The Black Jewel: 4

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Vermillion stormed down the corridor. Running wasn't appropriate for a predator like her. She preferred to stalk rather than to chase. The game was much more fun that way. But right now, there was an itch in her heel that turned even the Polisher's catwalk into a powerful stride through the underground compound. Two grunts had whisked John away immediately after the match. Which was odd considering they had strict orders to keep him off to the side until she arrived to relieve them. Even grunts knew better than to take fresh meat away from a carnivore. They must have received new orders, and from someone far more imposing than herself. Few held such an honor.

Vermillion cursed herself for watching the fight from the VIP balcony. She should have stayed on the Cage Floor with the other coaches. Everything stayed hot and raw down there, just the way she liked it. Peering through a jaded eyeglass was more of a sponsor's delicacy. And speaking of sponsors, wouldn't you know that Onyx was nowhere to be seen during John's spiriting away?

Vermillion lost sight of John the moment they entered the tunnel but her sense of direction was impeccable. As a thief, she knew her way through the dark, spatially and metaphorically. Tracking down those who don't want to be found was an art she excelled at. Especially, when it involved a personal investment. Vermillion rounded a corner of the white walled maze beneath the Cage House. Down the corridor, a man stood in front of a door. Heavy set, tall, and intimidating, he wasn't there by mistake. A tyrogue stood beside him with just as much purpose. Something inside that room wasn't to be disturbed. Bingo.

Vermillion sharply entered the hallway. To the guard's credit, he didn't flinch when she stopped in front of him. "Move," she commanded.

The guard cast her a confident look. "No can do," he replied. "I've got orders from the Jewel herself. Nobody in until she's is finished."

So Onyx was inside.

"Get out of my way," Vermillion said again.

The guard leaned forward with a smile. "Not even for you, doll face."

Vermillion softened her scowl to a smirk. So he wanted to play games, did he? He had no idea who he was playing with. She swung a hip closer and tilted her head in pleasurable examination. Two fingers walked up the man's chest. They curled around his shoulder and pulled the Polisher closer so that the two came chest to breast.

"Not many men have the balls to tell me no," Vermillion whispered in a hot breath. "And when they do." Her gaze sharpened faster than a switchblade. "They don't keep them." Vermillion suddenly grabbed the guard by the back of the head, pulled him down, and kneeded him so hard in the groin that he instantly became a unic. He fell forward in a wheeze. One shove behind the head accelerated his decent into another kneecap. Vermillion felt the cartilage collapse in the blow. She shifted her grasp onto the man's collar and rolled him over her shoulder.

He landed with a heavy thud. Blood gushed out between his fingers from a permanently broken nose. Tyrogue followed in a similar state. He fell face forward into the blood of his trainer with a sableye on his back. Cutter chattered with a wiggle of his clawed fingers. Vermillion looked down and he looked up. The light made it seem as if his jeweled eyes spun in place. But this was business, not pleasure. He quickly jumped up Vermillion's arm and into the shadows of her blood red curls. She then grabbed the handle and opened the door. Onyx's back was to the door. John fell backwards across the small room in front of her. A seviper coiled in the distance in between.

"Not as good with snakes as you are hounds, eh Pharaoh?" Onyx snarled, her voice as cold as her snake's blood.

Vermillion squeezed the door knob in her hand. Seviper's tail would have cleaved John in half had that blow been an actual energy based attack. Luckily, the only thing John lost was his breath. His dignity had been shattered long ago. Vermillion quietly closed the door behind her. She kept her movements slow and quiet, unlike her rushing blood.

"Why didn't you use your houndoom?" Onyx interrogated. John sat up from the floor.

"It was a double match," he answered. Only John could manage to talk without any air in his lungs. "I picked the team I thought worked best together."

Seviper lunged forward and wrapped once around John's chest. She pinned his arms to his sides in a squeeze that lifted his shoulders in a gasping wince. Vermillion lifted in an inhale as if to breathe for him. She half expected to hear his ribs snap given their condition.

"I don't sponsor you to think," Onyx rebuked. Shiva, the seviper, spat a hiss in John's face. He turned his cheek away from the sprinkle of venom.

"He won, didn't he?" Vermillion softly shrugged as she held her arms behind her back and leaned against the wall. "And it was a good match at that."

Onyx whipped back a glare. The Jewel was in a foul mood, more so than usual. Sticking to the background had been the right decision. There was just enough distance between the two women to make Vermillion's position defensive and her opinion selective. Hands behind her back, she was belly up. Those black frames might have cut the intruder in two had it been any other interloper than the Polisher. Vermillion shrugged under the Jewel's glaring reproach, grateful that Cutter's chilly ghostly aura kept sweat from forming.

"The match was never meant to be cut throat," Onyx informed.

The Jewel had intended a blowout. Of course. What better way to understand the houndoom than to let him battle at full strength? A single pokemon stealing the limelight of a double match in an overwhelming display of dominance would set anyone's blood on fire. Too bad Onyx's was currently running ice cold. The Royal Jewel whirled back upon the source of her ire. John opened an eye against the crushing pressure without a trace of fear. Not a cry nor whimper escaped his lips now. Pokemon wouldn't intimidate him. Vermillion saw that. Onyx did to, so she un-holstered her pistol, squatted down in front of John, and held the barrel to his head. The safety wasn't on. It never was.

"Use another pokemon other than the hound again, and I'll personally insure that you make it to the bottom of the river."

Onyx shifted the gun over John's shoulder and fired a round into the wall. John flinched, tilting his head to the side in a painful expression of instant deafness. Vermillion softly closed her eyes. Onyx hovered the gun over John's shoulder, letting the heat and twang of gunpowder sink in. When she was satisfied the memory set in, she pulled the gun away, stood up, and holstered the weapon back on her leg. Shiva uncoiled, dropping John to the floor once more. She slithered around Onyx's legs before she too was withdrawn and holstered.

Onyx snapped the ball back on her belt. She then turned for the door and stopped in the frame next to Vermillion. Her black framed glasses flashed in the light. Vermillion flicked her eyes up and met the snake eyed stare lash for lash. Like two males meeting one another in the wild, the women sized each other up. Vermillion was to blame for John's battling decisions but Onyx had given her complete control. Neither had discussed the details of this arrangement more than the night of the auction but both understood the rules of the game and the players involved. They stared at one another before Onyx opened the door and looked down at her henchman on the floor. He failed to get up at her appearance and rolled onto his back. Onyx bitterly diverted her frustrations upon him.

"Useless," she coldly remarked before she stepped on him and disappeared out of sight. Vermillion didn't dare turn her head away until those steel toed boots faded down the corridor. She then looked back at the discarded Blood Ace nearby. John pushed himself up off of the floor with one side of his face still pained with the gunshot ringing in his ears. He carefully scooted backwards until he hit the wall.

Vermillion unfolded her arms and walked closer. Her heels clicked against the linoleum but it was probably as quiet as a panther's step to John. She crouched down in front of him, her arms long as they hung over her knees. John wiggled a finger in his bad ear. Apparently being temporarily deaf was more of a nuisance than a handicap. Vermillion wanted to scoff but found that she couldn't. John proved he would fight in the Cage to survive and yet he had no interest in self-preservation. Maybe it was the whole hero, self-sacrificing thing he had going for him. Vermillion couldn't tell. She was too much of a villain.

"You are completely helpless," she sighed.

John dropped his finger from his ear. "What?" he asked just a little too loudly.

Vermillion ignored the inquiry. The only question that really mattered was Onyx's. "Why didn't you use your houndoom in the match?" she said. "He could have easily won the battle."

"Just because Lopo's strong doesn't mean he was the right choice." John readjusted his seat a little higher up along the wall. "Besides, he's not used to my party yet."

So the houndoom was a new addition to the family. That explained a lot. It was impossible for a string bean like John to grow a plentiful pumpkin patch pokemon like the canine on his own merit. No wonder he had such trouble controlling Lopo. But that raised a new question. Where did the canine come from?

"It was a team battle," John continued. The ringing in his ears must have weakened because he no longer felt the need to shout. Either that, or he thought he was talking to himself. "I picked who I thought would work well together."

At least he wasn't a complete idiot. Vermillion shook her head in another sigh and plopped down on the floor in front of him. "First, I jump through hoops to keep you on your feet and now you've got me sitting on dirty ass floors right next to you," she mumbled.

John leaned closer with another loud "What?"

Vermillion crossed her legs and pulled two pokeballs from her belt with one hand. "You may be reckless but you've got good taste," she said while rolling the two balls in her hand. Not really caring if he heard her or not. "I keep a set of twins myself."

She transferred one ball into each hand, enlarged them, and flipped open the lids at the same time. There was no flash of materialization, only a dimming of the room as two shadows burned up from the capsules. They collected into two dark purplish black spheres. The gaseous matter packed tightly together, making them more like orbs of solid matter rather than the manifestation of spirits. The temperature in the room dropped as the smoky threads tightened. The internal friction birthed much lighter and paler purple wisps that smoked from the firmer center.

"Meet Jinx and Crooks, my gastly," Vermillion introduced as she put her head in her hand and motioned to each respective pokemon. Rolling smoke created the impression of faces within the floating orbs. White pinpricks glowed in the center of each eye socket. There was a distance to them, like the unreachable light only available to the dead. Such tiny miniscule points of light and yet men had gone mad starring into them. Vermillion watched John's reaction to her pokemon's materialization. Not a single shiver. In fact, he smiled. The dark puffy shadows under his eyes weren't quite as light as the expression, however.

"You look tired," Vermillion frowned.

"I've had a lot to think about," John admitted.

Vermillion was certain the ace would have reached out and touched the gas pokemon if he hadn't almost been crushed to death by a seviper. She doubted he would have even noticed the frost bite had he actually been able to touch their nearly frozen bodies.

"I haven't been able to sleep recently."

And if John didn't get any tonight, he wouldn't make it to the next match. As his coach, it would slander Vermillion's reputation if he died outside of the Cage. She pursed her lips, lifted a finger, and poked John on his forehead.

"Go to sleep," she commanded.

John started to chuckle a reply but couldn't get off as much as a syllable when Crooks suddenly levitated in front of him. Those innocent baby blues froze within the ghostly pinpoints of the pokemon's stare. Catching a soul was easy when one was drawn to the light so effortlessly like him. John's eyelids lowered. He lifted them once in a spurt of awareness, but without a reason to resist, they closed again. The hypnosis worked within seconds. John sagged lightly to the side, fast asleep. Vermillion watched him a few moments before she stood up. Her gastly stayed level with her. Before them slumped the most pathetic excuse of a Blood Ace Vermillion had ever seen. He was completely vulnerable and at her mercy.

But then again, that was how she liked her men . . .

Sometimes.