So hey. I dunno if this was a late update or whatever, but hey, it's getting updated now! ^.^
Amy101 does not own pokémon, only Vale.
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The Adventure Saga
Enlightening the Soul
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"What do you want with Vale?"
Silver wasn't to sure about the defensive tone in his voice, he knew that Vale was a part of a bad group of people who were essentially terrorists. He knew that he shouldn't really care, and that she wasn't the same older sister that he knew way back when he was a kid. He knew she worked for the man he loathed more than anything. He knew all of this... But still...
Sara smirked slightly, but responded simply by grabbing a briefcase by the door, and pulling out a file folder. She opened it, flicked through some papers, and held out a picture. Silver, glaring at her, took the picture and stared at it.
What he saw surprised him.
Two little girls, perhaps four or five, with their arms around each other, wearing swimsuits and wide grins on their faces. One of the girls was obviously Sara. If the dark brown hair and purple eyes didn't give her away, then the oversized blue pilots goggles on her head surely did. Silver cast a glance at said girl. Seems she grew into the dorky things. He cast his glance to another girl. This one had pale skin and midnight black hair, making her look somewhat odd on a beach filled with people. Pale blue eyes stuck out, bright and smiling.
"Do you know who that is?" Sara asked, pointing at the pale girl.
"I have a feeling you have a hypothesis." Silver muttered. Lyra stared at the picture.
"It looks like Vale." she murmured. "Only... happy."
"This young girl is Felicity." Sara said. "Cici for short. She was from Mauville City, under the foster care system. No one knows who her real parents are, and I doubt she even knows herself. She used to come and visit me and my family down in Slateport all the time, despite just being five. She was like family."
"So?" Silver asked, turning the picture over. He was tired of looking at it.
"So, when my parents were thinking of formally adopting her, she suddenly disappeared. It was a huge story in Hoenn because about a year prior, a young boy disappeared."
"Is he younger than Cici?" Lyra asked, cocking her head to the side.
"By a year. When Cici disappeared, he would have been four."
"What was his name?" Lyra asked
"Nathaniel Mitsuru." Sara pulled out another picture, this one of a little boy running around with a bunch of pokémon. Though his figure was slightly blurry due to the old device used to take the picture, the orange T-shirt, tan shorts, and bare feet were clearly defined. "Three years old. The family recently visited the Unova region, and he brought back some pokémon. A month later, he and his favorite pokémon were gone. Three months later, the pokémon he brought back was stolen from his parents PC, and no one has traced him since."
"And Cici?" Silver asked.
"Disappeared." Sara said. "Now you see, no one really connected the two together for a while. They originally assumed that someone kidnapped Nathaniel for his pokémon and Felicity fell off of Cycling Road and died in the waters below. Then there was a rumor that some pervert was kidnapping them because they had light blue eyes, but that quickly fizzled out too. But then I noticed some similarities between the two, outside of their physical appearance." she set out some other pictures. This one showed Cici in a battle against Sara with two pokémon, a shiny eevee on the field and a sandshrew next to her, Sara with a torchic. The other picture was of Nathaniel with his foreign pokémon. "They both had special talents when it came to pokémon."
"Special... talents?" Lyra mused.
"Cici was the best battler I've ever known. She could have been champion when she was older. Nathaniel was rumored to have a deeper connection with pokémon, to the point of actually understanding them. Now my superiors thought I was insane for taking up this case again, but I now know I wasn't because of this."
She pulled out two more pictures, this one of Vale in her uniform, sitting thoughtfully on what looked like a roof of a building. The other one of a young woman looking over her shoulder, wearing what looked like priestess clothes with brown eyes.
"These are priestess robes, right?" Lyra asked, glancing at them.
"How would you know?" Silver asked, glancing at her.
"I challenged the gym and there was a bunch of spiritualistic priestesses there that I had to fight!" grinned Lyra. At this point, Silver noticed the forth gleaming gym badge pinned to her overalls strap. Narrowing his eyes, he turned back to the pictures. He'd need to catch up to the weakling, and he'll do it even if he has to fight his way out of this hospital kicking and screaming.
"Anyways, yes." Sara smiled. "I've briefly caught glances of this 'Vale' running around, working for these Masked Rockets. I haven't gotten a good glance at her face due to that Mask, but now I have this." she tapped the priestess photo. "Now look at this, and look at this." she pulled out a close up of Vale in her uniform, specifically on her face.
"The eyes are the same shape." Lyra murmured.
"Yes, and now look at Cici, and check this out." she pulled out a tablet tapped a few things, and brought up a picture of Cici similar to that of a trainer ID picture. "This was the picture to her cycling pass for Cycling Road. This little doo-hickey ages a person and will show me what they look like five, ten, fifteen years. Soooo..." she trailed off, turning the tablet back around and tapping a few buttons. "Lets age little Felicity here by twelve years. That's how long she's been missing, after all." there was a moment of silence as Sara waited for the screen to load, then a victorious grin. "And boom, we've got seventeen-year-old Felicity."
She turned it around the tablet to the two. Lyra inhaled sharply and Silver widened his eyes in surprise. With the exception of her hairstyle-which seemed to take on a similar version to what she had as a child, the features were uncannily similar.
"Look familiar? Lyra? Silver?"
Lyra nodded immediately.
"It's her eyes." Lyra said. "It's the first thing I noticed about her when I met her and it's the first thing I noticed now. It's her eyes."
Silver, however, narrowed his eyes on the picture, not quite convinced.
"I'd like to see a version of it when she was younger." he muttered, glancing back at the picture of five-year-old Felicity. "When she was ten."
"Easy enough." Sara responded, turning the tablet around and adjusting a few things. She showed it to him again, and he averted his gaze. That was the face of the girl who helped him get through the gates. The face that she showed him that fateful night almost seven years ago. The night he left Mask, and she didn't.
"That's her." Silver nodded. "The hairs a bit different, but that's her. That's Vale."
"Are you sure?" Sara asked, a hint of delight in her voice.
"As sure as my hair is red, that's Vale."
"How would you know?" Looker asked. Everyone snapped their gaze to him. What with the conversation about Vale and all, everyone forgot about the other detective. He stood seriously off to the side, staring intently at them. "Felicity has been missing for twelve years, only now suddenly having a seventeen-year-old girl appear looking similar to her. How would you know what a ten-year-old version of Felicity would look like?"
"Because I was kidnapped by the same man who apparently kidnapped her." Silver spat back at him. "I'm not to sure on Nathaniel or whatever, but I know that this guy scooped me up when I was roughly three or four. He made us wear these masks all the time, except for when we were sleeping. We never saw each other's faces. Vale was my partner and protector. She tried to keep me out of his I was eight, making Vale ten, we tried to escape, but she got caught. Before they dragged her back, she took her mask off and showed me her face so I would recognize her later. I didn't understand why at the time, but now it makes sense. She wanted me to be able to identify her, wether alive or dead."
"Do you think she remembers her true name and origins?" Looker asked. Silver shook his head.
"Probably not. Mask manipulated and brainwashed us. For all I know, the guy probably told her that he adopted her legally, and she wouldn't know any better."
"Brainwashed?" Lyra squeaked.
"Of course." Silver shot a glare at her. "If we were asked to jump, we jumped. If Mask wanted coffee, we better bring him the best damned coffee in the country. That was life with him. But I was smarter. I convinced Vale to leave, and she agreed to it, and look what happened." he lowered his gaze back to the pictures. "She's still working for him."
"Who is this Mask?" Looker immediately asked.
"I don't want to answer any more questions." Silver said, bowing his head and shading his eyes.
"But-"
"I won't answer any more of them." Silver said a bit harsher. Looker stiffened for a moment, as if contemplating on what to do.
"You've been a great help." Sara said, packing up her things with a small smile, she went around the bed to Lyra, holding out her hand. Lyra shook it warmly. "Thank you. Now I have a huge lead on Felicity. We're gonna bring her home."
"Here's my number." Looker said, passing a business card to both Silver and Lyra. "If either of you have anymore information for us, contact me immediately."
"We'll try." Lyra said brightly as the two detectives walked out of the room. Silver took one look at the business card and crumpled it in his hand, throwing it across the room.
"Silver-"
"I'm not saying anything else." Silver shot back, casting a cold glare to her. Lyra shifted for a moment, then smiled brightly.
"Okay."
o.0.o.0.o
"Happy release day!" Lyra exclaimed happily, holding out a bag filled with tissue paper, hiding the small gift in it. Silver glanced at it, and then back up at her.
"What's this for?" he asked, staring at the obnoxiously bright bag.
"A get well present! And also a little something for getting out of the hospital."
He stared at her for a moment, then took the bag with the arm that wasn't in the sling. He pulled out the tissue paper until he saw a patch of bright orange... fur?
"Taa-daa!" she sang out with a wide grin. Silver held up the Cyndaquil plushie, about seven inches tall, thoughts of disdain on his mind as he stared a the thing. He looked back up at her. Was she serious? Was she really serious?
Judging by her happy grin, he had a feeling she was.
"Do you like it? I saw it in the store, and I just had to get it."
"It's..." Obnoxiously bright? Hideously orange? Annoyingly adorable? Utterly useless?
"Hm?" she tilted her head to the side, and laughed. "Silly, there's something else in the bag too!" he blinked, watching as she came forward and pulled out a black backpack, holding it up to him with a bright smile. "I never saw you carrying one, so I assumed you'd like it. The Cyndaquil was sort of a spontaneous buy because I thought you'd like it."
He stared at her for a long time, then looked back at the backpack she was holding.
"Help me put it on." he said, tossing the Cyndaquil plush to her. "And put that thing in there, I don't want anyone to see me holding it."
"You do like it!" she exclaimed happily, zipping the Cyndaquil up. "Aw, I knew I made the right choice! I was seriously wondering if I should've just returned the backpack when I bought the plush, but then I said 'Lyra, you idiot, you know Silver needs this!'. But then another voice said 'But he'll really, really, really, really like the plush Lyra!'. So to settle it I decided to just give you both of them."
"Huh." Silver muttered as Lyra gently lifted his slung up arm and brought it through the strap. Once it was settled, she grinned.
"Well, I'm off to Olivine. You gonna stay here?"
"Yeah, I have to get the Fog badge."
"Well, good luck." Lyra waved, hobbling off with a sandal on her hurt foot. Silver paused for a moment.
"Hold it, stupid." he said, coming up and grabbing her shoulder. "You can't go hobbling around like that on your own, what if something happens? You're an easy target."
"Oh, I'll be fine." she said, waving it off dismissively.
"No you won't, idiot." Silver said. "Stick around here until I get my badge, then I'll take you to Olivine, okay?"
Lyra blinked at him.
"You," she pointed at him. "Want to travel with me?" she pointed at herself. If Silver had thought about it, he would have punched himself in the head. Of course he didn't want to travel with her. But his stupid mouth moved before his brain could process, and now look at what he's gotten himself into.
"Only because you're and idiot who would get herself killed or robbed or something along those lines if I didn't travel with you." he muttered sourly, looking away. Lyra stood thoughtfully for a moment, then beamed.
"Sounds like fun! I'll wait around for you, Silver!"
Now if it was anyone else who said they'd 'wait around' for him, Silver would have been insulted. No one ever waited for him, he bolted ahead of everyone else. He was above others, he beat them down. If they got back up, he beat them down, again and again and again.
But somehow, Lyra made it sound like... like a compliment or something.
Ugh. This girl was making him go soft...
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So, yeah. A little short, I know, but we got some background on Vale-who's actual name is Felicity- and a sweet LyraxSilver moment.
So, time for behind the names. Amy, why is Vale's real name Felicity? And why did you even name her Vale to begin with?
Well, I always regarded 'Felicity' as a very beautiful and graceful name, and I just liked it. Felicity also means happiness. SOMEONE RING THE IRONY BELL. And Vale mean 'farewell'. So it's pretty. Yeah.
Amy47101 signing off! ^.^