Saylee—Pokémon: 9 Deaths: 3
Key—Pokémon: 7 Deaths: 0
(See the bottom of the chapter for team rosters)
{Jinua 4th, 3:18 pm}
{Eterna City}
Eterna seemed about as large as Jubilife, but the buildings weren't as tall and they were spread out, with more space given over to grass, trees and flowers, giving Eterna a much airier, more natural feel. On entering the city, a police officer requested that they keep all Pokémon inside of their pokéballs and those pokéballs hidden as a preventative measure against a rash of mysterious Pokémon kidnappings, so Saylee, Key, Di and Cheryl returned all of their Pokémon to their pokéballs—even Caelin, under protest.
Cheryl immediately rushed off to the Pokémon Centre, with Di following after agreeing to meet Saylee and Key in front of the Galactic Corp building at sunset.
"You can't miss it," the ranger said, pointing north. "It's that giant ugly monstrosity up at the far end of the city."
"Monstrosity seems like a good word for it," Key agreed as she and Saylee walked towards the Galactic Corp building, scoping it out before returning to find the gym. It really was hard to miss, completely ill-fitting as it was to the aesthetic of the rest of the city. Only about half of the height of the building was actually building; on top of it was some kind of huge silver sphere with spikes protruding from it and a glowing yellow ring spinning steadily around it.
"What even is that?" Saylee asked, staring up at it. "Aside from ugly as sin? ACK!"
Someone crashed into Saylee hard, sending her sprawling. "Aw no! I am so sorry!" a frantic voice said. "Oh! Hey! It's you again!"
"You're that kid," Saylee realized as the lanky blond boy offered her a hand back up and Key bent over laughing. "From Oreburgh…?"
"Yeah! We seem to run into each other a lot eh?" the blond said bashfully. "Or I run into you! I'm seriously so so sorry!"
"Don't worry, it was an accident," Saylee said, trying to surreptitiously rub her elbow, which was sore from banging into the ground. "We should probably introduce ourselves properly if you're gonna keep knocking me over. I'm Saylee."
"And I'm Key," Key giggled, shaking the boy's hand. "What's your name?"
"Barry!" the kid said, straightening his green scarf. "Tell you what! I'll make it up to you by showing you something really cool! C'mon!" He grabbed Saylee and Key both by the hand and ran off, tugging them down the road. Saylee and Key glanced at each other, laughed, and then ran along with him.
"What are you going to show us?" Saylee asked.
"The Pokémon statue! I hear it's really cool!" Barry said, pulling them up the steps to a plateau. He stopped sharply, staring at the bronze statue ahead of them and the person staring at its base. "What the…?"
Saylee yanked her hand out of Barry's and stepped defensively in front of him the moment that she saw the blue-haired, cold-eyed man in the long grey coat standing in front of the brass statue. She didn't register much of the statue, focused entirely on the man who was making her blood boil. She saw Key reach for her pokéballs and grabbed the blonde's arm to stop her. Even Caelin isn't strong enough just yet to do anything about that Sneasel that he had before, and it's probably not his only Pokémon. We can't fight this guy right now, not in a Pokémon battle. She inched her hand into the pocket inside of her coat pocket, the one where she kept her utility knife. If it comes to it, though, he's not going to get a chance to go for his Pokémon.
"...So, this is Eterna's Pokémon statue..." the man mused aloud, staring at the statue without registering their presence. "Shaping our world are time and space in an intertwining spiral. Revered in Sinnoh are the Pokémon of time and space..."
"Who's that guy?" Barry said, confused. Saylee and Key ignored him, glaring at the blue-haired man. "Do you know him or something?"
"Sinnoh's myth..." the man mused, looking down and then turning to walk away from the statue. "Its truth needs investigation..." He walked towards them, not really seeming to see them until he was almost on top of them. "…Pardon me. Stand aside," he ordered. Saylee pushed Key and Barry back, glaring at the blue-haired man the whole time. He didn't look at them, not really; his dead eyes slid over them, but it was clear that he didn't recognize them from before and had already forgotten their faces before he stepped off of the plaza.
Saylee grabbed her Pokégear, dialled the Sinnoh police number and got put through to the Eterna station. "I'd like to report the sighting of a reported Pokémon-killer," she said, rattling off the case number of Sean's death and the description and location of the sighting while Key and Barry watch the guy walk away, the former looking angry and the latter confused.
"Thank you for the report, Sar," the officer on the other end said. "We'll dispatch officers to take him in immediately and inform you on any developments."
"Thank you," Saylee said, hanging up but feeling uneasy. I can't take that guy right now, and I'm here for Galactic, not him, so it's not my job to arrest him. But if what Di said is true and the police are corrupt, can I count on them to bring him in and prosecute him properly…?
"That was weird," Barry decided, then turned back to the statue with a shrug and a grin. "Anyway! Check it out! How cool is this?" He gestured to the huge bronze statue. "It's the Pokémon statue!"
Saylee stared at the statue for a good long while, trying to figure out what it was. It didn't quite look like any Pokémon that she'd ever seen before. Its head had a long protrusion at the back, and it had a lengthy, spiky tail. She wasn't sure if it was bipedal or just a quadruped on its hind legs. Round orblike protrusions and sharp spikes extended from its body at random points.
On the statue's plinth was a pair of plaques. They had been violently scratched and scarred, making them all but indecipherable.
"Who the hell would do something like this?" Key complained, peering at the plaques. "Vandalizing a gorgeous statue like this is just the worst…"
"Creation of Dia…" Saylee murmured, crouching down to look closely at the plagues. "…giver of... time…? In lau… laughter… and, likewise… the same time… blessing of Dia…" She shook her head. "It's too scratched-up to make it out properly." The other plaque was in similar condition.
"Ceez! That's awful!" Barry complained. "I bet they said something cool! Like old poetry or something! Oh hey!" He spun around to face them with a huge grin on his face. "When we smacked together a brilliant flash of inspiration came to me! An easy way to become a great Trainer! Yeah! That! All right! Listen close..."
"We're listening," Saylee said patiently.
"Make certain all your attacks hit!" Barry declared, as if he was sharing a mighty revelation. "Avoid enemy attacks for sure! You do that and you'd never lose! You'd be the invincible Trainer! Anyway… gotta go tell my friends about the Pokémon statue. See you around!" He shot off at top speed.
"You could probably power a small city off of that guy," Key commented as they watched him go. Saylee let out a breath that she hadn't realized she was holding as she watched the boy run off in the opposite direction to where Cyrus had gone. "You okay? That was really tense for a minute… who'd have expected him to be here? He didn't recognize us, did he?"
"No," Saylee said, shaking her head, knowing that Key was referring to the dead-eyed man. "I doubt he even remembers that he murdered Sean. I doubt it's the kind of thing that matters to someone like him…" She clenched and unclenched her fists a couple of times. "I wanted to punch that guy so much, you wouldn't believe. I swear I thought my heart was going to stop, seeing him when Barry was right there…"
"Are you sure Barry's going to be okay, running off on his own like that?" Key said with concern. "You said that dead-eyed man is particularly a threat to Dawn and Lucas, and I'm guessing Barry too?"
"They went off in different directions," Saylee said, shaking her head. "Besides, for now… we're still not strong enough. Even if his Sneasel hasn't got any stronger than it was at Lake Verity… Silver has a Weavile that he raised from a Sneasel. I know how they grow. That one was tough, much tougher than we are now, without our older Pokémon." She bit her lip as she stared at the scratched-out inscriptions on the base of the statue. "Why was he interested in them…?"
"In what?" Key asked, staring up at the statue. "Do you know what that thing is, anyway?"
"I don't know what that is," Saylee said gesturing to the statue, "but the inscriptions… one mentions 'Dia' and time, and the other mentions 'Pal' and space. I'm pretty sure that they're talking about Dialga and Palkia, guardians of time and space."
"What's that mean, guardians?" Key asked curiously.
"Guards and creators," Saylee explained. "Dialga… other Pokémon can travel in time, like Celebi, but only Dialga can actually control it, and it has the duty to make sure that time goes in one direction at a uniform pace. Just the same, Palkia can warp space to create wormholes or distorted, unreal spaces, and it's Palkia's job to make sure that exactly that doesn't happen."
"Y'know, the damage to these looks recent," Key pointed out. "There are probably people around here who know what they said."
"Yeah, but with everything going on in Eterna, I don't want to take the time or risk asking around," Saylee said, shaking her head. "Hey, your friend Aggie; does he study all legendary Pokémon or just the Hoenn ones?"
"If it was around and causing trouble four thousand or more years ago, he knows about it," Key said, getting out her pokégear. "Pretty sure he's in Sinnoh just now on an internship. I'll give him a call."
{Jinua 4th, 4:35 pm}
{Eterna Gym, Eterna City}
"The creation of DIALGA, The giver of time... In laughter, there is tears... And, likewise it is with time. The same time flows on. For it is the blessing of DIALGA.
The birth of PALKIA. The creator of parallel dimensions... Alive, yet not alive... Everything drifts in space... To arrive in the same universe. It is the blessing of PALKIA."
Saylee read over the words that Aggie had texted her while Stan Wing Attacked his way through Gardenia's gym. Something about the words kept bugging her, and the statue itself. Why combine Dialga and Palkia in the same statue? And why just the two of them? Gods tend to either be in a triad or be master of one. Dialga and Palkia aren't master over anything, except for everything. So what's the third member? Arceus? Is there a third member at all? What did that man mean by the "truth of the myth"? What is he planning?
And that woman…
Saylee and Key had headed back towards the Eterna gym after Barry had left. In front of the Galactic Corp building, however, they had been stopped by a gorgeous woman with the longest blonde hair that Saylee had ever seen.
"Excuse me, I'm looking for a man named Cyrus. Have you seen him?"
"What does he look like?"
"He has dark blue hair, kind of a big forehead, often wears a long grey coat—"
"Him!"
"Yes, I have some very pressing questions for him. Have you seen him?"
"He was—"
"Not recently, sorry…"
The woman had hurried off, leaving Saylee to breathe a sigh of relief when she went in a different direction than they had seen Cyrus go. Key had taken one look at Saylee's face and instantly picked up why.
Four now, Saylee thought with a sigh as she and Key climbed onto the moving hands of the beautiful and elaborate floral clock. What is it with this country? Four avatars, not counting Silver, and a man running around who's a danger to all of them. We just came to find that bloody idiot Archie, and… balls, he's one too…
They stepped off of the clock and found themselves on a smooth, regulation-sized battlefield covered with grass and surrounded by trees and bushes. An orange-haired young woman in a green cape with brown cargo pants was crouched at the far end, tending the leaves on a Turtwig.
"Tarhe!" Terra called from Key's arms. "How are you?"
"Hey, Terra!" Tarhe replied. "You're with a human now?"
"No, I am still with my lady," Terra said. "She's just in a pokéball right now because they wouldn't let us in with an open flame."
"Ma belle princesse was not pleased about that," Belle commented from her perch on Saylee's shoulder. "Shall we finish this and be on our way?"
"Yeah, it's getting dark," Basma agreed. She was sitting on Key's shoulder, but hopped off to go play in some of the flowers growing around the battlefield.
"Hey, don't talk like it's going to be easy!" the Leader laughed, standing up. She had bushy ginger hair and an enthusiastic smile. "Although, you do have a winning aura… this could be fun! Alright, I'm Gardenia, and this is Tarhe! Let's do this!" Tarhe plodded forwards onto the battlefield. "Who am I fighting?"
"That'll be me!" Key said, flinging out Stan's pokéball, "and Stan! Wing Attack!"
The battle was, thankfully, quick; Stan's flight made it almost impossible for Gardenia's Pokémon to hit him, while his Wing Attack devastated first Tarhe, then a Cherrim, and finally a Roserade. The Roserade, Blodwen, lasted the longest, her Magical Leaf chasing Stan around the high glass ceiling of the greenhouse gym.
"Beautiful, is it not?" Belle sighed.
"D'you think we'll ever be Roserade like that?" Basma said in quiet awe.
"Of course, pétale," Belle said, watching Stan strike Blodwen down. "But we shall be much stronger than that poor flower. Is that the battle won?"
"It is!" Gardenia gasped, returning Blodwen. "Amazing! You are good, aren't you?" She jogged across the field towards Saylee and Key, digging in a pocket of her cape. "I might've said it before, but you're really tough! Wasn't it hard for you to raise your Pokémon to be so good?"
"Not when they're already pretty awesome," Key said, stroking Stan's beak while the Staravia preened proudly.
"I guess that's a measure of how much you love your Pokémon," Gardenia laughed, holding out a silver-and-green badge made up of three green squares tilted like diamonds. "In recognition of that, I proudly grant you this! The Forest Badge!"
"Great!" Key said, opening her coat and pinning it next to the Coal Badge, under her eight Hoenn badges. Gardenia's eyes bugged. "Now, I need to ask you about your previous challengers."
"Key's the Hoenn Champion, and I'm Sar Saylee of Kanto," Saylee explained, shaking Gardenia's hand and showing her dragon emblem. "I know challenger information is meant to be confidential, but we have some questions that we need you to answer."
"Wow, no wonder you're so strong!" Gardenia gasped, putting her hands on her hips. "What do you need?"
"We need to know if you've recently faced a certain challenger," Saylee asked. "A tall, fairly buff man with black hair and a Hoennian accent. He might've had a Piplup, or a Shinx or Luxio... Does that ring any bells?"
"Well… there was this guy who was tall and had those Pokémon, though he didn't have that hair or accent," Gardenia said thoughtfully. "He had the most insane Luxio I've ever seen. She wiped out my entire gym! An electric-type!"
"Did he have a Coal Badge?" Saylee asked.
Gardenia nodded. "I recommended he go to Hearthome next, but I don't know if he was going that way."
"When was that?" Key asked quickly.
"Hmmm… six days ago?" Gardenia hazarded. "That sound like who you're looking for? Who are you looking for?"
"Archibald Irving," Saylee said, bringing up the wanted poster on her Pokégear.
Gardenia peered closely at the picture, her eyes widening. "That was him!" she exclaimed, shivering. "Can't believe we had a guy like that in my gym! No wonder his Luxio was nuts!"
"Well, we're glad to hear he didn't do any permanent damage," Saylee said, closing the wanted poster. She noticed the time on the corner of her Pokégear display. "Crap! We got here well later than we meant to. We're late to meet Di. Come on, let's go!"
{Jinua 4th, 7:11 pm}
{Eterna City}
"I hope she didn't go in on her own…" Saylee said, looking around as they paced in front of the Galactic Corp building. Di and Pearl were nowhere to be found in the gloom, and in fact there wasn't even a visible entrance to the building, just stone walls as high as their elbows with six feet of dense hedge growing on top.
"Yeah, a dozen missing rangers just sounds like trouble for her," Key agreed, releasing Zoran. Saylee released Zoe. "You guys go scope out the Galactic building, okay?"
The Zubat flew over the hedge and around the building while Saylee and Key crept along the hedged walls. Saylee ran her hand along the hedge as they went. She was surprised to feel a sudden give in the dense hedge. "Hey, look," she said, pushing her hand through. "Somebody's cut through here…" she pushed the pile of loose leaves through and hauled herself up to climb through the hole left behind. She helped Key from the other side, then pushed the leaves back into place. In the dark, the gap in the hedge was unnoticeable.
Zoe and Zoran flew down to perch on their trainers' shoulders. "This place is kinda way bigger than the Windworks…" Zoran began nervously.
"There's too many people and Pokémon and machines and walls inside," Zoe added. "It's too confusing."
"That's okay, you did your best," Saylee said, scratching Zoe's ears. The little blue Pokémon grinned widely.
"Oh, but there's two humans going in a window around the back," Zoran added.
"Two? Has Di got backup?" Saylee asked, following Zoe and Zoran as they flew off around the building. They spotted a guy standing on a Camerupt's back and pushing a girl through a high open window.
"What the—" Key exclaimed before slapping her hands over her mouth to quiet herself. "Bacent, Ledah, what the hell are you doing here?" she hissed. "Is Rob with you? What the actual hell?"
"Hey, it's Key!" Bacent whispered, giving Ledah a last push. She vanished through the window. "Rob decided to hang back at the gym. Heir to the Leadership and all, unless you've changed your mind on that. Hey, it's Saylee too! What're you guys doing here?"
"I mean, obviously, we're here stealing stuff," Ledah hissed, leaning through the window and reaching down a hand to help someone up, nearly invisible in the dark between her black hair and a black mask covering the lower half of her face. "We heard that these guys were stealing Pokémon and decided to bring the karma. Plus, this corporation got big and rich fast. I bet we can find ourselves some account numbers and offshore account our way into the big money."
"They're not just stealing Pokémon," Saylee muttered, watching Key get a boost up from Bacent to take Ledah's hand. "A dozen rangers that've tried to investigate this place have gone missing…"
"Heh, I bet they were the ones who cut that nifty hole in the hedge," Bacent grunted, pushing Key through the window. The Champion pulled Saylee and then Bacent through onto the pile of packing crates on the other side, then Ledah leaned out of the window again and returned her Camerupt before they climbed down the pile of boxes.
At the bottom, Saylee and Key released Caelin, Terra, Sally and Leo. Ledah released Quillamina, her red Sandslash, and Bacent released Gavian, who had apparently evolved into a Houndoom since Saylee and Key had seen him last. The flame on Caelin's tail lit up the room a little, enough for them to make out that it was a bog-standard storage room, with packing crates strewn about and a few racks of ugly grey uniforms.
"Alright, let's have a look," Ledah said, trying the door. "Huh, it's not locked…" She peered out into the corridor and immediately shut the door again. "Shit, one of them's coming down the hall!"
"C'mon, Key," Saylee hissed, pressing her back to the wall next to the door and releasing Belle. Key imitated her with Basma. "The rest of you, be distracting, okay?"
"We're good at that," Quillamina promised.
The door creaked open a moment later and a green-haired Galactic grunt rushed in with a large cloth bundle in his arms. He immediately spun and hissed, "Wait! Do not be startled!" as Saylee and Key stepped forwards with Belle and Basma set to stun.
"Why the hell not?" Saylee asked, pausing only because the voice did seem vaguely familiar.
The grunt pulled off a fake nose and some face putty. He was sweating so badly that they were starting to peel anyway. "It is I, Agent Looker!" he whispered urgently. "As an agent of Interpol, I am also master of disguise! But now I must be hurrying!"
"Why?" Bacent asked (Ledah had stepped back nervously at the mention of Interpol). Looker pulled aside the sheet he was holding to reveal the ghostly pale face of Di. The ranger was pressing her hat to her neck to stem the flow of blood that was covering her hand.
"Di!" Key gasped.
"Ssh-ssh!" Looker hissed, looking around frantically. He was nearly as pale as Di, though apparently uninjured, and was shaking a little as he clutched the dying ranger. "She is caught and taken to Jupiter, who order Skuntank to be slashing her throat and ordering her to be taken to the ini—inci—" He frowned, huffing in frustration, then sighed and rolled his eyes. "Burnmachine. I am thinking that this is what happen to other missing rangers and many more besides, yes? But she is still alive, I see, so instead of attacking Jupiter I am volunteer to take her so can be taking her to hospital instead of burnmachine." He pulled off the green wig and pressed it into Saylee's hands. "I must be going, hurry-hurry, but return I will to arrest Jupiter! Be wery vary, all!" He ran and climbed up the boxes with astonishing speed, peering out of the window. "Ah, my accomplice is here! Good-good! Please take her!" He passed Di through to somebody standing outside and then climbed through himself.
"They're not just stealing Pokémon, they're murdering people?" Bacent muttered, ashen-faced. "How fucked-up is that?"
"Pretty fucked up," Gavian agreed.
"So Interpol's unlikely to give a shit about me being here?" Ledah said hopefully.
"I am thinking, mon chevalier, that this is not a scenario wherein a fair and noble match is a wise decision," Belle said to Saylee.
Saylee clenched her fist around Looker's green wig and felt something crackle inside. She shook it out to find a folded-up piece of paper inside. "New Galactic member orientation map…" she read aloud, opening it. "Thank you, Agent Looker!"
"It says that the security room's down the hall," Key said, reading the map aloud. "Just across the hall from the storage room for stolen Pokémon."
"Jupiter's office is top floor," Saylee said, handing the map to Ledah. "Okay, tell you what. This time, we'll be the distraction."
"I like this plan better already," Ledah commented.
"We'll go upstairs and kick all of the ass," Saylee continued. "In our experience, the foot soldiers aren't particularly strong. But we need to keep an eye out for Mars, Pluto and—Looker mentioned another one, didn't he?"
"Jupiter," Key recalled. "If Mars and Pluto are anything to go by, they'll probably look different from the regular grunts. Probably not a bowlcut."
"And much stronger Pokémon, so if we run into one of them, we go at them together and with everything we've got," Saylee insisted, before turning back to Ledah and Bacent. "While we do that, you'd be doing us a solid if you went into that security room and messed shit up. Turned off alarms, unlocked doors, freed Pokémon, stuff like that."
"We can do that, can't we, Circles?" Bacent said, releasing his Porygon-2. "We'll give you a call if we see anything you should know about through the security cameras, okay?"
"Cool," Saylee said, peeping into the hall. "Right, two guards at the foot of the stairs…"
"Two too many," Caelin said, hopping onto Sally's back. "Allow us to fix that."
"You guys gonna be okay, attacking the whole building?" Gavian asked, watching the pair go charging down the hall, spewing fire and lightning.
"This isn't my first rodeo," Saylee said, running after her Pokémon as the guards released a pair of Zubat. "Sally! Leo! You've got this, right?"
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Remember, remember the fifth of November… THAT WAS WHEN YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SET OFF YOUR FIREWORKS, YOU NUMPTIES. STOP IT. I NEED TO SLEEP.
How's everybody's NaNoWriMo going? I'm behind on my words Q_Q I'm working on a fantasy novel loosely based on After Armageddon, featuring Charles as a soldier with a flaming sword, Pedro as an androgynous archer, Miranda as a powerful water spirit called a kelpie, Alan as a mage, etc. The biggest plot twist for me was realizing how much longer I could keep some characters alive :P The whole thing started as a joke with a friend about how if EL James could sell her terrible Twilight fanfic as "romance", I could sell my alright Pokémon fic as fantasy… challenge accepted. (Please check out my writing blog on .com. Plug end.)
Last but certainly not least, since I probably won't have time to say anything during the week… I hope you're all having a very peaceful Remembrance Sunday. I hope you and any friends or relatives who have served or are serving are safe, and continue to be safe. I hope that anybody who lost a serving friend or relative has fond memories of them to look back on today. I hope everybody supports the brave men and women who have promised to lay down their lives in defence of others, and all they ask in exchange is that we not put them in harm's way unless strictly necessary… in certain wars in recent years, I feel that we've failed them very badly on that front. We owe them our apologies as much as our gratitude, as we do all the innocent civilians who die in wars that they did not choose to be a part of.
Saylee
Name: Sheri. Species: Silcoon. Nature: Hardy. Ability: Shed Skin. Acquired: Route 205
Name: Melina. Species: Meditite. Nature: Brave. Ability: Pure Power. Acquired: Route 211
Key
Name: Buddy. Species: Bidoof. Nature: Adamant. Ability: Unaware. Acquired: Route 205
Name: Medley. Species: Meditite. Nature: Bold. Ability: Pure Power. Acquired: Route 211
SAYLEE
Princess Caelin the Monferno, Sally the Luxio, Kel the Kricketune, Zoe the Zubat, Patricia the Psyduck, Belle the Budew
KEY
Terra the Turtwig, Stan the Staravia, Leo the Luxio, Basma the Budew, Philon the Psyduck, Zoran the Zubat
