It was a day that began just like any other, a proper description need not be given. The guildhouse remained in just the same place it had for decades, Locke and Tamin had slept the nights separate in their own bedrooms, and their slumber was put to a close when Niot knocked on the doors with his hard talons whilst calling out to them in his booming voice. In those regards, the day was no different.
As was regular now, they went straight to the breakfast table, which was equally regular. For Tamin the minccino in particular, she operated purely automatically as she followed a daily routine she was keen on forming in the guild. For Locke, it was much alike as he had no qualms with letting his instincts guide him. Both were still waking up.
Once they filled up with food; they split up. Locke headed downstairs to spend time in the lounge whilst Tamin took a slow walk to the outer halls, planning to begin another session of eavesdropping. But her luck was low that day, as this time she wasn't even able to exit the mess hall before she heard the sigh-worthy noises of someone calling out to her from behind.
"Oi! Tamin!" Dewott's voice rang.
"Hmm? Yes?" Tamin said as she turned around to face the otter pokemon.
"I heard you did some training exercises with Mienfoo yesterday," he said as he came to a halt a few meters in front of the minccino.
"That's correct," Tamin spoke truthfully, not sure where Dewott was going.
"Eh, that's cool! I was just plannin' on leaving for a mission pretty soon, and wonderin' if you'd like to come," Dewott said, chipper." Mienfoo is coming with me, and I could show you some of what I know as well.'
"Well, it's still early. I do my missions after lunch," Tamin explained calmly.
"Oh? Do you have somefin else planned to do right now?"
"Not necessarily," Tamin said.
"Then why wait?"
"Doing missions in the afternoon is just what I do."
"But why?" Dewott said, unintentionally sounding like a child as he was genuinely confused by Tamin's logic.
"It's just routine," she said as if it clarified everything.
"Look, I'm just not following. If you have nufin you're doing right now, then why wait? If you haven't even been here for a week then what's so important about a routine?"
"Well…" Tamin began saying before she found the words escaped her. Her desire to establish and adhere to a routine was purely from feelings and not any sort of logic, rendering it nigh impossible to put into actual words to justify them. As a result, she second-guessed herself "...I guess I could come along. I mean, I know you're a friend of Locke."
"Great! Let's start getting ready," Dewott said, glad to be able to work with Tamin.
"Should we bring Locke along with the team as well?" Tamin said.
"Nah, with you we've already got a full team with you on board. The mission's labeled to be fit for just a three man team."
"Fair enough."
"C'mon now, let's get ready, we're heading to some hills. I'm sure it'll be a great match for you since minccino are great climbers and the place has a lot of verticality."
"I'm with you."
Returning to that same automatic mindset of doing actions with little thought process, she followed Dewott as her eye line was about at the same vertical level as his tail. They grabbed their appropriately sized backpacks, met up with Mienfoo, each got a flare that matched their type's color, rummaged together what miscellaneous supplies they needed and walked off to town. All with Tamin silently following along.
Down in the basement, Locke spent his time sitting on the furniture while doing little more than looking around. He hoped Crystal, Dewott or Tamin might come to greet him, but was only disappointed to find that none of them came. Instead, the pokemon that were present kept their distance and did not sit next to him, for the stories of Locke hurting other guild members had spread among the community as fast as one would expect rumors in a closed setting like that to. The shinx did mildly sense the glares at him, but not enough to flee from the situation. He considered saying something, but there was no one present that he was friends with and he was too tired to compose some dark humor joke.
His eyes were only half-open and his awareness took a drop down. He had been frequently staying up late so that he could be with his weavily girlfriend into the night, and that of sleep with an immovable wake up time had begun taking its toll on him.
As the slightly tired shinx remained in the lounge, the team of Tamin, Dewott and Mienfoo, were in town. They were passing through a marketplace to get any last items they would want to have for the mission. Most of the outdoor vendor stands had already been shut down due to the coldness outside with only the sellers who were robust against the fridgedness remaining active. For the guild members, that just meant having to spend additional time to dip in and out of the shops. Tamin wasn't particularly interested in shopping, and Dewott wasn't much more interested either. She kept fostered to her own mind, with most of her time spent not looking at any shop merchandise but staring out into the distance while only she and Arceus knew what was going through her mind.
"Are you okay there?" Mienfoo asked, noticing Tamin's distantness as they left another storefront.
"Hmm?"
"You have been quiet and distant this entire time, I'm making sure you're okay."
"Oh. Yes, I'm fine."
"Now, you sure there?" Dewott asked, following up Mienfoo.
"Yes, do you have a problem?" Tamin said while defensively taking a step back from the two pokemon speaking to her that were taller than she was.
"Oh, no no no, we're just making sure everyfin's fine," Dewott reassured.
"I will admit, I haven't seen you talk- or socialize at all- very much. Most of the time you just seem to be silently pacing around while thinking," Mienfoo said.
"I just have a lot to think about," Tamin said, going with the narrative they were implying while avoiding any implication that she eavesdropped on others.
"What do you have to think about if you don't chat with others?" Mienfoo asked. "Forgive me for asking, but where do your ideas to ponder on come from?"
"The books I've read," Tamin continued to avoid any discussion of her eavesdropping. Even still, she had her guard partially raised.
"Well I don't see much use if you don't talk to others about it. When was the last time you initiated a conversation with someone?"
"Huh… I'm not actually sure about that, let me think."
The team began walking through the marketplace again, leaving Tamin in the back again to wallow while she pondered. "When was the last time I started a conversation with someone?" she thought to herself. "Well there was that time I asked Espeon about the guild rules, that was a conversation I started. Oh, and I started that conversation where I invited Locke into my room. Are there any other times? Do I really start conversations that rarely?"
Her disconnection was temporarily ignored as the team moved on. They decided they had all that they needed so that they could begin heading out of town. But not even a minute after Tamin went silent again, the distant look on her face turned to one of dread as she had an epiphany.
"Oh crap," she thought to herself, "I never told or warned Locke about the stuff I heard Hunter say with pranking him. I just carried on with my day."
As the conversation she heard repeated in her head, she got a horrible sinking feeling in her stomach. She felt queasy just thinking about it, and what fate held in store for Locke.
"We need to turn back," Tamin told the other two.
"What?" Dewott asked as he turned to face Tamin and the entire team stopped.
"I just remembered some important things that I need to tell others," Tamin said, being vague but urgency being very evident in her voice.
"Can it wait until we finish the mission?" Mienfoo inquired.
"I don't think so," Tamin said, still speaking faster than what was typical of her in concern.
"What's so important about this matter?" Mienfoo asked a follow up question.
"Look, I heard- I overheard a conversation yesterday that was Hunter talking about some kind of stuff he was planning on doing to Locke, and I realized- you made me remember that I never warned Locke about that."
"Really?" Dewott asked.
"Yes!" Tamin said with concern intensified, "They said they might be doing it tomorrow- which would be today. And I didn't catch all the details, but Hunter seemed proud of it and I think it's something big. I'm worried about him."
The two other pokemon in the team paused for a second as they looked down towards the minccino, each trying to figure out how to react.
"...Come. It'll only add a few minutes to our trip," Dewott said to break the silence while taking up the stern tone of a leader. Regardless of any doubts he had, Locke was his friend and he wouldn't stand idle while any potentially bad thing could befall upon him.
Tamin, Dewott, and Mienfoo had their objective shifted. They turned back in the direction of the guildhouse and ran through the town's roads to return.
While they were still in town, an oblivious Locke was still in the basement lounge. His head began dropping down and he rubbed his eyes with the top of his wrist to stay awake. At some points his body began leaning towards the edge of the furniture and falling asleep, but everytime that began Locke caught himself and forced a surge of energy out to stay awake.
He was considering going back to his own room to take a catnap before lunch, but just as that train of thought began its trip through the landscape of his sleep deprived brain, a strange scent came in to piece his nostrils and enter his cranium, causing that train to derail. It immediately heightened his senses and made him focus on it. It was similar to how the catnip Olivia used was, but not quite the same. It was modified to have a savory twinge to it, making it less of the smell of cut grass and more reminiscent of the satisfying aroma of recently caught game.
His whiskers frisked up as the smell touched his nose. He hopped down from the sofa he was on and began following where he could sense the smell coming from, following one's nose just as what the metaphor was originally made to refer to. The lounge and those in it were left behind as the shinx went to navigate through the basement's halls while frequently sniffing. The others in the lounge either weren't close enough to the scent to notice it or were not enticed by it enough to investigate.
Locke followed down the mineshaft-like hallway and made a turn out of it, his nose dominating his eyes and his sense of reason on what guided him the most as he continued turning down area after area. Curiously, he couldn't sense the aroma's source getting any closer to him.
As he began reaching the corner of the expansive basement, getting to a room with a sharp corner where he finally seemed to close in on the scent's source, his large ears picked up its own stimuli.
"Why, hello there," a voice spoke.
Locke turned around to see an excadrill from the guild stepping into the room.
"Uh, hi?" Locke responded to him in a confused tone of voice.
The excadrill walked into a position that cornered Locke from where he was. Making it so if he tried to walk out, he would only get closer to the excadrill no matter which way he went. The shinx noticed this and his eyes squinted.
"So, do you like my work?" he stated.
"What do you mean?" Locke asked again, still keeping his guard up and beginning to arc his spine to enter a lunging stance.
"This basement. This whole place. I was the one to dig out almost all of it when the guild needed some more room. This place is my creation."
"Oh... that's kinda neat."
"Do you like it? Love it, perhaps?"
"I mean... I'll take it over a mystery dungeon, but that's not saying much, not is it?" Locke stated. "Though given how these halls are set up I wouldn't be surprised if this place somehow became a mystery dungeon one day. However those places are created."
"Is that what you think now?" He said in a cold voice, articulated to be as threatening as possible.
"If I'm being honest now," Locke said while honing his stance further in accordance to how the others voice became more threatening.
"Oh… Well well well, that just won't be acceptable."
"Now just what the hay are you going on 'bout now?" Locke asked, electricity coming through his fur and his eyes starting to shift color.
"You were never welcomed here, and if you're going to disrespect an artist's masterpiece, then that further confirms it," he said as he leaned in closer, showing his claw. "You know what this guild was established for? It was for culling wild pokemon left and right, making sure they don't taint this beautiful tapestry of a world or pull on any of its threads. Today, I shall uphold that duty, and take care of an uncultured one at that."
He quickly pulled his massive claws back and then slammed it forward. It was slightly to the left of Locke's center, so Locke quickly skidded to the right to evade it. As the claw went to the ground, Locke's eyes had made its full transition to red. His instincts screamed to him that he needed to fight for his life.
In retaliation, Locke jumped forward and attempted to slash at him with his claws. The attack was predicted and dodged by the excadrill. After dodging, he quickly stepped forward again while performing fury swipes. Yet the attacks were each sluggish and improperly aimed, so the shinx had no problem dancing on his four paws to move out of the attack arc each of them provided. Between each dodge, his fur surged with electricity more and more. As he was aware his lightning attacks would have no affect, he focused the energy into his joints to help them move around in a twitch.
Just as the flurry of fury swipes was coming to an end, the attacker jumped backwards. Locke was prepared to make an aimed lunge at him, but before that move could be executed, the excadrill began running out of the room. Locke had begun the attack, but once his target began moving out of the way he slowed his movements to reduce how long he would be exposed after making the attack and preventing himself from awkwardly hitting the wall.
He continued to run away from Locke, turning down corridor after corridor. Locke wouldn't let him get away, so he chased in close pursuit just as he would chase pokemon in mystery dungeons.
He ran faster than Locke did, but that did not discourage him from chasing. Even though he was slowly getting away, Locke did his best to keep after.
After only fifteen seconds of sprinting, the two made it into the lounge area. Although some pokemon did hear their fighting and running, everyone was still surprised to see them enter in a rush. The image of an excadrill charging into the room with a shinx chasing after him and attacking him made everyone there jump.
Ignoring the reaction of the others- and even their presence- Locke continued to ferociously dive in and keep attacking the excadrill with his claws. With the excadrill prioritizing evasion over blocking.
"Help me!" The excadrill cried out.
"Stop it!" Leavanny said as she came towards them to try to intervene. Reaching out her arm to them.
Locke- still in the frenzy that he was- brought his claws over and slashed at Leavanny's arm, seeing her as nothing more than another enemy in his way. Leavanny promptly recoiled her arm from the hit.
The room became more chaotic. Some screams were heard and most were running upstairs. A few more attempted to intervene and stop Locke, but he would just discharge electricity at them to fend them off, and hurt others by mistake when he did that as well.
Eventually, one of the Excadrills attempts at dodging inevitably failed as Locke landed a scratch on the excadrill. He landed a solid his at the nape and dove into his flesh.
When the blow was struck, purple energy scattered out from the contact point. The entire body then became coated in that purple energy, and the figure begane changing shape. Once it faded, it was unveiled that it wasn't an excadrill at all, but rather the zorua Hunter that was the true pokemon behind it.
This didn't cause Locke to stop, it did quite the opposite. A different kind of savage hatred coursed through Locke. His reasoning for fighting shifted from survival to revenge in a heartbeat as things intensified for both him and Hunter. Despite the hatred flowing through him, Locke grinned widely, for he now knew he wasn't actually at the disadvantage in the fight he thought he had anymore.
With a yellow static moving through his fur, Locke surged with electricity that he turned against Hunter with vicious intent.
While all that was happening, Sylveon sprinted down the stairs to get himself to the lounge. He had heard all of the commotion going on and came right down. Not far behind him was the guildmaster Espeon.
It took less than a second for Sylveon to spot the fight. He saw Locke shocking Hunter with electricity and Hunter intentionally not fighting back to make himself seem more helpless and like the victim. Though Sylveon knew Hunter well enough to know he was feigning helplessness.
Wasting no time, he ran toward them and reached out his feelers at them. Wrapping two around Hunter's chest to pick him up and doing the same to raise Locke into the air.
Although Locke squirmed at first and heavily considered shocking Sylveon to break out of the grapple. However, the effects of the feelers kicked in. His adrenaline, hatred and ferocity dissipated as his vision cleared. In real time Locke could feel himself returning to what he once was as all cloudiness in him left and clarity was reached. The moment was entirely caused by the effect of Sylveon's feelers and was surreal to him, it was like having an out of body experience.
Now thinking more rationally than perhaps he ever was, Locke looked around the room and evaluated what was actually happening. Spending this moment of clarity to observe the present and contemplate the events leading up to it.
Espeon had gotten grounded on the floor as well. Without time for explanation, the gem on Espeon's head glowed as he faced Locke directly. Espeon was using the move hypnosis.
Without struggle, Locke's tiredness instantly returned to him and hit him heavily when he fell under Espeon's influence. Restrained and forcefully calmed, he only watched as his moment of perfect clarity faded away as his eyes slowly fell shut and his other senses faded as well. The last thing he saw before going out was Tamin running down the stairs to the lounge and looking directly at him. Seeing the minccino made Locke's eyes widen slightly for a brief moment as he wanted to focus on her, but that momentary surge of motivation was insufficient to stave off the effect of Espeon's hypnosis to put him to sleep.
He wasn't exactly sure how long he was out for. It was a deep sleep to him and he lost all sense of time during it. Only having serene dreams of wild vistas and phantasmagoria as his mind was disconnected from his body.
Eventually, his dreams resided and he returned to consciousness again. His eyes slowly peaked open and he could see that he was in a small room, not even as large as his bedroom. It was almost entirely blank and perfectly cubic, the only things in there with him were Hunter the zorua and Sylveon. Hunter sat on his butt and had a muzzle strapped to his mouth while Sylveon sat in front of the only door out with a stern gaze. Momentarily Locke smiled at the sight of Hunter being muzzled, but then he noticed that his apparel had changed as well as he was suddenly clad in a black and red harness.
"Wakey-wakey," Sylveon said with a cold voice.
Locke sat up again, getting up from the uncarpeted floor. He took another look around the room, but it was just perfectly white with smooth drywall all around and a single reinforced door that Sylveon was in front of. Instantly, the shinx could recognize that he was trapped.
"What happened?" Locke muttered out while turning his eyes back at Sylveon.
"You know full well what happened, Locke. We've already confirmed that you do not black out during those periods," Sylveon stated. "As you're now awake, allow me to begin. You have both done things that are strongly against the guild's rules for a continuous period of time, and by the decisions of Espeon, Umbreon, and Niot, will face just punishments."
Sylveon lifted his feelers to point towards Hunter while he shifted his head to directly at him as well.
"Starting with you, Hunter, as you have begun to make this routine. You have baited Locke into a secluded area by using a homemade mixture of catnip and chemicals that replicate the scent of blood with potency, intentionally harassed him to the point of provocation, and led him to a crowded area when you were fully aware of how ferocious he can be. Your actions would not have been acceptable as is, but the fact that you knew this would lead to others getting hurt makes this far more dire.
The punishment that was decided for you was that you are to remain in this room for the next forty-eight hours, and will only be taken out momentarily to use the bathroom.
"...Alright," Hunter said while incapable of speaking very loudly due to the muzzle around his mouth. His expression- although partly concealed- held minor disappointment for the situation he was in, but was mostly of him accepting the inevitable and an outcome he already knew was coming for him.
"Can you please tighten his muzzle so that he can't speak?" Locke asked.
"No. That is not a part of his punishment, and you are in no place to decide this at all," Sylveon replied.
"Mhm. Well, we've been through this before, but let's hear about the real show we came here to have now, shall we?" Hunter said, smug in spite of the muzzle placed on him.
Locke was taken aback by this response from the zorua, stunned that he would react not only casually, but smugly in response to such a punishment. Any positive feelings Locke had drained from him as he looked back at Sylveon.
"As for you, Locke. Firstly, let it never be said that I did not warn you. Last chore day I made sure in no uncertain terms to tell you of what you have done before, a warning that unfortunately appears you did not heed. It was primarily Niot's decision on what your punishment is, so I am neither guilty of failing to warn you or deciding what you deserve.
You have shown failure to control your instincts many times. You have attacked Max with a thunderbolt as he was rescuing from you, attacked Sebastien during a fight, made threats of violence towards Hunter on an earlier date, and today attacked several pokemon. In addition to that, you have also completely abandoned your team during missions, most notably during the test mission where you completely ran away from Tamin and Niot. Despite it being only a week that we've known you, your behavior has been deemed horrible, to say the least. So because of your lack of self-control, it's been decided more control will be put on you."
"Where the heck are you going with all of this?" Locke asked, not totally following Sylveon.
"Oooh~ here it comes," Hunter interjected.
"See that harness you're wearing?" He said while pointing towards Locke with his feelers.
"This one you put on me while I was forced asleep?" Locke responded while looking down at the black and red harness again.
"That will serve both as your punishment and how you will be better kept under control. Until further notice, you are going to be required to wear it at all times. The higher-ups in the guild (me, Espeon, Umbreon, and Niot) or whoever you're going on a mission with may attach a leash to the harness' clip if they so desire. You have to follow whoever leads you and you are not allowed to take it off yourself. This will not circumvent your ability to choose which missions you take or how you spend your money and such, but will allow us to actually control your wild behavior and stop you from getting lost."
"Wait, what?!" Locke objected.
"If you have issues with this, you can take that up with Espeon, Umbreon or Niot, as it was their decision for it, influenced by a psychological profile made on you," Sylveon said, unbreaking in his sternness. "But make no mistake, you have more than pushed the rules of this guild in the short amount of time you have been here, and these are the consequences for your actions."
"But this is absurd! You're putting me in a harness and a leash, really?"
"Have I stuttered?"
"Y'know, clawing at the neck of the guildmaster's girlfriend probably wasn't the best move on your part," Hunter spoke. "Man, hindsight really is a harsh mistress, ain't it?"
"Oh will you shut up-"
"Enough!" Sylveon interjected, "Locke, do you have any questions about this?"
"Don't you think this is humiliating?!"
"The choice was apparently between doing this to put your unacceptable ferocity under control or to kick you out of the guild. After what you have done today they concluded some action was needed, and they decided against throwing you out just before winter hit us.
If this does humiliate you, then let that give you incentive to improve your behavior."
"So you honestly think I should just be dragged on a leash during missions?!" Locke said while starting to get legitimately angry.
"That decision will be left up to your teammates."
"But how do you think what happened this day will change just because I am in a harness? Are you going to have me on a leash all the time?"
"I can only blame Hunter so much for what you've just done (hence the punishment I gave him). You are at fault for your numerous incidents. So this is intended to directly help in missions to control you better and indirectly help inside the guildhouse by making you learn to not go into more ferocious. Being immediately leashed and pulled around when your teammates see you doing something bad is great conditioning to make someone change.
As for avoiding something like this specific incident in the future, just try better to control yourself and not freak out. I'd personally recommend staying near a friend as much as you can, but obviously I can't force you to do that."
"There has to be a better solution than this."
"Then let this serve as an incentive to find that better solution."
"...You're really doing this?" Locke asked, he stopped arguing and went into a tone of sadness, "Don't you think this is a little… embarrassing?"
"I would agree with you on that. It's a shame that you didn't leave the guildmasters or Niot with much better of an option."
Locke was left speechless, knowing not how to argue further or how to accept these demands being laid out in front of him. He turned to look at Hunter, who was grinning as wildly as the muzzle would allow, more than satisfied to see his plans being executed exactly as he hoped to.
"Anyways, I believe all the new orders have been explained, you and I can leave from this room now," Sylveon spoke.
He moved two of his feelers again to open up his satchel and delve inside. From inside of the satchel, he pulled out a leash and brought it up. Sylveon brought the leash towards Locke, which made him step back in reflex.
"Still," Sylveon gave as a one-word command to the shinx.
Mind still spinning around, the shinx stopped for a second. Sylveon clipped the leash onto Locke's harness, and it was at that time where Hunter's grinning turned to audible giggling. Once the leash was on, Sylveon yanked on it to force Locke to step forward. He sat up and got out of the way of the room's singular door so that Locke could face it.
The shinx's head and tail were both dropping so low that his spine was curved like a half circle. It was at that moment that he actually did not want to leave the blank room anymore, simply because he didn't want anyone else to see him when he was clad in a harness and hooked onto a leash like a pet.
Ignoring Locke's emotions, Sylveon grabbed the door's high-up handle with his feelers and pulled the door open. Instead of looking at Locke, Sylveon instead had his eyes locked on Hunter to make sure the zorua didn't make a run for it.
The door was pushed open and the two stepped out, Locke still being pulled on the lead. What was on the other side of the door was revealed, it was a typical basement hall with the same unfinished walls. But standing just outside of the door in a semicircle were Tamin, Dewott, and Mienfoo, each of them having come to the room to see what would happen to Locke after he was carried away while asleep. Each of the four were stunned and brought back by the sight before them. In particular, Locke's and Tamin's eyes met each other, Locke giving the manifestation of someone who is being more humiliated then they had ever been before and Tamin showing absolute empathy for another pokemon. They all visualized the many implications this massive change held and the sudden loss of freedom the shinx faced.
End of chapter 12.