The collective brightness of Noel's four computer monitors seemed to overpower the light being emitted by the lamp next to his bed. Odette hung off the back of his ergonomic chair, as her eyes locked on the words he'd managed to pull up.
Virtue Corp is an organization dedicated to the protection and rehabilitation of Pokemon that have been exposed to, and otherwise harmed, as a result of the disgraceful Shiny Trade. Our goal is to not only protect these mistreated Pokemon, but to abolish the Shiny Trade as a whole.
He fell back against his backrest with a dazed huff, and Odette slowly crossed her arms.
"Well there you have it. Official website and everything," Noel said.
She raised her hand to her cheek and began to scratch it pensively. "And nothing about J.L. Ménétries?" she asked for the third time since she'd gotten to his house.
Noel exhaled gruffly and leaned back over his desk. He began to click through the rather elegantly crafted website. Odette noticed the accents of pastel pink that appeared against the sleek white background; it matched perfectly with the color of the wax seal.
He pulled up the menu titled, blatantly, Our Main Staff, and began to hastily scroll through it. The random set of names flew by, accompanied by walls of text that might have been these people's life stories, but nothing that matched the name she'd seen at the end of the note.
"I told you, nothing's here. There isn't even a person on here who has a name starting with a J," he explained. "I know that doesn't mean shit because a pseudonym could be anything but you know…"
He clicked to another area of the website and began to skim it over. "I couldn't even find anything about a 'J.L.' anywhere else. Nothing that tied him to something like this. So as far as we know, the guy doesn't exist."
"Ittelle!"
Both Odette and Noel turned to look at the far end of the room, next to the closet, where Enora, Isaur, and Solene were playing Twister with Noel's Braviary, Talonflame, and Vullaby. Solene, the leader she was, had taken to spinning the wheel and making the calls. The latter five were already twisted and turned all around each other. A series of groans fell out of them at the new instruction, right foot red apparently, and suddenly, Talonflame lost his winging and fell flat on his face.
"Flaaaay! "he cried.
"Gothi," Solene replied coolly.
Odette was suddenly happy she'd taken Ange and Loïc home first. She learned the hard way that Talonflame and Ange together always ended in something catching on fire, and Loïc playing Twister was just a disaster waiting to happen. The Monopoly fiasco from the night before was enough. Plus, Noel was scared of him as it was.
"Come on, Talonflame! You had that," Noel huffed.
The sound of the door creaking open prompted both of them to turn toward it. Standing in the doorway was Noel's father, and he carried a tray with two full wine glasses on it.
"Sorry to bother you two, but I bring refreshments!" he said gleefully as he sauntered into the room. Odette grabbed her allotted glass faster than she cared to admit. Right now, she didn't care about the possible hangover that would plague her at rehearsal tomorrow. She needed that buzz in her system pronto, and she'd let future-her deal with the consequences.
"The Cherrim at the brewery worked hard on this one, we just broke it out of the vault this morning!" Mr. Massé said.
She chugged it in one gulp.
"They did a good job," she said through a deep exhale, setting the empty glass back on the tray. Noel giggled into his own cup.
"You...know you're supposed to sip it, right?" Mr. Massé said hesitantly.
"She did," Noel said. "It was just a big sip."
Mr. Massé opened his mouth to speak, but evidently decided whatever he had to say wasn't worth it. He simply sighed. "Nevermind. Are you staying for dinner, darling?"
"No, I couldn't-" she started to say.
"Is your mom out of town?" he cut her off.
Her expression fell into a deadpan. "Yes."
"Dinner will be ready in forty-five minutes, I hope you like ratatouille." He winked playfully at her, before turning heel and heading back out, pulling the door shut behind him.
"Lass?" Isaur called in a strained voice. Her head was against a blue dot, and her arm was arched over Vullaby, touching a yellow dot. Of course, she'd still heard 'ratatouille' over all of that.
"Forty-five minutes," Odette repeated. "Focus on your game." Gods knew she needed to focus on her own issue at hand herself. She had to sort out her thoughts on it before she brought her team into it.
With a groan, and already starting to feel an alcoholic fog forming in her lightweight brain, she dove face first onto Noel's unmade bed.
"I'm going to scream," she said, her voice muffled by a pillow. "I just wanted an easy day. Was that too much to ask?"
"Oh, always," Noel cracked. "Though you could have just not looked at the letter."
She turned her head to shoot him a look. "Can you look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't have looked at the letter?"
"Fuck no, baby, and I'd have torn apart the whole office looking for more," he said, setting his glass down on his desk. "Because that was clearly an ongoing conversation. I'm absolutely quaking at the thought of all the juicy information we're missing..." He threw his hands up in triumph. "And I'm just stoked as hell that I figured out the cops were skirting the press before this. I'm so good."
Odette almost wished she had torn apart the office. But that surely would have woken Toulouse up. More importantly, she'd have had to explain to Bernard why his office looked like Hitmonlee had raided it.
"Well, you know what has to happen now," Noel said darkly, leaning far back in his chair and folding his arms over his chest. The sudden change in his tone made Odette force herself back into a sitting position.
"No, you're going to have to educate me," she said.
"Come on Dee, look at the facts here," he said. He slid the chair over to the bed, stopping when his knees touched hers. "It has to be so much more than a crazy coincidence that all of this nonsense happened on the same day."
"I think it's only a crazy coincidence."
"Hear me out, though." He raised a finger. "You happen to run into Dorien-shiny trade Dorien, just out of nowhere at your trainer school."
"Much to my dismay, might I add."
"Shame, because he was really cute."
Odette swatted at him. "Continue, please."
Noel raised another finger. "He threatens you and your 'mon in battle, and freaks you out."
She silently pressed her lips together, and he took that as a sign to continue.
"Then, you visit your grandpa, the chief of Kalos PD, the man headfirst in the sacrilege cases, only to find he's in contact with some mysterious man who happens to be involved with an organization dedicated to shutting down the shiny trade, who pretty much admitted to Team Enigma existing." He paused, seemingly for dramatic effect, and held his hands out to his sides.
"And also admitted they were warding the press off of something involving shinies, which confirms your find," she added in a monotone. He was treading dangerously close to having an extremely valid point.
"Exactly. They know some shit that they don't want us to know," he said.
Her head had been spinning since she left Bernard's office, and not even the wine was stopping that. This wasn't something that was just going to fade.
"Look, I'm just saying. There's some pieces here," Noel insisted. "I think we can make them fit if we start mining for more."
She raised her brow at him. "Are you saying we should get involved?"
He leaned back in his chair again, kicking his legs up to rest his sock covered feet in her lap. "Nosy trainers get involved in police affairs all the time. Hell, the cops even enlist trainers for help once in a while. We wouldn't necessarily be out of line." He shrugged again, before resting his arms behind his head. "We have a legit concern, we're not getting answers, and now we have some pseudo-legit leads. I say we run with it."
Odette lowered her brows at him, before pushing his feet off her lap. "You really should have been a detective. Or a hacker, at the very least."
He laughed airily. "And let my powerhouse voice and strong dancing legs go to waste? Clearly you've never heard of multitasking. Who says I can't do both? I just need my pretty sidekick to get started."
His jesting smile signaled a joke, but she knew him well enough to know there was a part of him that was serious. She'd only wanted to see an end to the crisis for her grandfather's sake, but now it was very clear that he had a bigger foot in it all than he was letting on. That concerned her even more. And how much had they found out? J.L. Ménétries made it seem like they were right on Team Enigma's trail, and yet, it was looking like nothing was changing as of late.
It had to be just a coincidence that Dorien had decided to pop back into her life on the same day. Him and his no-good shiny trading ways, flaunting it all like it was nothing major. She allowed herself to once again think back to their battle. The feeling she got, the way her entire body told her to vacate the premises, the way he spoke.
But was that really enough to run with? Her gut, and her reads on people were usually not wrong…but even if she wanted to go with it, did she want to actually spend more time with Dorien just for the slightest chance he was possibly involved with sacrilege, and even worse, Team Enigma?
I know you say you're fine, and it has been almost a year since everything happened, but maybe you could try focusing on something completely new?
Well, she was one-hundred percent certain this was not what Bernard had meant when he said that, but this was certainly pretty new. She thought back to his tired eyes, the way he'd fallen silent that one week...and the way he so seamlessly lied to her face about what he knew.
Her wary gaze cut over to her Pokemon, who were still quite caught up in their game. She could practically hear Solene and Enora screeching in her ears about how this was a bad idea. Isaur would most likely be all for it. Ange would simply go along with whatever, and she was still fairly certain all Loïc could consciously think about was pecha berries and crawling in the air ducts, so she wasn't exactly concerned about breaking the news to him.
She decided, then and there, she didn't care about the stern talking-to in store by her oldest Pokemon. She needed something else to do, and really...perhaps this was it.
Maybe it was the buzz, but she didn't really care at the moment.
"Alright. Let's build this puzzle then."