"Will you please talk to yourself more quietly?"
"Cause...Cause I said so!"
Protector of Loyalty
Chapter Seven - Cloudy with a chance of probing
Their arrival in Tilt Village was something between triumphant and just plain embarrassing.
The whole debacle of a three mile hike really had it's roots an hour earlier, when Nick woke up and saw one lone dark cloud sitting like a slither of butter on a slice of bread on the ever-blue horizon. This was apparently a bad omen, they were going to get struck by lightning at some point during the day and summoning Raikou to make the trip would just be prompting the inevitable. So he declared if he was to come on this quest with them (Ben protested it wasn't a quest but reconnaissance and privately muttered he wasn't exactly thrilled to be bringing Nick along so why not just sod it and leave him here?) they were going to walk there.
Somewhere between plank 167 and plank 172 (Both rangers were certain Nick had counted 133 at least twice) of the Booker Bridge, Summer snapped.
Their dramatic entrance to Tilt Village was therefore a bit overshadowed by Nick's wailing as he lost grip of Raikou's side and hit the dirt, as well as Ben's Staraptor squawking at him (using a few choice words that probably came from her dad if anyone, Summer recognised) from pulling out one of her tail feathers.
Pichu kinda looked like he wanted to crawl into a little hole and never come out again. Summer would've shared the sentiments had she not spent nearly three years dealing with Nick's little stunts.
She prayed to Arceus that was the end of the shenanigans.
But Arceus never was her best friend, now was he? In fact he seemed to have it out for her.
"RANGERS!"
This cry was enough to startle Raikou into a disappearing act minus his passengers (Ben was mildly disappointed - he wouldn't have minded their hapless third wheel disappearing as well). It was backed up by the pattering of little feet on the gravel coming towards them.
"If it's that little brat looking for his bouncy-ball again," Ben grumbled, adjusting his goggles on his head "I will shoot him. I have no qualms. That's what siblings are for, not rangers."
Nick gasped and pulled him aside, attempting and quite spectacularly failing to whisper urgently to him: "Ben, since you're my best friend ("Since when did that happen? I thought you were Nema's pet" Ben's mumbling retort was ignored - he appeared to be having a particularly bad day from the moment he found he just physically couldn't bring himself to get out of bed that morning), so I will give you some advice you must always carry with you to avoid immediate extermination. It's bad to wish harm upon kids! Their mothers are terrifying! Like Prinplups! Oh no! Could it be?! That little boy's older sister heard you and is going to tell their mother and their mother's going to charge out here and machete you to death and cos I'm standing next to you I'm gonna get machete'd too and WHY AM I STANDING NEXT TO YOU?!"
"Nick!" Summer stopped him from yelling any further, just in time to be barrelled into be a small child.
The child who'd barrelled into Summer appeared to be a member of whatever club declared orange was the only acceptable colour on the spectrum with Nick, as everything from his eyes to his trainers was orange. The only thing about him that wasn't orange was his faintly tanned skin and a mop of silver hair on his head. The boy running to catch up with him was slightly older, about 8 or so, wearing various combinations of blue, green and yellow with bowl-cut turquoise hair to go with it.
"She been anjuncted!" came a muffled voice, his head buried in Summer's shirt.
Summer tried to force the little boy away so she could see him better. "What? Who's been what?"
"Abducted! She's been abducted!" The other boy supplied, skidding to a halt before them.
"Abducted?" Ben startled.
"BY ALIENS!" the younger boy, who couldn't have been older than five, wailed.
Well, I think you can see where this was going.
"ALIENS?!" Nick actually wailed louder than the bawling five-year-old "Oh no! Could it be?! The destruction of the Wireless Tower caused aliens to loose contact with the world leaders and so have started abducting people to torture for information and this poor girl's currently trapped inside their mothership being PROBED and we're all gonna be next if we don't—!"
Summer slapped a hand over Nick's mouth before he could upset the child further. "Don't mind him, he tends to talk in paragraphs." She told the rather confussled (Nema's new favourite word of the week - it was slowly growing on Summer) eight-year-old and distressed five-year-old.
"But they were aliens!" the younger boy sobbed "In alien pods!"
Summer froze. Alien pods? Pods like the ones she saw yesterday at the Wireless Tower?
"Okay, let's start this again" Ben meanwhile cut in "First all of, who are you two and who's been abducted."
"I'm Icarus, and that's Hope" the older boy informed them "And it was Hope's sister. Her name's Lakia. She's got silver hair and she's yay tall." He demonstrated how tall she was by holding his hand about level with his own head.
"Thank you" Ben looked a bit relieved to finally be getting something he could work with "Now, does Lakia run away a lot? Has she told you about plans to run away from home?"
"She didn't run away!" Hope wailed, pulling at Summer's jacket as if to hold her attention. "Aliens anjuncted her!"
"No she wasn't" Ben scoffed and Summer winced in sympathy for the child - on days like this empathy was not Ben's strong suit. "There's no such thing as aliens." Nick sucked in a scandaled breath, sounding like he was about to yell 'blasphemy'. "And before you start insisting there are, if there are aliens out there, they have better things to be doing than kidnap your friend. So, if you please, can you give us any information on where you believe your friend might go if she ran away or otherwise give up the ghost."
Summer was pretty sure that what he meant to say was "quit with the prank", but on an off day she often muddled phrases too. It was probably all the same to a child anyway.
"But she wasn't kidnapped by ghosts!" Alright, maybe not "It was aliens! In pods!"
"What did these pods look like?" Summer cut in before Ben could interject.
Ben's ticked off look turned on Summer now. "Oh come on! Don't tell me you're believing this."
Summer made a motion towards him clearly telling him to zip it and let Icarus talk.
"We were playing by the Daybreak Ruins" Icarus explained, barely stopping for breath as he spoke at a speed only rivalled by Nick "Our ball got stuck on top of some rocks and Lakia went up to get it, but next thing we know these two big black egg thingies come whizzing down from the sky like zoom, zoom, zoom! And then one of them opened and something just leaned out a grabbed her like snap!" On 'snap!' he clutched his arms to his chest as if snatching something. The action made Hope shudder and dampen Summer's shirt with more sticky tears. "And then whoosh! They both disappeared into nowhere!"
Summer swallowed as her throat felt dry as the Almia desert by now. It was so clearly the TinMen they may as well call up now and confess to the crime. But worse - it was obvious they *were* kidnapping people. Had she suspicions been correct when she suggested Colette's little friend had been kidnapped?
She made a mental note to make a survey of who was missing from the islands. If they were kidnapping people left and right, these guys were worse than anything they'd faced - even the Societea.
She looked over at Ben, who was still clearly not convinced by these claims, but the second they made eye contact his snooty 'I know better than you' look faded into 'Are you sure?'
'Positive' was her wordless reply 'These are our guys.'
He didn't need her to say it out loud to understand her. She thanked Arceus that, despite what they'd gone through, they hadn't lost that special connection that let them know what the other was thinking.
"You said she was kidnapped by the Daybreak Ruins?" Summer double-checked.
"Anjuncted" Hope tearful corrected her.
"By aliens!" Nick felt the insufferable need to add on. Ben elbowed him in the back discreetly so the children couldn't see.
"Well we'll go and find them and bring her home" Summer announced "I promise you - we'll get her back."
Hope cheered and did a funny little victory dance, which looked like a cross between the can-can and the Macarena. Icarus just gave him a strange look.
"Don't make promises you can't keep" was Ben not so subtle mutter.
Summer sighed and wished she had one of those berries that made her Dad really hyper and stay up all night - those were probably the only things that would snap him out of this funk. You'd think after more then two years of this she's be used to it by now.
"One last thing, any chance she can get herself out of this?" Summer tried, a last ditch effort of avoiding this quest. If it wasn't a solid lead on tracking the TinMen down and Lakia was capable of rescuing herself, then they'd be wasting time and Ben would be sure to remind her of that for the next forty years.
Icarus shrugged. "Maybe. If she developed this little thing called intelligence. Which she won't."
Summer sighed. "Right. Time to initiate Plan B."
"Plan B?" Ben frowned "When was Plan A?"
"Plan As never work, so I'm just skipping to B" Summer explained briefly, waving an arm at him in a dismissive motion "We go to the Daybreak Ruins and look for clues. If she's not there, we start searching the skies."
"You better not make me carry Sea-Weed Head!" was Staraptor's very useful comment on the plan.
"Alright" was Ben's only reply, but it betrayed every bare inch of snark her could possibly out into one word.
"But it's aliens! We're gonna be probed!" was Nick's comment.
All three of them were duly ignored.
"Pica!" Pichu cheered and strummed at his ukulele.
Now that was the reaction Summer was looking for!
"I'm gonna make you pay! Once I get out of here you're going to regret the day you ever came face to face with Lakia Ryneski!"
Taska rolled her eyes, trying to gather the rest of her pink hair so she could crest another pigtail.
"I know!" she grumbled around the scrunchy in her mouth "I heard you the past thirteen times!"
Ugh, why did they have to bring this sniffling brat along anyway? It was only distracting them from their true mission. But no, His Majesty was a toy to play with, and whilst Taska was more than happy herself to zoom off to the nearest toy store and get him a whole trunkful of Pokedolls, orders from up the food chain commanded her to get the real deal.
But couldn't they have at least grabbed the smaller one. The most he would've done was cry, rather than force her to listen to the same two sentences reverberating through the halls of HyakuJûRoku.
She frowned for the zillionth time that day, her train of thought switching onto a familiar track. She really needed to convince someone that calling HyakuJûRoku the Japanese name of it's frequency code: 166 (rumoured to be the result of their combined ages, though Taska wasn't the only one who protested this scenario) as really just a bit of a cop-out and nightmare to type into the computer multiple times. It wasn't the first time she'd raised her placard about it, but last time her protests were shot down the moment the replacement name 'The Death Star' was brought up.
Sigh, sooner they conquered the world the better was all she could say.
"And then I'm gonna bust outta this cage and then I'm gonna whack you in the nuts and then I'm gonna grab the controls and then I'm gonna crash this floating—"
"Will you please talk to yourself more quietly, I'm trying to figure out what to do with you" Taska complained, shooting Lakia a glare. In return, Lakia stuck her tongue out at her. The pink-haired woman snorted and proceeded to blatantly ignore the girl now.
Why were they keeping her in the bridge in again? And in the Houndoor cage at that? Why not just throw her in with the little master and have done with it already?
Right, cos they have to scan a sector of ocean and it was more practical to deal with it when they had to hover still anyway, rather than take valuable time away from steering this bleedin' thing.
To hell with practically, she was tempted to say.
...
How long has this soliloquy been going on for now?
"HyakuJûRoku, this is Beta calling from Mainland, over."
Well, it ends now.
With the fury of a women far worse than having a seven-year-old girl for the past twenty minutes, Taska slammed down the button to open the microphone. "Beta, this is HyakuJûRoku, over."
"HyakuJûRoku, how are you coping over there, over."
Alright, that did it.
"No for the record I am not coping!" Taska bellowed back down the line loud enough to cause the speakers on the other end of the line to crackle "I have been up for three days trying to hold this bloody ship together, taking down towers with plasma guns that have probably been recycled from the Stone Age, having my aim insulted by a youth, dealt with You-Know-Who-Who-Is-Not-Voldemort for more time than the average psychiatrist recommends, bent to the beck 'n' call of a certain psychic being cos someone thinks a woman should have the job, I've been having the most horrendous stomach cramps ever since we left land and now you're making me babysit a snot-nosed mouthy brat! So no, I am most certainly not coping, over!"
There was a well-deserved silence on the other end of the line, as if they were generous enough to let Taska get her breath back. Even the little brat in the corner was silent for once. But before she could say she had truly recovered, an amused chuckle drifted from down the line.
"Well HyakuJûRoku, that was quite the show. But I hope I don't have to inform Our Leader of your show of disrespect towards a senior partner, over."
Taska blanched and quickly called back, gritting her teeth just a little bit "No sir. I apologise sir, over."
"That's a bit better."
Yes, teeth definitely gritted how the threat had passed.
"HyakuJûRoku, this is a reminder of your mission objective to scan Sectors 492, 495 and 489, both land and water, over."
"That is affirmed Beta, over" Taska responded, rolling her eyes just a bit. Yes she knew her mission - it was written up there on the screen for Arceus' sake. This was clearly just another opportunity to get a rise out of her, and to make it look like she wasn't the only one doing any work.
"That is, if you're able to cope with such a mission. We wouldn't want to overburden you, over."
'Grin and bare it, grin and bare it' she told herself "No sir. We are quite capable of carrying out this task, over."
"Glad to hear it HyakuJûRoku. This is Beta, over and out."
Taska released the microphone button and banged her head into the side of one of the monitors. Thankfully it stayed in place rather than shifting and contributing to her embarrassment.
"...When my stomach feels unwell my mummy gives me calpol."
Taska took a deep breath before she decided she was capable of responding in something that wasn't a ribbon of endless expletives.
"This requires something a little more heavy-duty than calpol" Taska informed the girl. Glancing over at her, she was now just confused. An improvement over screaming. "Give it a few years, you'll come to understand. It's hell from here on in."
"Wheh-heh-heh! Look who got chewed out by Master Superior!"
Okay, she could grin and bare her so called 'superior'. She could deal with Rohoneigh's creepy attitude and scathing remarks. She could deal with the little brat and her wails of revenge. But her pestilence tethered out at this one.
Lakia actually screamed as someone jumped down from an open hole in the ceiling where the tile had fallen out. Said person flipped down and landed in a crouch with both hands on the floor for stability.
And if she hadn't screamed at his manner of entrance, she certainly did at his face.
Words. Words etched deep, diagonally across his otherwise pale twenty-something-year-old face. Words that scittered across his blue left eye in a grotesque scribble and up into his blond hairline and below the collar line of his cloak. But they weren't words in any scripture anyone of that dimension knew, nor were they ink. These were far more than a tattoo. They radiated a power that held the gaze of anyone who looked upon them, put there by something far more powerful than a tattoo-artists' pen.
"If you do that again, Freak, I will bury you in concrete and chuck you off the side of this ship" Taska declared her warning, a warning not unlike ones she'd laid down before in the far too long time they'd been working together.
If there was a flicker of fear on the new arrival's repulsive face at any point, it was gone before either of the girls could register it. "Now Tassie, you know you love me too much to do that!"
"Misha, what are you doing here, you'd supposed to be guarding the perimeter!" she scolded.
She got an eye-roll in return. "Yeah, but that's what the foot soldiers are for."
"The foot soldiers that we sprung from their police cells for walking on the Bicycle Path!" Taska reminded him "They're not qualified to guard the keys to their own cells let alone the perimeter!"
The scarred man - Misha - pouted as he stood up, his back bent over forwards in a clear hunchback position. "You're all work and no fun, Tassie. What happened to the little girl with pink hair who wanted to be a model?"
"She grew up" Taska informed him, turning away to face the controls again to try and hide how much of an impact that question had made "Something you clearly haven't done despite the fact you've had a good deal longer to do it."
"Help! Help me please!" Lakia pleaded, throwing herself against the bars of the Houndoom cage, orange eyes wide and directed towards Misha.
"Who, me?" Misha pointed at himself, and Lakia tried to ignore the fact the scary writing was on his hand too.
"Yeah, you!" Lakia insisted, seeming to have forgot she was make this appeal for help directly in front of the one who'd kidnapped her in the first place "You gotta get me outta here!"
"Why?" Misha challenged her, making it sound like an actual question.
Lakia face screwed up, as if she hadn't been expecting to answer that. "Cause...Cause I said so!"
"Let me guess, your mummy taught you that" Misha chuckled, taking in Lakia's deflated expression.
"Yeah" she admitted.
Had Lakia been a little older and more worldly-wise, she may've recognised the nostalgic look in Misha's eyes. "I used to have a daughter like you. Her mother's girl in every way. 'Cause I said so' was her favourite phrase."
"Well, if you're done with your trip down memory lane" Taska interrupted him, changing the ship's heading ever so slightly "There's a perimeter out there and it needs surveying. What with those rangers snooping around, you can't be too careful."
"Wow, for years this organisation has struck hope and fear into the hearts of the masses and we are now hiding from two teenagers" Misha snarked "I'm thinking we should bail out, start our own secret organisation bent on mass destruction: Pinky and The Man With The Not-So-Dragon Tattoo."
That got a laugh out of Lakia. It grated on Taska's ears.
"Perimeter! NOW!" she ordered "Or you're going in the concrete!"
Misha stuck her tongue out at her back before whispering - or Misha-whispering anyway, which was more like stage whispering - to Lakia. "If she gets grumpy, call her Pinky and ask who the brain is. Makes your day feel so much better."
"MISHA! PERIMETER!"
"Right! Fine! I'm goin'! I'm goin'!"
"This is pointless, this stupid" Ben muttered, kicking his feet as he followed a long way behind Nick and Summer on their way to the Daybreak Ruins.
"We should be protecting Oblivia for those who seek to do it harm" he grumbled, kicking a stone over the cliff into the ocean below "Not gallivanting after some dumb kid who got herself lost."
There was a little part of his brain telling him off at the moment, scolding him that he shouldn't be thinking these thoughts and he was being mean, cruel and unreasonable. Even Staraptor had flown ahead, refusing to out up with his foul mood. But all he could feel was what felt like Groundon itself pressing down on his shoulders, trying to sink him in, and all he wanted to do was burry himself in bed for a few hours or a few days and wait for it to shift as quickly as it had come about him. But he couldn't do that - Oblivia was at stake (when was it not?) - and if the only way of him dealing with that titanic weight was grumbling and moaning about every little detail, then so be it. He was much more useful out in the field than wallowing in bed.
"Stupid bloody bad guys, blowing up bleedin' towers" he grumbled on "Should've just stayed at home."
Up ahead, Summer was dragging Nick along (the reason she was dragging him along) explaining for the millionth time the people in the so-called pods were not aliens and no they were not going to probe him, experiment on him or force him to do anything vaguely sexual and since had this become Close Encounters 2?
"Definitely should've stayed at home."
"Where light'ing, fire and ice surroundin', where de rainbow bird awakes acirclin', were eons fly 'cross de shimmerin' sky, not once bet twice darkness will come."
"Eh?" Ben glanced back over his shoulder. "Someone there?"
Someone was there, though Ben swore he hadn't been there when he passed those rocks the first time. But he was sure there now. A boy, less than ten, raven-black hair.
Had he seen this kid before? Surely not. Surely he wouldn't remembered someone prading around in aboriginal clothing and with a look like that in their eye. Look that made you want to bow down to them - though Ben was most certainly not doing that.
"What?" Was all he could say. Had anyone else been in his position I doubt they would've said much else.
"Second time darkness come aplund'rin'" the boy went on, as if reciting something in a heavily accented voice "And the de'd will rise awalkin', de psychic heroes come arumblin', to stop de sky from here atumblin'."
With an air of finality, the boy faded away, as if he was no more than a harmless projection.
Ben blinked.
He blinked again.
There was boy.
Standing right there.
And now he wasn't.
Great Arceus - two years on this blasted archipelago with these morons had finally driven him round the bend.
...
It was surprising to him it had taken so long.
"FOR THE LAST TIME NICK, WE ARE NOT GONNA BE PROBED!"
Well that snapped him back to reality.
"Someone's gonna end up dead" he sighed, trudging after the hastily disappearing figures, trying to forget about the weird boy and his weird clothes and his weird poem and just focus on how dark the world looked. "By the end of this whole saga, there will be a body, and I'm not burrying it."
After all, the world looked very dark from where he was standing.
From his vantage-point Owari clicked his tongue, wondering why the message had been delivered to Natsuya of all people and not Summer. But who was he to challenge the way the Messenger of Prophecies chose to work? Maybe it all tied into the grand scheme of things. Maybe only Arceus knew.
He just wished Ben's last statement hadn't been so frightening true.