A/N
Thanks for reviewing again, Muders.
Wet droplets streamed down the vulpix's face. Whether it was tears or just the rain, he did not know.
His hind-paws dangled off the edge of the wooden platform, swaying back and forth in a careful motion. He let out a long, slow sigh as he stared down into the complex structure below. Just barely visible through interwoven boards of unlit wood, he could make out the silhouette of an out-stretched section near the bottom of the cliff.
His ears perked up as a voice met his ears.
"Sucks... Doesn't it?"
Salami blinked in surprise, turning to look up at the stranger. The towering, slender form of a zoroark gazed back.
"Uh, what?"
"Do you mind if I... Join you?"
"Go ahead, I guess."
The fire-type turned his gaze back down to the depths of the town, as the new arrival took a seat behind him.
"Salami... is it?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Good to meet you... Very good. My name is Detective Nettle, and I'm with local law-enforcement."
"The guild?"
"No; they are a private organization."
"I see."
Salami continued to nervously twittle his paws. It wasn't long until Nettle spoke once more.
"We're looking into the... cases. We are working with the guild, of course, but would you not agree that they are a bit... irresponsible?"
The vulpix felt his heart-rate begin to accelerate, just a bit. He side-glanced up to the dark-type's neutral expression, before looking back down.
"How do you mean?"
"We know that there's a, say... dangerous individual or group out there. One seemingly able to take some fairly competent teams... out of the picture."
Salami nodded, with an eyebrow raised.
"Uh... Yeah? That's why we were sent down there; to put a stop to this bullshit."
The corner's of Nettle's lips tugged up just slightly.
"Ah, but you see... That is the issue." Salami's ears perked up, his gaze turning to the zoroark's face. He couldn't help but mirror the oncoming smile, though his own was tainted with a bit of confusion.
"Is it?"
"Yes, indeed... We finally have a location where a disappearance has been confirmed to have happened. With a fully evolved pokémon, no less... A location where an experienced team was ambushed, and where help could not be called for if needed."
"Go on."
"With all this in mind, they let a fresh, inexperienced group of essentially children blindly dive in... as their first mission, no less. No offense meant, of course."
Salami's maw fell open to protest, before falling shit. He thoughtfully swished a small flame around briefly in his mouth, before swallowing it to speak once more.
"Uh, except, that's not entirely true. We went with my parents, and Grape, who are all pretty experienced."
A prideful grin crept onto Salami's face as he spoke. A mirrored expression soon took Nettle's features, in turn causing the vulpix's to falter.
"And, despite that, it changed... nothing. Six good pokémon were sent on a suicide mission, and only three returned. Do the precautions taken truly matter... when they weren't enough?"
Salami sighed, looking down. His tail gave a nervous flick.
"That's... They did their best. They couldn't have known."
"They could have... And they did. Everything we know about these disappearances have pointed to immense danger. Some of the best of the best have been taken. There is... no justification for this level of incompetence. I do not mean this personally, Salami, but... you should never have been allowed on that mission. Not only your friends, but your father. They're... Gone, maybe forever, and it's all their fault."
The fire-type did not speak once the zoroark concluded. He simply stared down with a frown. He had no idea how long he had sat there, or when Nettle had left. It wasn't until he felt a familiar muzzle poke at his cheek did he look up again.
Creme's loving gaze met his eyes.
She smiled. He did not.
He did not speak; only thinking to himself.
"They're gone. It's your fault, mom. You should have known. I should have known. Everyone should have known." His hateful gaze bore into the ninetales. The hostility in his eyes, amplified by the intense negative emotion radiating from his mind, prompted the ninetales to take a step back.
"Honey...?"
"Go."
"..."
"..."
"Okay..."
Creme's posture sagged as she turned to pad away from her son. One last, desperate gaze turned in his direction, only to be met with the back of his head.
Shallot jolted awake; literally.
"Ow! Fuck!"
His body convulsed with the effects of the electric current, which soon died off.
"Not once have I been so pleased to be subject to your crude language."
As he recovered from the shock of the shock, his ears twitched toward the familiar voice. He turned, but saw nothing.
"Tart? That you?"
"Affirmative. I am ecstatic to see you once more conscious; I have been worrying quite a lot."
He dove toward the voice, embracing his friend relentlessly. He savored the feeling of her paws around his back as he aggressively nuzzled against her face. She returned the volley of affection with a few mutual rubs of their cheeks.
"Tart! Are ye' hurt? Where are we? Why can't I see nothin'?" The fennekin's heart raced faster than a thunderbolt, tears pooling in his eyes. Judging by the wetness on other various parts of his face, he assumed that his friend was afflicted much the same.
"Well... I am unharmed, largely. In terms of our location? Imprisoned, it seems, by that pokémon in the cave. I am unsure, however, of the state of your vision. I am able to see just fine." Her words were spoken carefully as usual, but she could not keep a waver out of her tone.
"M-maybe I hit m'head or somethin'..." he sniffled. "Is ever'one else here?"
"Only Bean is in the cell with us, I'm quite afraid, and currently asleep. The others... Unknown."
The fennekin inhaled a deep breath, then releasing it slowly.
"What do we even do about this? Escape?"
"Improbably, I am afraid. Aura suppressors have been applied to our bodies, leaving us unable to call upon our powers."
"Then how did ya' shock me?"
"Hm...?" A moment of silence followed. A small gasp was then given. "I... See. I was only given a normal-type suppressor. Perhaps they were unaware of which moves I could learn? You appear to only possess a fire suppressor, so perhaps your psychic abilities are operational?"
"It's worth a shot, I guess."
With a deep breath, Shallot focused inward on his mind. He recalled what he had learned from the library book, beginning to project his consciousness outward. He attempted to direct his perception out through the ceiling, only to give a frustrated grunt when it did not work.
"I... I can use em', but I seem limited to... wherever th'hell we are."
"Are you able to feel any familiar presences?"
"There's you... Bean... Uh..." He suddenly gasped, posture straightening. "My family! They're here!"
"While I do loath to be she who curbs the enthusiasm, I do believe it is best not to draw attention to ourselves. We would not want our captors to be made aware of their little error, now would we?"
"Ah... I guess yer' right."
Shallot gave a small sigh, shakily standing up. He focused his mind back a bit more inward, mentally shining it about the room like a flashlight. While the finer details were lost without vision, he was able to map everything out in his head.
Triple bunk-bed, bars, sink.
"I... I am afraid, Shallot. What if we do not again see the light of day? Or our friends? Family? Anything of which we once knew?"
Shallot nodded, giving a short sigh.
"We can't be thinkin' like that, though. We've always wanted t'be heroes, right? Part a' that is thinkin' all positive-like. We'll make it out a' this, Poptart. You'll see."
"Hmhmhm..."
As the fennekin climbed into the bottom bunk of the bed, he slumped back against the wall. He soon felt Tart lay her chin in his lap. He let his paws slowly graze her still remarkably smooth fur, occasionally stopping to fiddle with one of her large ears.
Pleased chitters escaped the minccino's fur, her tail giving a pleased swish. She let her paws set to work, carefully smoothing her friend's coat, picking whatever debris out of it she could find.
Shallot let himself fully relax, not a care in the world. He melted into the moment, pushing his anxieties from his mind to focus only on his friend. His unfocused focus remained, until Tart's voice pierced through his trance.
"Shally?"
"Yeah?"
"You are, as the cool 'mons say, 'poking me with your thing'."
An abnormally small, fluffy eevee strode down the stone-brick corridor, observing each of the cells as she passed. Various pokémon were inside, either ignoring her, or fixing her with disapproving stares.
As the eevee concluded her journey down the straight path, she met with a firmly shut steel door. She eyed a terminal next to the door. With a quick fumble her large and poofy mane, she fished out an identification card. She reached up, attempting to swipe her card through the scanner slot.
Too short.
With a frustrated grunt, took a few steps back. Her legs powerfully sprang outward, sending her up toward the panel. She impacted the wall with a muffled yelp, though her card landed in place.
After falling back to the ground, her paws tapped impatiently as her eyes bore into the screen.
"Processing. Please wait!"
With a click, the door soon opened. The normal-type retrieved her card and strode through, letting the mass of steel slam shut behind her.
The eevee gazed around the room, its sensory information completely different from the corridor previous. Sterile gray plates of metal lined every surface of the room. The whining hum of working machinery echoed around from the far distance, supplanted by the arcane roar of their cooling systems.
The room she stood in was fairly large, with about fifteen pokémon milling about. Her fur occasionally rustled in the artificial breeze, which chilled her to her core. The sheer cold elicited a small grin.
A krokorok dressed in a thick, black coat soon noticed her presence. He put on a toothy grin as he approached.
The two twisted their hips to bump their tails together, then turned once-more to high-five.
"Yo, Sherbert. Anything... sussy, going on?"
"Nah, homes. A bitta' da' ol' down-n'-dirty bes happenin', but nu'in' yo' home-gurl hadn't done seen befo'."
"Hehehe... That's QUITE fucking erroneous, if you ask me."
"Come agin', dawg?"
"East Erronianism, NOT to be confused with West Gregarianism."
"I, uh... Yeeeuh."
"Hehehe... So, nothing of the, let's say, CONSPIRING nature has occurred?"
"Nu'in I done saw. Mayhaps theys be hidin' they's shinanigens when we're comin' 'round. Mights need be tellin' tha' high-ups t'be considerin' cameras, o' some shit. Capiche?"
"Hehehehe. I'm pretty FUCKING understanding of what you just said, THAT'S for sure."
"Uhhh... Okay, homes!
The krok down a bench. He unhooked the lunch-pale from his coat, pulling out two sandwiches. As Sherbert finally finished her struggle to hop up onto the seat, she felt one of the meals plop onto her face.
"So... How ARE you doing?"
"Mrrf! Lit. How 'bout yo'self, Broccoli?"
"I'm okay. Just lured some of those absolute FOOLS at the guild into a trap... Kehe... Agent N should be takin' care of them REAL soon!"
"Ayyyyo, that be pretty bitchin', big-b. Shiiit, tho, we do be takin' lots-a' folk away from theys fam. Been thinkin': Gottsa be anudda' way to recruit folk, ya' dig?"
Much to the eevee's annoyance, she felt Broccoli reach a hand down to ruffle her head. She raised her paws to smooth the fur back down, half-eaten sandwich hanging from her maw.
"It's not JUST about the recruitment. It's about getting those FILTHY suck-ups out of the way of our plans. Wish there was a better way, but we ABSOLUTELY can NOT risk many exploration teams running around as we search. Better they investigate the disappearances than our little excavations... Hehehe..."
"Ayo I gotcha' my G, just be seemin' kinda... Wrong?"
"I mean, we're not killing them, so can they REALLY complain?"
"We still be takin' they lives, ya' dig? Just not as literally."
"Yeah. It's for the greater good, though."
"Hmmm... Makes sense, I s'pose... Maybe."
Tart paced back and forth, observing the two fire-foxes carefully. They remained still, eyes shut in concentration.
"Nothing."
"Same."
Their eyes popped open. They looked to each-other, then to Tart. At least, Bean looked to Tart. Shallot looked to where she had been when he initially closed his eyes.
"Pardon? Did you two not say that you could feel familiar presences earlier."
Shallot corrected the course of his sightless gaze.
"Yes," clarified Bean, "We can. No one is responding to our pings, however."
The fennekin nodded, with a disappointed sigh.
"My family's closer, yet still so far. It ain't fair."
Bean draped his tails comfortingly over the smaller pokémon's back. Shallot curled up a bit.
"In due time, young one. You will see your family again. Both of you, and I as well."
Tart gave a noncommittal shrug.
"Somehow, I fear, my residence will notice nay, my absence of communication. That is, until I am required for my parents to show off their 'perfect little angel'."
"That... Ain't sound healthy."
"Perchance."