Chapter 9 - Shift Gear
The Pyrite Colosseum was the natural focus of the town - not unusual, for Orre, given that almost any city of note tended to have one, but even without metaknowledge, I still would have pinned it as our most likely point of origin for Shadow Pokémon distribution.
That didn't make it a sure thing, however, even with the scraps of information we were collecting. Even if the Colosseum winners were consistently given Shadow Pokémon - which did seem to be the theme, even if it seemed more than a few seemed rather concerned about the behavior of their new Pokémon - and there was a definite implication that Cipher had a fair bit of control over how the Colosseum was running now, there was still the question of exactly how.
Was there someone from Cipher observing the battles and picking up the winner after to throw the bonus of a Shadow Pokémon on top of the more typical winnings, or was the Colosseum a direct and immediate source?
Every single person we'd talked to, Wes more often handling the ones that demanded a battle in exchange for the information, was vague on that point, but if nothing else, the talks did at least give us the chance to hand out cards with Professor Acacia's information on it and brief - and tweaked - explanations of what was up.
Calling Cipher an 'unethical breeder' wasn't technically accurate, given that there was definitely a large percentage of definitely stolen and poached Pokémon in their system, but it was more than likely a lot easier on the suspension of disbelief than 'Hey, Guess Who's An Unwitting Patsy For Yet Another Evil Team With Dreams Of World Domination' on top of not necessarily being a lie either.
"For a Grass-type like this, I'd suggest getting a large low - maybe two or three times the size of your Skiploom - and fill it with some rich gardening soil," I said, looking over the most recent Shadow Pokémon we'd found. It seemed relatively calm, but there was an anxious energy slowly building under its skin the longer it was surrounded by people. "Put it in the sunniest part of your home and let Skiploom hang out in it as much as possible without any crowding - make sure the soil stays damp, but try to avoid getting Skiploom wet - they generally don't like direct contact with water. I'd also recommend easing back on battling or at least sticking to tamer battles for a while - nothing too serious and more on the playful side, to avoid overwhelming its emotions."
The woman in the red leather biker outfit - Reba, her name was Reba - bit her lip as she returned the Grass-type to its ball. "Wasn't really worried about it at first, but it's been a lot more anxious than I'm used to in a 'Mon. Does sound like that'll help."
I nodded as I pulled out another of Acacia's business cards. "If it doesn't, use the contact information on the card and I'll try to rec a different approach; there's no one-size fits all solution to things like this."
"True," Reba said as she took it. She gave me an appraising look. "You know, for someone who beat the shit out of Cail, you sure go out of your way to be nice."
"Please. I only stepped on him the once. Rui was the one that did most of the ass kicking there."
"Oh, the wallflower? Guess it's true what they say about the nice ones," Reba laughed. "Does explain why Cail lied and said you were the one that mugged him - hardly embarrassing to get beat up by a tough looking gal compared to a cute lil' kid."
My mouth twisted up in a smirk as the rider walked away. Considering I'd taught Rui at least a few of her fighting skills, I could consider it a compliment on two fronts…
Wait. Right, needed to contact Professor Acacia and tell him that the likely massive amount of emails coming his way wasn't junk, considering that I'd 'borrowed' the business cards without asking.
Unfortunately, a direct phone call was a touch too overt in a town that absolutely had spies lurking around and my Pokégear - being the old and deliberately rugged model it was - wasn't actually meant for fancy things like email, and my laptop, while definitely meant for that, was a little too awkward to just bust out in the middle of a Colosseum waiting room.
Which left my least favorite of my personal devices as my one route to sending Professor Acacia the heads up he needed.
"You are not good at using your P DA, are you," Rui said a few minutes later, looking over my shoulder as I wrestled with handheld organizer's fiddly controls.
I grimaced as I messed up with the touch screen again, deleting the last two lines of my formerly four-line email. "Very small keyboard."
"You're almost as bad as grandpa."
I made a face.
"Almost. Just almost."
"That's still not a compliment, Rui," I pointed out as I finally got all the words in the email I needed - or at least, ones that were close enough to be understood.
'Srry prof. gave ur contact info t loss o rando pple. Shdo pkmn busin. Invest gate stil go in. Will call latr.'
I glared at the mangled message, the irritation of seeing so many typos and misplaced autocorrects fizzling uselessly against the fact that I knew trying again wouldn't give much better results. I'd already used up all that luck on getting Acacia's email in correctly and that had been autofilled halfway through.
'Hate pda,' I added before pressing send.
This was why I did all my internet business on the computer.
"Right, next up is…"
"Checking out the Colosseum," Wes finished for me as he rejoined the group, brushing some dust off his new coat. "Or talking to the Duke. Who has an office in the Colosseum. So same place either way."
"Right."
The 'Duke', Ginzaru Ingles, was the mayor of Pyrite on technicality - having the force of will and arm to enforce the rules of the place rather than being properly elected - and had a reputation for being active in the community, which meant that whatever had changed to bring Shadow Pokémon into play had to involve him in a very direct way. I'd never met him in this life and had very little idea of what to expect based on hazy meta-knowledge beyond 'big' and 'not on Cipher's side'.
What I was supposed to do with that information was vague. Was I supposed to talk to him? Or should I just settle for considering him a non-entity in terms of information sources? I had no idea.
Yet another reason for me not to be the protagonist of a procedural, I supposed as we made our way towards the Pyrite Colosseum.
The Pyrite Colosseum sat separate from the rest of Pyrite's structures, with the closest buildings to it - an abandoned looking office building and a windmill that was probably the source of the entire town's electricity - being a fairly good distance away… probably thanks to the fact that there was a thirty food wide, pitch black gorge between the Colosseum and the rest of the town.
Wes knew from personal experience that the gorge was effectively bottomless - the Under was positioned along the same treacherous fault and had its own way of bridging that terrifying gap, though he wasn't quite sure if he trusted the UFO as much as the rickety scrap-metal bridge the residents of Pyrite used.
Thinking about the Under again, he had to wonder how things were down there. If Cipher had control of Pyrite Town, it wasn't unlikely that the Under was much better off.
More than likely, he thought as he glanced down into the darkness, knowing that for all he couldn't see it, there was still a buried city of corroding steel and dimly glowing neon lurking just out of sight, it was even worse off than here.
The Under had always been receptive to darkness - in more than one sense of the word - and there'd never been anyone like the Duke willing to drag it into the light.
"You okay, Delaine?" Rui asked, drawing Wes's thoughts away from the depths.
"Hate heights," Delaine replied. The girl was walking very stiffly across the bridge, eyes fixed ahead with an expression almost unsettlingly tight and closed off compared to her earlier mood.
"We're almost to the other end," Wes threw in, leaving out the fact that they'd have to cross the bridge again in the other direction to leave, forget any risk of a return visit.
As soon as they cleared the bridge, Delaine took in a shuddering breath - apparently the first over the last minute - before straightening her posture into something more steady.
"Right. Sorry about that."
He could have said something to that. Probably could have even said something helpful. As it as… "If you say so," was going to have to do the job for now.
Before he could spend any time thinking about what the hell was supposed to happen later with that, Wes saw something - two people standing just inside the cracked entryway of the Colosseum dome.
One was fairly bland to look at - a kid maybe a year or two older than Wes with similarly grey-tinted blonde hair done up in vertical spikes, wearing a track jacket and a pair of shorts that spoke to a life not concerned with the risk of road burn.
The other was, according to said kid's ranting, the very guy they were looking for.
Wes had never had the pleasure of meeting Ginzaru Ingles before - really, he'd made as much a point to avoid him as Chief Sherles - but somehow, despite the reputation for being a big guy with a lot of strength, he hadn't quite expected him to be…
Well, such a big guy.
The 'Duke' was easily in the range of six and a half feet tall and just as much of a walking tank as Gonza, though the fact that he was wearing a fully covering shirt and no brass knuckles was a small - okay, very small - reassurance as to what those muscles were typically used for. Probably was about the same age as Gonza too.
Which made the image of him getting chewed out by that twiggy kid kind of a surreal experience.
"Are you just going to let that Mirror bastard do whatever he wants?" the kid in question snapped, flinging out their arms. "You used to stand for something, Duke! You used never let bastards in like that before! But you don't do anything now!"
"Silva…" Ginzaru said, reaching out a hand.
Silva slapped the hand away. "Well if you aren't going to do anything about it, I will!"
The kid turned and ran out of the building, shoving his way through their little group as he did so.
"Well that wasn't at all ominous," Delaine said, watching Silva disappear into Pyrite Town. "Gotta wonder what kind of shitshow he's gonna cook up before we run into him next…"
"That's only if it's something we have to deal with," Rui pointed out.
Delaine scoffed. "Knowing my luck? It will be."
Wes had to agree with that. He had that kind of luck himself these days, it felt like. And that kind of luck had a tendency to stack if he stood too close to someone else with the same kind.
"Sorry you had to see that," Ginzaru said as he walked up to their group. "We try to keep disagreements like that behind the scenes… but that's not what you're here about is it? You're probably here for the Colosseum."
"That's right," Rui said, taking the lead. "Wes was going to compete - can you help us get signed up for the next tournament?"
The man nodded, gesturing for them to follow him inside. As they approached an official looking set of desks, one of which had the universal sign of an open Pokécenter - which was a similar set-up to the Under Colosseum, given that there wasn't a Pokécenter in the main town there either. "You are just getting in under the wire for that, but there is just enough time for-"
The electrical lights overhead gave a single static-y buzz before abruptly guttering out, leaving dim back-ups to weakly flicker to life - nowhere near bright enough to properly light the space, but enough to make it navigable.
"That was fast," Delaine muttered, looking at the ceiling with a critical eye. "You'd think shit would wait about fifteen minutes before going wrong."
A figure stumbled through the daylit opening to the outside, the light catching the white material of a long lab coat to cast a ghostly glow in the gloom. "Duke! Silva sabotaged the windmill generator! The whole town is out of power!"
"That kid…" Ginzaru muttered. "I know he's upset about the situation, but to go this far…"
"It's nothing that can't be fixed," Rui pointed out. "Delaine's a mechanic - she works on the windmills in her hometown all the time, she can help."
"In exchange for what?"
"Information," Wes said. "You can tell us what exactly is going on with Pyrite Town and this Mirror B."
The man grimaced as he looked around the dark room, apparently weighing his options. The Colosseum wasn't probably needed for the town to function - at least not for a day or two - but no power for anyone wasn't an ideal condition in the desert.
Finally, he answered. "Fine. You have a deal."
The space within Pyrite's windmill generator station wasn't much to work with, especially once you started moving into the areas only meant for maintenance. Combining that premium of space with the near complete darkness of a power outage, and the dull beam of Rui's old flashlight was a vital - if cumbersome - lifeline.
Still, that didn't seem to damper Delaine's spirits by much as she worked.
"This set-up is a little different than what we have over in Chrysoprase - Daniel's equipment is newer though, so that's not surprising," Delaine said as she pulled back from a cluster of wires, head ducking to the side to avoid knocking the flashlight. "How long have you been been running this?"
"Thirty years," the mechanic declared, slapping a control panel. "Gears been turning the whole time."
"Pretty good work then," Delaine noted. "Only real damage is where that kid Silva pried out that one big gear, but if we can get a decent quality replacement, we can get this place running in no time… least long enough to get a better one around."
"Wes is already out looking for Silva - I'll text him to ask him to look for gears too," Rui said, pinching the flashlight between her shoulder and cheek so she could pull out her own P DA and shoot off a text.
About fifteen minutes later, Wes was back, a large gear rolling along beside him.
"No luck with finding the kid?" Delaine asked as she took the gear, lifting it up easily and then beginning the process of placing it into the existing mesh of metal correctly. "Rui, the light please."
"None. Kid pulled a total disappearing act," Wes replied, leaning back against the wall to watch as the mechanism of the windmill finally started turning again, the hum of electricity and popping of light bulbs turning back on an easy comfort. "The Duke said it ain't off brand for him, but it's a problem if he's out trying to cause more trouble with the situation being as delicate as it is in town."
"Right." Because Cipher did have control over the place, via a hostage situation of all things. Ginzaru Ingles' Plusle had been kidnapped by Mirror B.'s mooks almost three months back, with the criminal boss routinely sending videos of the Pokémon to keep the Mayor of Pyrite compliant.
So far, the demands had been simple - to not interfere in any Cipher business inside or outside of the town, and to give the team full access to the Colosseum's camera system, allowing them to watch prospective customers in action before approaching them after each tournament. With roughly one tournament a week, it was a relatively slow way of going after an evil plan…
"But only if you say their goal is just getting Shadow Pokémon out there," Delaine said. "My guess is that it's a combination of field testing and getting the public used to the idea. Reduces resistance later on if it works."
"People could really get used to this?" Rui asked.
"They already were," Ginzaru said as he stepped into the room, ducking down to avoid hitting his head on the door frame. "You've shaken things up a bit, but there are some people here who like the idea of getting strong Pokémon handed to them. Just because you say that Cipher isn't doing so with pure intentions won't be enough to sway all of them."
"Which is why we need to cut it off at the source," Delaine said, making a cutting gesture towards her neck. "Take out the supplier, demand will dry up because it simply can't be met anymore."
"Yes. And once you get my Plusle back from Mirror B., I'll be able to give you help openly. Until then, the most I can do is make sure you end up in this week's tournament for sure and against a few of the weaker competitors - won't count for much once you reach the Semi-Finals, but it'll give you an edge to start with."
Wes nodded. "That's more than enough for me."
Author's Notes
Been a bit - chapter's a bit shorter than I would have liked but life's been hectic + stress levels haven't been conducive to creative endeavors, so when the chapter's like 'yeah we're ending here', I didn't have much room to argue with it. There should only be 2-3 more chapters for Pyrite specifically before we move on to the next station of the plot.
Something interesting - someone recently made a Pokemon Colosseum/XD specific Jumpchain, which, while a little late to work into the fic completely, I have worked with to add some color to things I've already put into my plans already (made a point not to pick a single skill that shook up the current power balance, nor items that would mess anything up along similar lines) and in ways that won't be too obtrusive - ex: why Delaine has a PDA (along with a reason why she doesn't use it, which is an IRL problem for me regarding cellphones) and covering some other minor detail shifts that will be brought into the story accordingly.
Current plans - as mentioned in last chapter author's notes, am working on connecting this fic with a work in progress piece by my friend Monica, who's been helping me massively with a number of other projects. Eventually, that will manifest, but not until I've finished with the plot of Pokémon Colosseum (but before Pokémon XD's events are addressed). I might have to end up touching up the FFnet version of this because I found out during review that during earlier rewrites, I didn't do an even chapter replacement process between this and the AO3 version, meaning that the AO3 version has a chapter that the FFnet version doesn't - and that the inclusion of that chapter smooths out the chain of events a lot. I don't know when or if I'll be able to fix that on the FFnet version, but it is something I'm aware and mindful of.