No part of this operation was going to be easy. Not a single step of it. If they were legit adventurers with an approved battle strategy, they wouldn't need to sneak past the patrolling officers through the bundles of bushes like thieves. A clear sign that they would be given a massive lecture once all of this was done and over with.
Crystal was not looking forward to it. Ace would ask what they were thinking. Scarlet would ask how they could do this under their noses. Jezebel, Lillian… Ezekiel. Ooh, Ezekiel might actually be the worst, she thought with a shiver. She imagined those eyes glaring through her soul and instantly regretted putting that vision into her head. That kind of burn would not be pleasant at all.
Emizella held up a hand but Crystal was too late catching the signal, lightly bumping into her back. Jasper continued into her rump, smooshing into her tail with a soft "oof" before peeking past. Crystal did the same, looking past Emizella's shoulder to see the reason for her sudden halt. A justifiable reason that made her stomach sink as Scarlet slinked past their hiding spot.
Jasper crept up to take a better look, curiosity asking what his mother was doing up so late. She walked on into a small, open office space—the public safety officers' station—but Crystal didn't suspect that she was slinking her tails over the doorway to report Jasper missing. They weren't lively enough to hint that she was even aware that Jasper was no longer in his bed. Actually, they didn't seem lively at all. They dragged over the wooden archway of the structure limply, the tiniest effort used to see her world and guide her to the pokemon she was truly looking for.
"Darling?" Scarlet whispered for her husband, a tail stroking along his stripped back.
"I'm here, Scarlet." he confirmed although he didn't reach to touch her. His paws were too busy shifting across the table in front of him, flipping through every piece of evidence he had at his disposal, no doubt.
"Are you coming home soon?" her voice got an inch louder, but it didn't sound any less exhausted in her attempt to break through her husband's concentration.
"What? Oh, yes… Yes, just… give me a couple more minutes." Ace answered, hardly present in his own response.
Scarlet's muscles drooped and sagged, ears dulling into a sullen shape while her tails dropped to the earth lifelessly. Only one of them moved from the bundle of furry appendages, placing itself onto the table and interrupting Ace's workflow.
Ace stopped for a moment, letting out a tired sigh. "Scarlet, please. I'll be home in a bit so just go back without me." Her tail didn't move from its place. "I just need a bit more time. There must have been something I missed. Something I'm not seeing."
"Ace… You're tired… Please, just come home with me."
"I can't do that." he said, pushing the tail out of his way.
"You're only hurting yourself going on like this. This isn't healthy, Ace, and I won't let you stay in this place a moment longer." Scarlet moved the tail back, lightly coiling it around his wrist.
"You don't know that…" he said behind gritted fangs.
"Yes, I do. Your mind is stressed. Your body is strained. What do you expect to do when your body can hardly keep up?"
"What do you want me to do then, huh?!" he shouted, frustration infesting his tone and forcing its way out. "You want me to sleep while all those children are out there?! While our children are out there?!"
"Ace…"
"Dammit, Scarlet, why can't you see that I need to do this? I don't have time to rest when Ruby and Garnet could be-"
He stopped, realization hitting him like a bucket of ice-cold water. He was left stunned under the unbearable weight of his wife's sobs, tears flowing as freely as the streams and creeks.
"No," he whispered, that cold water chilling his head enough to let his senses steer his actions away from his impulsiveness. "No, no, no. Don't cry. Don't cry." he shushed, moving away from the table to wrap an arm around the ninetales and pull her close. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He pressed soft kiss after soft kiss into the side of her face, manic in his comfort.
Jasper tried to join, visibly distraught in watching the scene play out before his eyes, but Emizella held out her arm to stop him from getting any closer. Crystal was sure it wasn't a scene any child wanted to see, nor any parent wanted to show. The guise of parental restraint and control was washed away in this one emotional outbreak, their brave faces melting away into helplessness. It showed what they truly were inside: mortal beings full of flaws and vulnerabilities.
"I'm an idiot, babe. I'm a real idiot." he whispered. "I'm so mad at myself that I took it out on you. I didn't mean it, babe, I didn't, so please don't cry." His gaze turned upward to the stars, staring and hoping for something behind those exhausted eyes. "If I had done more… if I was a better leader, a better pokemon… then Ruby and Garnet wouldn't have been taken… I'm such a useless idiot. I really am no different from the weak, stupid growlithe I was back then…"
"Don't say that…" Scarlet sobbed, "Don't… You're a good pokemon, so don't say things like that."
"Mom's right…" Jasper mouthed the words, barely speaking the whisper, "It's not your fault, Dad, it's not…" How he wished he could have said it loud enough for them to hear.
"Come home… please?" Scarlet begged.
"… okay." Ace nodded, giving one more kiss to her forehead before turning to blow out the light of the station.
He rubbed his shoulder to hers, a tender signal to follow his lead. They stepped together, matching their paces to one another's as they walked past the trio's hiding space once more.
Crystal was surprised that they had gone undetected, but she supposed that emotional episodes like that do tend to dull the senses. Had they not been so grief-stricken, would they have been able to get past them? Crystal felt a guilty bubble pop in her stomach at the thought of taking advantage of this to sneak out of the village but she could only afford one. The ends justify the means, after all.
~uwu~
The trio managed to make it out of the village perimeter without further incident. Luckily for them, Ezekiel's focus was on the western end of the village border, keeping those sharp, piercing eyes off of them while they made their escape.
"So, what is the plan, exactly?" Crystal asked, stopping under the dense shadows of the trees to look at the two. "We only have one chance at this so we shouldn't be winging it here."
"Well, first we'll have to get whoever it is taking everyone to come out. I'm sure they won't show if they see us so we'll have to keep a bit of distance." Emizella said, her lips pursed into a line of contemplation. "If I concentrate, I'll be able to lock onto your presence without needing to see you. Crystal, you'll have to be my eyes and ears while we trail behind."
"Then, should I just wander around until I find them? Or… 'til they find me, I guess." Jasper asked.
Emizella shrugged, "Best we got. I'm sure they'll come out eventually if they see you're alone."
"Right…" he muttered, turning towards the darkened forest where the nighttime air hung heavily over the trees.
He swallowed down something. His nerves, Crystal took it. With a true unknown hiding behind any one of these shadows, the midnight forest took on an eerie tone that changed the familiar setting into a haunting stranger.
She could see the trail of the chill going down his spine, fur standing along his backside and adding a textured stripe to his already patterned coat. It wasn't like he was backing out, but he had a right to be scared, right? It wasn't anything strange to feel at least a little frightened. In fact, the weird ones would be whoever could look at their role of live bait and not feel the least bit affected about being the lure.
Crystal pressed a paw to him, feeling him jolt up at the sudden touch. For a moment, she considered reeling her arm back, but it stayed when she saw his eyes looking back at her. She committed to it. "Don't worry, we'll be watching you every step of the way." she told him, hoping her first attempt at consoling a worrying heart sounded convincing enough to be comforting. The dim glow of the new moon wasn't the most ideal light to catch the growlithe's response, but a gentle nod of his head was enough for her.
"Alright, you walk on forward and I'll focus onto you. Try to act casual." Emizella said, point a digit into the distance with a hand sharing a space beside Crystal's paw.
"Casual." Jasper repeated, "…casual…" he echoed a bit softer. His head bobbed up and down, charging himself up for probably the stupidest, most reckless thing he'd ever do in his young, growlithe life. "I swear, I'm gunna be a librarian when I get older…" he muttered in passing, letting his legs shake and tremble with his first few hesitant steps. He kept the momentum going, one step after the other until he was swallowed by the midnight shadows.
"Okay, our turn." Emizella pressed a hand to Crystal's head, "Don't let me run into anything."
"I'll give it my best shot." It was going to be her first time as a seeing-eye fennekin; she made no guarantees that she would do a flawless job.
Emizella hummed, "Close enough," she concluded, closing her eyes and starting her focus.
Her appendages rose and trembled, the golden bands shaking against the fur and glimmering ever so gently. Crystal could imagine the world disappearing in her mind, diluting into a single shade of monotone grey to leave only one perceivable presence in her mind's eye. She followed it like a beacon, wanting to keep to a beeline but Crystal swayed her body to follow a path.
Their shoulders brushed past the trees, sticky branches and clingy thorns raking across their fur. Crystal had to remind herself more than once that the fingers running along her legs meant her no harm. There was nothing to be scared of now… nothing to be scared of…
"There," Emizella's voice forced Crystal to catch her yelp in mid-transit through her throat. She felt the jolt lodge itself in her airway before she swallowed it and her scream down. Emizella opened her eyes, focusing in on the lingering memory held tightly into her vision. "Jasper just intercepted something. We're going to have to close the gap between us and fast." she told Crystal.
"Right." Crystal nodded, "You lead the way. I'll keep up behind."
It was quicker than having Emizella be encumbered by her added weight. Besides, she was confident enough that her legs would be able to keep up with hers. That her eyes could look through the darkened night well enough to keep her in her sights. That her ears were sharp enough to follow her woodland sprint. In short, she was fully capable of running with the riolu without falling behind and Emizella wasn't going to stomp on her willingness to try.
She gave a quick nod of her head, "This way, then." she said before running forward with the wind on her tail.
Crystal followed behind, quick on her heels as they raced past the trees while keeping to the soft padding of the grass. She followed Emizella's imprints sunken into the green blades, trusting their path as their quietest route.
Fast as the storm but silent as a breeze.
Don't let them get away; don't let them know we're coming.
She repeated the spell in her head with each pound of her head, feeling the warmth of her blood running under her skin. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, whispering promises of power into her head. Was it bad to listen to its voice? Was it unwise? With all things considered, yes, but it did feel good to know that even she had a little voice in her head daring her to be reckless.
A soft, lavender glow broke the dark spectrum, a jarring sight to say the least but it also gave Crystal a haunting chill that stilled her body and warned her of her all too apparent mortality. And the source of that light, the little body producing that glow atop its head, gave her a sense of déjà vu that both scared and intrigued her. It was strange, how could she have any sense of playing out this scene when this was her first time seeing a litwick in this world.
"You're so far from your bed, my dear… are you perhaps lost?" the litwick asked, illuminating the space between her and Jasper who stared motionlessly—eyes mesmerized but body on edge.
"N-No," he stammered, "No, I'm not lost. I'm… I'm looking for my siblings."
"Siblings?" she echoed, her voice like the whisper someone thinks they hear riding the winds.
"Yeah, my brother and sister. One's a growlithe like me and the other's a vulpix."
The litwick thought for a moment, her little arms tapping against her waxy lips. "I think…" she started her gentle musing, "I think I have seen such a pair wandering around here."
"You have?"
Of course she has.
"Yes, yes, I do believe so indeed. Wandering around so late into the night…just like you, my dear." She turned her eyes up to him, a kindly smile spreading across her warm face, "I told them that the woods aren't as safe as they seemed to believe. I told them that it's hard to see where the moon's light cannot reach. But they insisted that they had to help their dear father find something that could redeem his name. Such good children you have for a brother and sister."
"I guess…" his voice trailed, gaze shifting away from the litwick whose eyes bade for his attention. He lingered on the bushes, picking through the shadows of the leaves and branches to spot the pair ready to follow him deeper.
"But it's no good to make you worry. No, it's no good at all. And now here you are, out in the woods at such an atrocious hour. The cycle never ends, does it, my dear?" she asked, hanging her head with a sigh. She peeked a glance back to Jasper, "You're worried about them, right? But I assure you they're safe. I've led them somewhere where the shadows can't get to them. I can take you too... if you'd like."
"My… My mom and dad… they've always told us not to follow strangers…" Jasper said, not making it too easy less she caught onto his true intentions.
The litwick smiled again, "And right they are. Such a smart growlithe. We can't be following strangers into unknown places. But I'm no stranger, I'm a friend. Here, I'll even give you my name." She pressed a hand herself, the gentle look never leaving her face, "It's Susie."
"Susie?" Jasper parroted.
"Exactly! And I make sure all of my friends are safe. Every single, last one of them. Even your brother and sister. Because friends are precious. You can be my friend too, if you'll give me your name."
Crystal shook her head, hoping she had developed telepathy in the past few minutes that they had been out here. Don't do it, she repeated in her head, don't do it. She didn't know what the litwick could gain by learning his name but she didn't want to chance it. There was a bad feeling in giving her that sort of power, a bad feeling she just could not shake.
"I don't know…" Jasper muttered his hesitance, adding a saddened drop to Susie's face.
"You don't trust me?" she asked, staring up at Jasper for a second longer than he felt comfortable with. "No, I suppose you wouldn't, would you? Such dangerous times these are, my dear, dangerous times indeed." she mused, "Oh, why don't I show you I mean no harm? It's better than trusting my word, isn't it? You'll feel better once you see that I mean no harm."
"I, um…" Jasper's eyes drifted back to the bushes, catching Emizella's signals in the corner of his eyes. A thumbs up to say they were good to follow and a couple of back-handed swings into the air in front of her to tell him to move forward with their next phase. "…okay," he nodded to the litwick, an attempt at a smile coming onto his lips with a slight apprehensive twitch.
"Lovely. Then, if you'll please follow me." Susie threw an arm behind her, gesturing to the veil of fog settling in with a soft, otherworldly glow coloring the mist. "Don't fall behind, now." she warned him as she began walking into the clouded light, "I wouldn't want you actually getting lost."
Jasper had no other option but to follow. Well, no other option he was willing to accept and he certainly wasn't turning back after coming so far. He turned one last time to the bushes, catching the two pokemon that promised him his safety—the two that promised to take him home by the night's end. His eyes pleaded with them, begged them to keep their word. They wouldn't let him down. They can't let him down.
He walked into Susie's mist and Emizella stood out of the bushes when the litwick could no longer be picked out from the smoky white. "That's our cue." she whispered, turning her eyes down to Crystal, "No turning back."
"No turning back…" Crystal echoed, standing up with her.
They followed after them, slipping into the fog and vanishing into uncertainty. They couldn't see the fog disappearing just behind Crystal's tail, sucked into a single point until not even a wisp remained.
No turning back, indeed.
~uwu~
Crystal felt a strange off-ness walking through this mist, her eyes scanning from side to side trying to pick out the forest they came from. She tried to see the trees through the field of white, tried looking for the canopy in the ceiling of smoke, but there was nothing there as if they had crossed into someplace completely different.
She hung close to Emizella, keeping herself focused on following the flickering lavender that still glowed through the fog. As long as they kept her flame in sight, as long as they didn't fall behind, Crystal didn't have to worry about the implications of Susie's warning. She didn't have to think about what it truly meant to get lost in this place.
"What is this place?" Jasper added a voice to Crystal's unspoken question.
Susie gave a short, proud little chuckle, her soft voice carrying through the smoke and emptiness. "It's a safe place." she told him, "A place where nothing bad can get to us. Where nothing can hurt us. It is a place for my friends, where they will be safe."
"Safe from what?" Jasper asked.
Susie was silent for a moment, her pace slowing in front of her entourage. "From a great calamity." she finally spoke, the word adding a darkened edge to the mist. "I don't know when… I don't know why…but I feel it coming. A heavy disaster that only I can sense. Nobody else sees it, nobody. So I have to save you. I have to save my friends…"
The flickering of her light started to fade, their shadows passing into a portion of mist much thicker than Crystal thought possible in this already blinding place. She hurried after them, having Emizella follow her lead before they could vanish completely. Don't fall behind.
Don't fall behind!
They broke through the veil, crashing into a small space where the fog did not touch. Crystal thought it would have been heavier by the way their shadows were blurring into the fog but it was actually much clearer with wispy walls surrounding them. Wispy walls… and floating bodies.
"Ruby! Garnet!" Jasper's voice screamed, running to his two siblings suspended by small flames that pinned them to the air by their chest.
He tried to reach them, jumping desperately to pull them down, but each leap proved more futile than the last, only swiping at the air just beneath their tails.
"Ruby! Garnet! Answer me!" he cried, helpless whimpers and creeping sobs coloring his voice with panic and anguish. That anguish shifted into anger, turning to the litwick still standing behind him and snarling behind his tears. "You…what did you do to them?!"
"I've protected them." Susie answered, her voice so flat and matter of fact that it threw Jasper for a loop. Even with the children pinned to the wall of floating mist, there was still no malice to her tone, speaking obliviously like a child that doesn't know she's done something wrong. "They're still alive, if that's what you're asking. Alive and safe. The calamity can't reach us here. It can't touch us. It'll go on out there while we stay safe and sound in here. So you see, I really do mean no harm, no harm at all. You'll be safe too. I just need your name, my dear. Your name and you'll be just as safe as your brother and sister."
She moved closer to Jasper, arms outstretched and open to accept him into her world—into her protection—despite the fangs bearing at her. Perhaps she didn't take his warning seriously or perhaps she figured he was only all bark and no bite, but just her creeping closer, acting like he was no real threat, kept the young growlithe frozen in her approach.
"Back off!" Emizella shouted, dashing forward to block Susie's body from getting any closer to Jasper.
It worked, startling the litwick enough to stop her advances, "Who…" she started before noticing her second intruder keeping her from backing away. She looked back at Crystal, looked to her growling features before trying to peek past Emizella's body at Jasper. "My dear… you led others right to us? You knew they were following us and you let them?" she asked, heartbreak dripping from her lips.
"You don't talk to him. You talk to us." Emizella told her, blocking her view with a hand. "What do you think you're doing?"
Susie stared at her for a moment before deciding to answer, "If you've really been here this whole time, then you should have already heard. What a bother this is. Such a bother having to repeat myself. You won't understand, so I'll try explaining in simple terms. There's an anomaly in this world, an anomaly that will bring forth a massive calamity. Many pokemon will die from this calamity, many pokemon indeed. So, I am saving my friends, saving them from a death worse than any nightmare Darkrai can imagine. Now then, if you'll so kindly leave us, I'll get back to my work."
"You think I buy any of that?" Emizella asked, throwing the excuse away with a toss of her arm. "Even if there was something like that, how would you even know? What makes you so certain that such a thing would even happen?"
Susie sighed, "I needn't explain myself to pokemon who do not matter. To pokemon trying to stop me. To pokemon who only want to take my friends away."
"How can you still call this friendship?" Crystal spoke up, turning the litwick's attention onto her. "Even after all this, forcing everyone to stay like this, how is this still friendship? If they were awake right now, if they could see what you were doing to them, do you think they would be alright with this? That their 'friend' was keeping them from their homes and families?"
Susie looked to her, following the fennekin as she rounded her body to stand with the riolu. "This is why I didn't want to explain myself to pokemon like you. Such a pointless endeavor, pointless indeed. How do you phrase it…? It's for their own good. That's it. It's for their own good."
"This doesn't do anybody any good!" Crystal said, stomping a paw down, "Taking away their freedom doesn't do anybody any good." She watched Susie bite her lip, still stern in her belief and too stubborn to move from her position. "Susie…" she said her name, watching her flame flicker just a little higher, "You're not a bad pokemon, right? Sure, you've taken a few wrong steps, but you're not bad, right? We can move past this if you just let everyone go." she offered up a paw, a soft smile coming to her face to soothe the litwick into trusting her. "Okay?"
Susie looked to her paw, following her arm's length to her gentle expression. Warm eyes and kind lips, surely she could trust this. Surely she could, but realization dawned on her, striking her chest mercilessly and filling her golden eyes with sudden terror that made her flame flicker unsteadily.
She took a step back and then another, eyes never leaving the fennekin like she was some unpredictable beast. "It's you…" her voice trembled, "You… You're the anomaly… You're the one… The one that will bring pain… The one that signals the start of our world's destruction."
Crystal winced, her body jolting away from the ravings of the hectic litwick. Why? She wondered but couldn't remember how to speak it.
Emizella looked to Crystal, unable to understand Susie's frantic utterings. "What are you-" but she couldn't finish as the litwick carried out.
"You bring our demise. Death and destruction. Death and destruction follows your wake." Her flames erupted and shrunk on her head, ranging from massive heights to nearly extinguishing on her wick. "No… nonononononono, how could this have happened… how could…" Her ramblings stopped, catching Jasper's eyes behind Emizella's shielding form. "You…" her voice pointed accusingly to the growlithe, "You brought this wicked creature into my home! Into my sanctuary! After I was nothing but kind, this is how you repay me?! You ungrateful brat!"
A ball of dark energy gathered between her arms, growing even bigger than her body before tossing the pitch-black orb at the group.
Emizella was the first to respond to the attack, gathering up Jasper and Crystal under her arms and jumping out of the way from the explosive blast. They tumbled out of the way, the ball's shadows bleeding into the mist and tainting it with the litwick's blood lust and malice. If there was ever a sign that they had pissed her off…
Susie turned to adjust her aim but stopped before a second helping could take the place of the first. "No," she whispered, "No, wait. This is good. A blessing in disguise." she switched her attention to Crystal, "The anomaly is still weak… It's still frail. I can purge it…" she concluded a smile engulfing her face in excited enlightenment. Her arms raised up, "I will purge it. I'll purge you myself!" A light consumed her form, pulling and molding her shape, "And then we'll all be safe. We'll be safe once you're gone!"
The light peeled away from her body, breaking apart piece by piece and scattering away into the air. And what form did they reveal? Not the white of her wax or the melty shape of her face, but a hard, black body, arms long and shiny like iron and face glossy like glass. Crystal wondered if she had been a litwick at all, looking much more comfortable in the body of a lampent.
Her battle cry shook her world, making the three wince and brace themselves against the shock. "This doesn't look too good…" Emizella muttered, pulling Crystal's eyes back to her, "I don't really got much for ghost types like her…"
"What do you have?" Jasper asked, though he was already regretting the question before the riolu could answer.
"Swagger."
And the regret was justified.
"I didn't know it would be a lampent of all things. I can't punch a lampent." Emizella declared with a throw of her arms to the opponent staring them down at this very moment.
But a lampent sure can punch you, Crystal thought, bearing the brunt of Susie's hatred and spite. Honestly, how is that even fair? Well, it didn't matter how fair or unfair the situation was. It didn't change the fact that they had to deal with it the best way they knew how. And, fortunately for them, Crystal did have something that could "punch a lampent."
"Actually, we can work with that." Crystal stated, letting her shivers work their way out of her body through her toes while her fur stood and fluffed up its defenses.
"We can?" Jasper asked.
Crystal nodded, "Yeah… Emi, I'm going to need you to confuse her."
"You do realize what swagger does, right?" Emizella asked, leaning over slightly to look at Crystal's steeled expression.
"Yes."
Emizella blinked at the simple response, the single syllable firmly declaring her unyielding stance. But her stunned expression didn't last long, wiping it clean off her face with a smirk.
"Right then." she said, taking a step in front of the fennekin and blocking Susie's view from her target. "Hey! I don't care if you really can sense the future or if you've completely gone off the deep end, but nobody's purging my partner, you hear?" she shouted, pointing to the lampent.
"And what do you think you can do to stop me?" Susie asked, her tone edging into mockery.
"I can do this!"
Her arms crossed over her chest, an exhale blowing from her nostrils as she focused the glare in her eyes. A red glow radiated from her crimson irises, surrounding her body in an aura that incited rage and a blinding fury. Its air could not be avoided, gripping the lampent in a madness even worse than her earlier explosion of emotion. Golden eyes took on a tint of red. The flames in the glass dome she called her head glowed bigger and brighter. And her body swayed with an unsteadiness that placed her aim on anything and everything within her reach.
Mercy was now an afterthought, and a distant one at that. Crystal knew that she'd be stepping into dangerous grounds pushing her anger into the extremes, but hopefully, she was quick enough to see more of the benefits to this plan than the consequences.
"If that's how you want to play…" Susie gathered the ball of dark energy back into her arms, the orb crackling and oozing with power, "then I'll purge you too!"
She launched the shadowy force at the two, managing to aim straight enough to throw it in their general direction. It flew towards them but would find no satisfaction in hitting either of their bodies. Emizella took Jasper and jumped out of its range while Crystal leapt high into the air, her body pushed out just a bit further by the billowing smoke of its explosion. Just fast enough…
Author's Note: Regarding Emizella and her ability to use Swagger: yes, I am aware that riolus currently cannot learn Swagger but they were able to learn it through a TM in earlier generations. Basically, if the pokemon could have learned the move in an earlier generation game, then they're free game regardless if they can still learn the move in current generation games.
Just wanted to clear that up, but aside from that, I hope you all have been enjoying the ride so far. Next chapter will be the conclusion of this arc so look forward to it.