followed Elora through the corridor. Harvey and Sal exchanged glances, and both Pokemon and trainer felt like they belonged on the same wavelength. On top of his suspicions about Elora piling up, Zed's illusion started to break as well. He put that thought to one side and headed into the common room like before, waiting to see how the night would play itself out before jumping fully to conclusions. When it came time for Elora to pour the glasses for the previously-drunk duo, Sal snatched both the glasses out of their hands and returned them to the master of the house. Harvey kept his cool, although Roy looked at him, wide-eyed.
"Hey," Roy said, "What's the big idea?"
"Look," Sal said, more for the other Pokemon's sake than the human, "I'll need both of you sober tonight. I'll explain later, but trust me on this one. Besides, I think you had a bit too much last night."
Roy stared at him for a bit with those brown eyes of his, then shrugged and patted Harvey's shoulder, who smiled to Elora.
"Sorry, miss," the trainer said, "I don't think Sal here wants me drinking tonight."
"Fair enough," she said with a smirk, pouring her own glass. "That won't stop my pursuits, however." She put her mouth close to the rim and sampled the wine, smacking her lips. "This is perfectly good wine you're missing out on, I must say."
"Uh huh," Harvey said with a leer. They continued their board game campaign throughout the night, although Sal sat out to think about the rest of the night to come. With each passing moment, Sal started to notice more details about Elora. The way she spilled the wine without much care. The way she put the bottle back in the cases, not knowing where to put them at first. If Sal's suspicions were right, he would need his team to see them first hand, as not all of them seemed clued in yet.
When they returned to their rooms and bid Elora good night, his team all looked towards Sal.
"Alright," Roy said, nostrils flared, "Tell us what the hell's going on, now. None of this mysterious crap, just the raw details."
Sal took a deep breath and closed his eyes. This would be the moment where he would reveal everything he knew about the household at once, or at least, relay his hunch. He opened his eyes and exhaled. At once, he told them everything that happened up until that point: Elora's interrogation, the news report, the attack, the whole score. Then, he said this:
"All of this leads me to believe Elora and Zed are fakes, and the answers are in the basement."
The rest of his team were gob-smacked.
"Huh?" Roy said, arms crossed. "Okay, now you're talkin' crazy. If that chick isn't a part of this house, then I'm like a Machampion or something. And besides, who do you think they're really supposed to be anyway?"
"I don't know," Sal said with a shrug.
"You don't know," he said in a mocking tone.
"Hey, I know it's not much to go on, but if you've been through what I've put up with these past few days, you'd be thinking the same thing. For starters, why do you supposed she was wearing that hoodie before?"
"Because, uh," Roy said, scratching his chin, "She liked it that way?"
"So she'd disguise herself in public. If this was the real Elora, who is apparently missing, she wouldn't need to go into hiding, would she?"
"Yeah, but..." Roy continued to scratch, until he grunted and smacked at his own head. "I don't believe this! All of this is so whacked out!"
"Look, I find this all hard to believe too. But if I don't find out what's going on now, I'm going to lose my mind here. I know this is a long shot, but please, I need you all to come with me downstairs. If it'll stop that rumbling, if it'll give me some answers, I'd be very grateful if you'd all give me a paw in finding out."
They all stared at him, including Harvey. Even though the conversation fell on deaf ears with the human, having a different tongue and all, the sentiment was the same. He went up and patted Sal's head.
"I see you're worried," his trainer said. "And I wouldn't blame you; both of them are awfully fishy to me. If there's anything you want, I'm willing to help you out."
That was all Sal needed. He looked to his other teammates, offering a paw to them all.
"Well, are you with me?" he said. Mari and Anorak went up to him and put their paws together.
"I had a feeling it would come to this," Mari said, "Plus, I did offer to help you out, so I'm in."
Anorak chittered a response as well. Sal looked to Roy, who still had his arms crossed, and stared down at the set of paws. Finally, he sighed and put his hand with the rest of them as well.
"You're crazy, pal, you know that? But whatever floats your Gogoat."
"Boat," Mari corrected. They chuckled in unison and dispersed. Roy grabbed his trainer's phone, much to his surprise, but before he could protest, Roy turned on the flashlight feature. He took the bag with him and headed towards the door with his other teammates.
"Wait?" Harvey said, joining Roy as he had his bag in tow, "Are we all going out now?"
The team nodded. Harvey let out a sigh and nodded too. "Right. I'll come with. Just let me get changed first."
And so, the team trekked through the creaking hallways together with Roy pointing the torch at the front. This time, Sal had the added benefit of actually seeing ahead of him as opposed to letting his eyes adjust to the dark. They crept down the stairs, feeling ever more fragile under their collective weight. Sal led the way through the rest of the ground floor, up until the point where the corridor led to that room.
DOON DOON DOON. The rumbling continued. When Sal looked to his team, they all stared at the faraway door, wide-eyed.
"Can you hear it?" he asked.
"Y-yeah," Roy said, trembling, "I heard it."
Sal continued walking, stopping when they reached the Skarmory bust, which was on the wall once more. He backed away from it, expecting it to clatter onto the floor and chase after him again, but before he could ponder any more, Roy raised a fist at it. All it took was one punch for it to crumble into pieces; a cloud of dust emerging from its ruins. The team stared at him.
"Y, you know," he said, "J-just to be on the s-s-safe s-s-side."
Sal gestured for the rest of his team to follow, passing by the remains of the bust. Then, they stood, face to face with the door.
DOON DOON DOON. DOON DOON DOON.
The rumbling shook the foundations of the house. Sal put his paw on his chest once more, feeling the familiar burn, and took a deep breath.
"Roy, please open the door for me. I can't reach the handle that easily."
"O-okay," he said, light shaking underneath his grasp, "Sure thing."
He tiptoed to the door. The rumbles turned into tremors. Roy flung his hand away from the knob like he'd just touched a hot iron, and shuffled backwards. Harvey put his hand on the shaking Machoke's shoulder and went up to the door in his stead. He turned the handle, letting light stream into the opening, and the rumbling stopped. Mari and Sal looked to Roy, whose teeth chattered.
"I thought you were the fearless type," Mari said.
"S-shut up!" Roy said, "I'm fine with battle situations, it's crap like this I can't take, ghosts and stuff."
"Aha!" Sal said, pointing at him, "So now you believe me!"
"Whatever! Let's get goin', anyway!" They all nodded and crept down the circular stone staircase, their footsteps echoing in the narrow passage. The ground felt cold underneath Sal's feet. He couldn't see past Roy and Harvey's legs, but of what he could see, dull brown spots randomly trailed across the lower part of the walls. If he was a betting Mon, he would've guessed it was blood. There must've been a struggle.
"Pwoarr!" Roy said, pinching his nose, "What's that smell?"
"Well it's not me," Mari said.
Sal held his own paw up to his nose, as the stench of decay wormed its way into his cavities, and grimaced. If there was anything Detective Pikachu taught him about basements and odd smells, that usually meant bad news. They advanced further down the stairs slowly. The further they descended, the more chilling the air felt around Sal. At one point, he swore he could see his own breath. Either that, or it was another trick his eyes were playing on him. Eventually, they reached the lower level. All it led to was another corridor with several wooden doors on each side of the wall. Alongside Roy, Harvey checked each door, but all of them were locked. Sal listened out for the knocking again in an effort to find its whereabouts, but nothing answered his wishes. The duo turned to the rest of the team.
"We can't get into any of them," Harvey said, "And to be honest, I don't want to find out what's behind there either. I-"
The duo turned white. Their eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets. Harvey pointed his torch at something out of Sal's view, and everyone else turned around. A pair of horns greeted them.
"W-whaddya want?" Roy said, pushing himself in front of the rest of the team. "Look, you've been cute and all this time, but you hurt my pal here! And you're creepin' me out!"
With his fist raised, Roy focused his energy at the beast and shot a Force Palm at it. It dodged to one side, then pounced on the hulking mass. Roy struggled, bashing his fist at it to get out of its grasp. Then, the Houndoom looked towards the door at the end of the corridor and charged through the rest of the team, knocking them over. The beast threw itself at the frame, horns first. Wood chips flew from the where it struck. It bashed its head into the door, over and over, until it knocked it off its hinges, slamming it onto the stony floor. The rest of the team got to their feet, then followed slowly, bracing themselves for anything the Houndoom threw at them. Instead of being greeted with the horns once more, they were greeted with a purple, spectral light. It streamed from the room and into the hallway, making the otherwise dim grime of the walls glow pink.
"Okay," Harvey said as the light shook from his hands, "Now what?"
The team stood silently for a moment. They were sure whatever waited for them in that room would lead to a confrontation of some sort. The rest stepped backwards, trying to get back up the passage from where they came, except for Mari and Sal. The two stood close to each other and advanced forward.
"Hey hey, wait!" Roy said, running. "You guys aren't going on your own, I'm coming with you!"
Harvey and Anorak joined them too, and together, they padded into the room, side by side.
In front of Sal, the Houndoom sat, staring at five purple orbs, all lined in a row. The white faces etched on the black voids revealed themselves to be Gastly. They stared at each other while Sal's team looked on as spectators. One by one, the Gastly crowded around the Houndoom, enveloping it in a dark aura. One of them floated in front of the beast. It looked its usual, perpetually smiling self, then frowned, gazing at him longingly.
"Puuuuuuu. Puuuuuu-fffffff."
Its words came out in short bursts, like static repeatedly cutting out and cutting back in again.
The Houndoom looked to its side. Tears fell down and dripped onto the stony floor. Then, it tilted its head up and howled in the stagnant air. Its voice resounded throughout the room, and through each member of the team, including Sal. For a moment, he forgot about who he was, as well as his reason for coming down there in the first place, and instead, sorrow filled the void in his thoughts. He remembered a Houndoom's cries to be the cries of Yveltal themself. If what he heard upon his introduction was its death knell, then what he heard at that moment was its dirge. For the first time, in a long while, he remembered the day Santa passed on in a hospital bed from old age. The grip of his withered hands. His hoarse breaths croaking through the ventilator. His sunken, grey eyes peering at him longingly. The emotions from those memories years past trickled into his present, and Sal's face became a waterfall. His team noticed this, their eyes moist as well, and cuddled him him for comfort, although he barely noticed their presence.
"I'm sorry," a human voice said. Sal snapped himself back to reality and wiped his face to see where the voice came from. It wasn't Harvey, as he didn't sound that deep. It couldn't have been the beast in the middle of the room. Could it?
"I'm so sorry, everyone," Puffles said in the human tongue. "I couldn't protect you. I was weak." Sal's jaw dropped, as did the rest of his team. The Houndoom turned around, and when his and Sal's eyes met, he could see the soul in Puffles' eyes. They were red. Not a milky white like before, but an ember red, burning brighter than ever.
"And I'm sorry for attacking you," he continued, padding towards him. "It was too painful to me to listen on."
"Wait, hold on!" Harvey said, pointing at the talking Houndoom. "You just-"
"Spoke? Yes. I know it's a surprise after all this time. They, or rather, my family, taught me."
"So," Sal said, "It's true. That lady up there..."
Puffles sniffled, wiping his wet eyes with his paw. "Whoever she is, that isn't my owner. She must've ordered a hit of some sort against my family. I was too drugged to get the full details."
"Then." Sal pointed to the crowd of Gastly, who floated behind Puffles, casting him in a purple rim-light. "Who are they?"
"I was their pride and joy. They took me out of the streets when no one else came, taught me everything they knew, and would've gone on to give every Pokemon in the world the same gifts I had if it was up to them."
A moment passed. In place of the rumbling, the air around them filled with a low, droning noise, like electricity humming from a pylon. Sal stood up, noticing the floor was sticky. Underneath his paws, he noticed a blackened patch of wood that trailed to the side and stopped. Another patch lied adjacent to that in the shape of a human body. The stench of decay wafted from below the floorboards, even stronger than before.
"We need to get the hell outta here," Harvey said, "Forget the painting, forget all that business with the flat. Let's just vamoose and never look back."
"Then," Puffles said, padding over to him, "You'll need help. The imposter will come running after us. Not just that, that butler of hers too, he's not what he seems. All that work of his, looking human and all, is an illusion. But I'll be here to protect you, just run as fast as you can and never look back."
Sal looked to the Gastly group.
"But what about your family?"
"I can't stay." A tear streaked down Puffles' eye, which he wiped away. "If I linger on any longer, it'll end badly for all of us."
Puffles headed out of the room, craning his head for the rest to follow him. "Come on, we've got work to do. Human, turn your flashlight off, otherwise they'll spot you. Quickly now."
Harvey complied and they retraced their steps back up to the ground floor in silence. Sal's mind drifted somewhere else as his paws carried themselves. He played back the events in his head, a slideshow of random sketches, and pieced that together with what he found out. He solved every mystery with Puffles' confession save for one: why did the fake Elora kill his family? If her father was an important figure in a charity benefiting Pokemon, there certainly wasn't any bad blood. Who would go out of their way to harm anyone doing good in the world?
They advanced up to the ground floor. At first, the hallway seemed empty, looking pitch black. The team huddled close to Puffles, keeping in close contact with his tail for support. Sal listened out for anything that might've lurked around them. Nothing. Only his own breaths coming through his nostrils. Then, a heavy set of shoes pounded before them. White flashed, blinding the team as their eyes adjusted to the new light source. The light came from the impostor's torch in one pocket, who also held a fire extinguisher in her hands.
"Going somewhere, are we?" she said, her tone of voice sounding deeper than before.
"Murderer!" Puffles roared and shot a flurry of fireballs at her. She aimed the nozzle in front of her and pressed it, cancelling out each ball of fury one by one. It filled the room with gas. The Houndoom leaned forward, keeping his battle stance. Sal scrambled backwards, as did his team. Only a second later, the fire canister came hurtling towards Puffles' head from the cloud of smoke. His horns barely missed catching it. It smacked his face, sending him hurtling towards the team, with his face covered in blood. The imposter emerged from the gas with Zed, who, before the team's eyes, morphed from his suited figure and transformed into a jade-eyed monster just as tall as her. Its fur was patterned red and black, with sharp claws to go along with it, just like the one he saw at the rooftop.
Mari and Roy stood in front of the rest of the team, assuming a battle position. Force Palms and Razor Leaves flew in their direction. With one swiping motion of the monster's claw, it cancelled out each attack. Then, the two were knocked back. Before Sal could counter, something knocked the wind out of his stomach. He hurtled towards a wall and slumped to the floor. Before his vision gave out, the shadows in the hallway merged with one another. Then, total darkness followed.
