Earlier that same day...

After finishing with the room registration Mist already knew what she needed to do today and soon found herself back on the front porch of Amy's house. Ruby knew a lot more than she let on and she was determined to pick her brain for anything that might be useful. Namely, that creature that she was terrified of. The only reason she'd been this calm the whole time is because it'd put her on alert and it would put the others in unnecessary danger. She needed to keep outward appearances. Though she was pretty sure this wasn't much of anything as she got weird vibes from Tale earlier that morning, like something was off but she couldn't put her limb on quite what. It had to have been Noir in any case. And direct confrontation would most certainly be a disaster, with how unnaturally powerful this psychic type was. She already knew this just from their first meeting. She had to power to kill all of them easily if she really wanted to. But that obviously wasn't her objective since she would have done that already. So then it must be... yes... Plum. Who may be the biggest mystery of all to be honest. She hoped Ruby may have some answers. Though it was a long shot. And while she didn't know her all that well either, at the very least she felt trustworthy. For once she'd have to go with her gut.

Mist took a look inside the window and saw Amy and what she assumed were her parents. The father was wearing a suit, appearing to getting ready for work. Probably a business man. The mother she guessed was a stay at home mother with how into the breakfast she was making she was. Quick, minor observations, not fully fleshed out. In any case, Ruby was not around. Most likely was in her room then. Mist jumped down and made her way around to the back of the house, where there was a window to Ruby's room. Taking a peek inside, she noticed there was nobody here as well. Well that was odd. Maybe she's somewhere else in the house? Mist decided to wait around here for a bit while sorting out what kinds of questions she'd ask.

A while passed and there still wasn't any sign of her. Mist was now contemplating if she should take another look, until a voice invaded her mind.

"I had a feeling you'd come back." She felt a presence behind her and whipped around. Ruby was just a few feet away, giving her a placid gaze. How unnerving Mist thought as she hadn't felt her presence until after she'd already revealed herself. Ruby was very skilled at concealing her presence. Something no doubt honed from all her years living in the forest.

"I'm guessing you have questions. Though I'm not sure about what." How perceptive she thought. But that was also a simple logical conclusion you could come to with a small amount of logic.

"I do. I was hoping we could talk for a bit if you aren't busy." Ruby was walking up to her now.

"Of course, it's nice to have company over, since it's usually just me alone when everyone heads out for the day." That was odd, Amy didn't carry her around in her pokeball normally?

Mist made a slight bow.

"Thank you, there are many things troubling me and I hoped you might be able to help." Ruby lowered her eyes at her.

"Yes... I can tell it's serious. Is it about the black one? I got a very... strange vibe from her. Distorted, twisted, and screaming in the darkness. But I didn't dare go any further lest she figure me out." So even this wise and powerful Vulpix was wary around that one. That all but confirmed her theory. This Gothorita was dangerous. Even more so then she thought at first. Mist nodded at her.

"You're quite perceptive. Yes, I feel it's too dangerous to travel with her right now, when I know practically nothing about her. I was hoping you could help..." Ruby's lips curved into a soft smile. And there was something else in her caramel eyes. Excitement maybe?

"Thank you. But before you even ask, I don't know anything about one such as her." Mist felt her heart sink. Then was she just wasting her time here? Maybe she should take this chance and just grab the others and run. Yes, that might be their only option. Damn the badge collecting journey. Even she thought it might be too much for them.

"But... there is a way I think I can help." Mist's core lit up at the word 'help'. Ruby seemed to notice this.

"Yes, we could investigate her. Amy has a computer in her room we could use to check the internet for information." Ah of course! It'd been so long since she'd been in the human world that there were many things she forgot while she was in the wild. But it'd be difficult for her to use a human keyboard with her body. It'd take a long time. Ruby was slightly better equipped to do this with her paws and all, but it probably wouldn't be much better.

"That could work. There is an abundance of information in the human cyberspace. There must be something I could use there." Mist said back to her. Ruby's six tails slowly started waving around. She seemed really happy somehow.

"Mhmm... when you've been around humans as long as I have, you can't help but learn a lot about them. Miles also used to read lots of books to me. Eventually I learned how to read human writing as well, and I still to this day spend most of my free time reading human literature. Hehe... that makes me sound like an old hag." Mist decided not to agree or disagree with her. What mattered was that she could help.

"We'll need to wait until Amy's folks leave the house of course. They'd lose it if they saw you wandering around." Mist nodded at her.

"The father is a typical business man. I heard him mention the Devon corporation a few times. They're based in Hoenn from what I read. This causes him to be away from home a lot. This was actually one of the few times a month he bothers to visit. He's been trying to convince Amy and her Mother for the longest time to move to Hoenn with him, so that he could be home more. But they didn't want to leave this place behind since they both grew up here. I hear them arguing a lot. It's probably only a matter of time until they get divorced."

"Right..."

"As for her mother, she doesn't need to work, but keeps herself busy by volunteering with a theater group for charity. She used to be an actress you see. Not a very famous one mind you, she mainly only did low budget movies that have faded into obscurity. But she does have a talent for theater." Mist was starting to understand what Ruby did in her spare time besides reading and it was little scary.

"Amy herself is a college student, and she's very smart for her age according to human customs. I know she seems like an airhead sometimes. She wears the school uniform because she thinks it's cute by the way, not because she has to. There are only classes about three days a week, and today she's off, but she won't mind if you're around." Mist wasn't sure what to make of all this, only thing she knew for sure was that Ruby was probably dying to tell someone about this. It just so happened to be her.

"How long do you think it'll take for them to leave? I'm a little eager to get started."

"Let's see..." She glanced up at the sky for a moment.

"It shouldn't be too much longer, I imagine they've already gotten their usual arguments out of the way."

Like clockwork, as soon as she finished her sentence, Mist heard a door slam from the other side of the house. A man was screaming incoherently, and a woman's voice was a little further behind, yelling back. The door slammed once more and all was quiet again.

"Oh, looks like they've left. Let's get to work shall we?" Ruby beckoned her to a small cellar at the back of the house and started to head inside.

"This is a shortcut in and out of the house." Mist followed her, and after crawling through a few narrow spaces, ended up behind a vent in Ruby's room.

"I use this to sneak out all the time. Don't tell anyone." Mist didn't understand why she needed to sneak out in the first place, but let her just have her fun. She was more excited about this whole thing than she could ever be.

"The computer is in Amy's room, let's go." Ruby hopped up and opened the door, leading her down to the end of the hallway. She stealthy opened the door for whatever reason and peeked inside.

"Alright come on." They both headed inside and Mist noticed the computer was on a small oak desk, covered in a thin layer of dust from neglect. There was a white laptop laying on her well made and taut bed. Seems she mainly used her laptop. Everything else about the room was surprisingly plain. No posters, or anything hanging on the wall. White painted walls, light blue bed sheets, black carpet, and some white and black pieces of a furniture set. The window was open and gentle sunlight poured into the room through the shades. Very normal. Except the pile of clothes in the corner.

Ruby walked over and jumped up on the desk, blowing some of the dust away. Then she used her tails to brush the screen off a little. She pressed a small button on the large box with her paw that was sitting next to the flat screen monitor and the device whirred to life. The screen came to life as well, asking for a password for access. To her surprise, Ruby quickly, and much faster than Mist thought possible, typed a few characters and hit a key. A sound played and the screen changed to display various icons.

"I'm guessing you've done this before."

"Just a couple times when Amy wasn't looking." Scary. Most pokemon would struggle to even turn the thing on, and here she was operating it as any human would. She opened a window with the pointing device connected to the box.

"Now what exactly should we search for? It only needs a few keywords to run a search." Mist paused for a moment.

"Might as well start simple. Try Noir."

"Got it." She quickly typed a few keys and the screen filled with various articles. It was a french word for black apparently, and was also a kind of french film making style. These dominated most of the titles with a few listing something called a stream. A complete dead end.

"How about Gothorita?"

"Ok." Ruby went to work and again the screen filled with articles. Most of them were pokedex entries and various battle strategies, or how to raise gothorita and it's evolution line. Standard stuff.

"Try adding incident."

"You got it." Once again she typed and the screen filled back up again. But it was a little more interesting this time. A bunch of lines listed pokephilia incidents. Not what they were looking for. Ruby kept scrolling down until one particular title leapt out at her. 'Mass murder of scientists caused by experiment gone wrong!?' The major difference was that it was the only one that involved someone or something dying.

Ruby and Mist both looked at each other and nodded. Ruby opened the link and the news article populated the screen. It was dated for over seven years ago. They both went through it like starving rattata.

"This is..."

"Yeah. Jackpot."

The screen was filled with brutal images of human and various pokemon bodies torn limb from limb, blood staining a dark and dreary lab hallway. Ruby started reading aloud.

"To the horror of local hikers, what they found one cold day in December was not pokemon, but the scene of a horrible tragedy as they discovered a small lab hidden deep within the mountains surrounding the lake of rage. As for how they found it, the screams of agony acted as a guiding compass, for they echoed for miles around the forest according to one of our sources. What they found would turn any decent person's stomach inside out. Death had visited this lab in a gruesome way, with innumerable corpses littering the hallways, with gore splattered wantonly across the place with reckless abandon. They didn't hesitate to call the authorities once they recovered from the gruesome sight."

Ruby paused, visibly disturbed. Her fur was furrowed and her voice was a little shaky. Mist had to admit this was threatening to give her conniptions. But she needed to know more, she needed to know the truth. This was no time for emotions.

"I've never seen anything like this. What could ever possess anyone to do something like this?" Ruby said on the verge of hysteria. Mist was trying to be understanding of her feelings, but right now they had something to do.

"Can you keep going?" She asked for reassurance.

"Yes, no problem..." Ruby continued reading with a bit of reluctance. Guess this wasn't fun for her anymore.

"When police arrived on the scene, the lab was completely silent. As if a demon was simply waiting for them. After an initial search, they only found one survivor. A gothorita that was covered completely head to toe in blood. How it escaped the same gruesome fate as the others is still a mystery. It was totally unresponsive when officers approached it. No doubt caused by the extreme mental trauma of witnessing this horrifying scene. The traumatized pokemon is now in protective custody, and nobody has been allowed to see it. After all this it was decided that this was a case too big for just the local police and the International police was called in. Heading their investigation was one Inspector Looker. They wouldn't share many details, but according to Looker, this thing was not an accident as originally thought. More details soon..."

Ruby finished as if she was out of breath. Mist's mind immediately went to work piecing together this information. The gothorita they found was obviously Noir. And while there was no decisive evidence at the moment, she was pretty sure Noir had done all those things. That was bad. They all had to get away from her. But how? She'd probably find out the moment a plan was put into motion. Noir would no doubt have no trouble tracking them down. What can I do? Think! Ask for the aid of the police maybe? Would they even believe her? No, too risky. I need more information first, we should keep looking for more information she thought. She looked over at Ruby and she was breathing heavily.

"Are you ok?" Mist rubbed her back. She didn't expect Ruby to be so shaken up by this. Ruby quickly nodded and her breathing slowed down. It could be that she was remembering something bad from her past. Mist decided to give her some space and a break, taking a glance out the window. The sunlight was already a dim orange. It would start to get dark soon. How long were they in here?! Then the doorknob opened and Amy came in, right at the worst moment.

"Oh hey Vulpix, what are you doing? And your friend is back?" She said as she walked over. Ruby was still recovering from whatever was bothering her and didn't react to closing the window in time before Amy got a full glimpse of what was on screen. Gore and everything.

"Uh oh."