0.
~\({O})/~
36.
Triple Agent
~\({O})/~
The Slums
~Xatu~
The slums were cold.
Here, the streets were dirty. The houses swayed in the chilling night breeze. The only light came from candles indoors, the occasional campfire, and the distant lights of the city behind them. It was a sad state of affairs.
Xatu stood in front of the one house on the block that had a light source in it, the one that stood on stilts with no first story. There were two pokemon in there, formless shadows that were indistinguishable through the blurry windowpanes of the house, but Xatu knew who they were. He knew who they were because he'd known beforehand. That was why he was here, after all. To observe.
The only immediate warning Xatu had was the whistling of bone. He barely ducked before a large bone boomerang whistled over his head, large enough to knock him unconscious if it collided. A second later, and it came back. This time, Xatu was swift enough to sidestep it without problem.
The bone landed in the fist of a marowak. Xatu's eyes focused on the two pokemon in hoods approaching him from the street. Assassins, clearly. He could see through the cloaks: one of them was a scraggy, the other a marowak. They moved in towards him without hesitation, taking fighting stances.
Xatu did his best to defend himself silently, but even he knew it was a bad idea. He couldn't keep the fight here, he needed to move away from the two pokemon in that house before enough of a commotion arose to disturb them. He could kill the two assassins in a heartbeat, he knew, but he wasn't willing to do that. And they weren't going to be negotiated with like the last ones had. How much was that blasted dewott paying them?
That left him with one option. He raised his wings, and with a flash of light he was gone. The attacks whistled through where he had been and out into thin air.
The marowak caught his bone staff as it came back to him silently. He sighed.
"I didn't know Xatu could teleport," he said.
"Does this mean we came all this way out here for nothing?" Scraggy asked.
"Quiet!"
Xatu rematerialized somewhere near the outer bounds of the slums. He didn't know exactly where, he'd done it in a hurry, but it looked like he'd gone clear to the other side.
Good. He had some time to make a speedy getaway before those assassins came back.
But it wasn't the thought of the assassins that plagued him as he swooped away—more urgently, it was the thought of who had sent them. There was only one pokemon in the world who wanted his head that badly, only one pokemon who had the resources to send so many would-be-killers after him.
Alexis had the terrifying tendency to never learn from his mistakes.
~\({O})/~
Team Colbat Dorms
~Zoroark-as-Braixen~
By the time Zoroark had made it back to the dorms, it was too late for him to feasibly sleep and be up before his partner was. That meant he'd have to tough it out for the night, or he was worse off than he already was. By the time Alice finally woke up, he was Braixen again.
"Hmm?" she asked sleepily, looking at him. "You didn't sleep."
Zoroark-as-Braixen was tired enough that he didn't dare even pretending to look like he was asleep.
"Wasn't tired," he said with a yawn that betrayed he was very tired.
"As long as you aren't collapsing on the job," came Alice's unmotivated reply. She left the dorm, and Zoroark-as-Braixen figured he should follow.
~\({O})/~
Amaedus' House ~ Last Night
Amadeus folded his scythes behind himself as he talked. The fireplace illuminated him from behind, making him a silhouette. Zoroark just leaned against the pile of straw, listening to him talk.
"There's an old legend about zoroark and nickit," Amadeus said. "They say your ancestors, your original ancestors, were once regular old braixen and vulpix. But two of them made a deal with an ancient demon. The demon, in exchange for their loyalty, offered them the power of deceit. And your kind has supposedly employed them all throughout history, which is why no-mon trusts a zoroark."
"And you want me to be exactly what they're saying I am," Zoroark finished for him.
"In a manner of speaking," Amadeus said.
Zoroark sighed. "What do you want me to do?"
"I thought you'd never ask."
The jury was out on whether Amadeus would have given him the opportunity to ask. Not that he had a choice either way.
"For your first mission, I want you to get me information," Amadeus said, crossing his scythes behind his back. "There's an initiative that's being pushed by the stiffs up on the government board; they call it the Paradise Expansion Project. I want to know what they're planning to build, where they're planning to build it, and where they're storing the supplies."
"Where am I supposed to find that?" Zoroark asked. "I've only been there a day."
"Any organization worth their salt keeps these things on hard records," Amadeus said. "Find out where. Get it. Get back to me. You have two days."
"And what about security?" Zoroark asked.
"You know what the inside of the building looks better than I do," Amadeus said. "Do some recon."
~\({O})/~
HAPPI Mess Hall ~ Present
The mess hall, when breakfast was at the height of its activity, was packed. The grey skies outside still managed to make the scene look gloomy despite the sheer amount of pokemon and noise in the room.
Zoroark had long knew how to hover in the corners of everymon's vision when he was in a large crowd, so he wasn't worried about slipping up even in this crowded mess hall. But the nagging corners of sleep at his vision poised a threat to his ability to maintain it. He'd never been good at these when he was tired.
Zoroark-as-Braixen yawned, trying to eat his fill of the food that had been provided without collapsing face-first into it. Not that it was an easy thing to do when the food tasted like it had been sitting around in a cupboard for a week.
"Are you sure you're feeling good enough to come on this mission?" Alice pulled her face out of an empty bowl of water, having absorbed it all into her frills again.
"Didn't get much sleep last night," Zoroark-as-Braixen muttered.
"Well, eat a chesto berry," Alice said. "We're guarding the town border today, that's chaotic."
Having eaten and drank her fill, she got up from the table and padded away. Zoroark-as-Braixen watched her go, an inch away from sleep.
Then he realized his tail was beginning to discolour, and immediately focused on strengthening his illusion.
As the two of them walked through the halls, they passed the large billboard that was just there for decoration at this point. Zoroark noticed some posters that had a drawing of a face he recognized on it.
He recognized it because it was his face.
'Wanted for theft, travel around the city without identifying scarf, and murder," read the paper. Zoroark blanched. He was guilty of the first two—if you could call eating bread that had already been thrown out theft—but murder? His stomach began to do backflips.
"H-hey," he said, trying to keep the stuttering out of his voice as he pointed at the poster. "What's that about?"
Alice walked up to the poster, giving it a momentary read-over.
"Looks like an outlaw notice," she said. "Judging by the post date, it's probably for that team that went missing down in the slums a couple of days ago."
"We're not… taking that one, right?" Zoroark-as-Braixen asked. He desperately hoped he didn't look as nervous as he felt.
"You seem oddly jittery about it," Alice said.
Zoroark's stomach did a backflip so hard he thought he might puke right there and then. Fear made him improvise quickly. "I just don't think I have the guts to go up against an outlaw," he said.
"Well, you're in luck," Alice said. "Neither do I."
She walked on without another word, likely expecting Zoroark-as-Braixen to follow her. He had trouble peeling his eyes away from the poster, but eventually he left the board once he realized others were lining up behind him to use it.
As they walked out of the building, Zoroark-as-Braixen cast a look up at the slogan that was written on the large archway of the entrance:
HAPPI Makes Pokemon Smile!
~\({O})/~
Pokemon Paradise Outskirts
The wall that stretched nearly thirty feet high over the boundaries of Paradise was no more in shape than the rest of it. It hadn't been painted or maintained properly, and many of the boards were in varying states of disrepair. The only thing that had been maintained well were the walkways at the top, where the HAPPI teams assigned to guard the perimeter of the city patrolled daily.
Today, Team Cobalt had guard duty.
Zoroark was thankful for the fact that the walkways had at least been patched over. As a larger pokemon, he was liable to be one of the first to break something if they hadn't. That didn't change the fact that the structure creaked and swayed just a little bit in the wind, which kept him in unease the whole way through. Beside him, Alice walked, equally silent. She didn't seem to share his unease, though. It looked more like she was plowing through the day as fast as she could, without paying attention to any of it. Zoroark wondered what her deal was. Even after last night… her sense of apathy grated against him. Did she just not care about anything that happened? Or was she just not willing to share anything with him?
Though it wasn't like he was much better in that regard. If anything, he was worse. He remembered the paper from the billboard in his head, and his stomach did another backflip. He felt jittery all over. He tried his best not to think about it. For now, he was safe. But there was no going back.
"'Ello," said a voice from behind them. Both Zoroark-as-Braixen and Alice looked back, seeing a meinshao walking up towards them. "You're Team Cobalt, yes?"
"We are. Are we needed?" Alice asked.
"Nah," the meinshao waved off the concern. "I've been assigned patrol duty for the day. Partner's sick, real sick, so I'm on my own for now. And with those murders that just happened a few days ago, it's not a good idea to be alone, you know? I asked if there was anything I could help out with. And patrolling the border is a huge job, even if it sucks, so they weren't just gonna tell me no…"
The meinshao went on and on. Zoroark didn't think they had paused for a reply even once. Eventually, the words began to feel like worms squiggling in his ear.
"So where are you from?" he asked, if only to cut off the constant stream of babble.
"I dunno," the meinshao said without skipping a beat. "Where are you from?"
"I'm from Water," Zoroark-as-Braixen said, thinking of a cover story that was vague enough to leave out the important details. "I used to live here when I was little, so I came here again to find a job."
"I'm Marley," the meinshao said almost immediately after. She stuck out her paw instantly. The tassels batted Alice in the face, who grunted and nudged them out of the way. "Born and bred right here in Paradise. Rising star in the ranks of HAPPI… Shake?"
"Uhh…" Zoroark-as-Braixen hesitated. But it would be rude not to, so he relented. "Sure."
The paw felt weird. He hated doing this.
"Coolio," Marley said, pulling her arm back. The tassel brushed over Alice's face again, to her annoyance. "You keep a name? Wait, no, you're from off-continent, so probably not."
"Are names a Paradise thing?" Zoroark-as-Braixen asked. This was the third time somemon had asked him that question. He thought they were confusing. Wasn't it just easier to call a 'mon by their species name, and let sight and smell do the rest?
"It's the whole continent," Marley said. "Started here in Paradise, though. Didn't you study your history ever?"
Zoroark had never really had the opportunity. He just shook his head no,
"Hey," Marley suddenly said, catching Zoroark-as-Braixen's attention. "What's wrong with your ear?"
She leaned forward, squinting at Zoroark-as-Braixen's ear, which was beginning to take on a strangely orange hue. Zoroark quickly turned himself away from the mienshao as quickly as possible, pretending to straighten it out as he made sure his illusion was back up to snuff. He could barely keep his eyes open, let alone maintain this…
"Must be the light," he said.
Alice annoyedly nudged Marley's arm tassel out of her face again.
"You sure?" Marley asked, her voice taking on a bit of a suspicious tone. "That didn't look like the light to me. If I didn't know better I'd say it's… a trick of some kind?"
It was hard for Zoroark not to panic. One slip up, and that was the end. And it meant he had to stay perfectly calm.
"That's a ridiculous thing to think," he said.
"Oh, loosen up," Marley said. "I'm pullin' your leg."
Zoroark-as-Braixen flicked an ear in annoyance. If that was a joke, he didn't find it funny.
They reached what looked like a house on the walkway. Zoroark recognized it immediately – it was what he and Alice had come up on. At this point, Marley broke off from them without a word, quickly heading towards the small house-like structure and shutting the door after her. Zoroark spied something strange on her as she walked in—it looked like, concealed among all the other fur, there was a single black tail pointing out her bum.
Zoroark-as-Braixen barely kept his instinct to snort quiet. So much for a trick. She'd been one to talk all along. He wondered if his partner had seen anything. He turned his head to ask—
But all of the sudden, there was the loud noise of splintering wood, followed by commotion down below.
Hearing the noise, Alice quickly sped up, leaving Zoroark-as-Braixen in the dust.
"Come on!" He heard her yell as she ran off. She seemed more in spirits now than she had been the entire time he had been assigned to her. "Don't get left behind!"
Praying that this wouldn't be thing that made the boards break away from underneath him, Zoroark-as-Braixen took off after her, wincing at each creak under his feet as he went. He caught up with Alice just as the door swing closed, catching it with a claw and yanking it open long enough to slip inside and shut it after him.
He stopped short just behind Alice, who was staring down at the demolished staircase ahead of them.
"Did it break?" Zoroark asked. If it had, that would explain all the commotion…
"It can't have," Alice said. She was intently studying the wrechage of the stairtop remains at her feet, which were littered with burn marks from an attack. "Somemon blew these off. Did you see anymon else in here with Marley?"
Where was Marley, now that Zoroark thought about it? He looked down at the wreckage, which was shallow. If there was a body down there, he'd see it.
"Actually…" he began, barely believing he was about to say it. "I think it was Marley."
"What makes you say that?" Alice asked.
"She was supposed to be patrolling with us, right?" Zoroark-as-Braixen said. "She had no reason to break off. And the explosion happened right after she went into the cabin. If somemon else did it, then they had to be connected to her."
Alice thought that over for a second.
"Whatever the case," she said. "This wasn't done without an ulterior motive. We don't have time to call for backup—we need to get down there and stop whatever's going to happen."
Zoroark-as-Braixen looked down at the thirty-foot drop that lay below them.
"We're not going down that way, right?" he asked, his stomach beginning to do backflips.
"We're just above the main gates," Alice said. "There's another stairway down the path from here. Move fast!"
She nudged the door open and bolted out. Zoroark could barely move fast enough to keep up with her.
The staircase on the other side had thankfully not exploded. They bolted down it, running down thirty feet worth of stairs before finally reaching the bottom and entering the chaos.
The large, tight crowd that usually linedup outside the gates each day was a loud, disorganized, panicked mess. Shouts came from everywhere, some angry, some panicked. A small fire had been started in the underbrush, which was beginning to catch fire on the bridge.
"You!" the whimsiccot from the day Zoroark had entered the city, now outside the booth and looking like she was collecting her bearings still, was pointing at Alice. "We need your help with the fire!"
She frantically pointed to the burning wall to make her point.
"On it." Alice quickly turned to Zoroark-as-Braixen. "You know what to look for. Ask the guard what caused the fire and if they saw a mienshao pass through here."
And with that, she bolted off in the direction of the firefighing crew and was gone.
With Alice gone, Zoroark momentarily reeled. Catching himself just in time, he looked at his illusion to make sure he hadn't dropped it while he wasn't paying attention. He was fine in that department, but… what was he gonna do?
Deep breaths. The first thing to do was get information.
He walked up to the whimsicott, making sure to catch her attention away from the fire that was slowly being put out as he approached.
"What happened here?" he asked, urgently.
"It was just a couple minuts ago," the whimsicott began. "I was busy doing my job at the front gate there" – she pointed to a stall that looked like it had been destroyed – "when suddenly the stairway next to me exploded!" She whooshed her arms dramatically away from her to ekphasize the explosion. "I'm lucky the fire didn't hit me. It caught the wall on fire, and sent everymon into a panic…"
"Did you see who did it?" Zoroark-as-Braixen asked.
The whimsicott shook her head. "There was too much chaos, I could barely see what happened myself…"
"What about before?" Zoroark asked. "Did you see anymon enter from the staircase before the explosion? Maybe a mienshao, or a zorua?"
The whimsicott thought on that for a moment. "Now that you think of it, I might have seen somemon…"
Zoroark-as-Braixen zeroed in on something wrong in the crowd. There was a ludicolo running away through the crowd, but it was moving wrong. Lots of pokemon were making way for it in all the mess – which was probably why the zorua had chosen it as a disguise. Although that was a stupid disguise—was she trying to attract attention to herself?
Unluckily for Marley, her inexperience gave her away. Zoroark saw right through it.
"Excuse me," he said. Then he took off after the figure.
Half a second before he hit the crowd he realized he was going to need to tend to his own illusion too. Berry Crackers—
Now he was enveloped in the tight crowd, taking up just a bit more space than a braixen should. Zoroark-as-Braixen pushed through, allocating as much of his illusion brainpower as he could towards masking the brush of his mane against others, hiding the extra inch it took to shove his way through that the faux braixen skirt didn't quite gap, and the harder sheen of claws where there should have been furry paws instead. It probably made his main illusion go down in detail a little, but he couldn't be bothered with that right now. He just had to hope that no-mon noticed.
Finally he got free of the tight space and entered the area that the "ludicolo" had left the crowd reeling in its wake. Now he could go faster. He broke into a sprint, swiftly dodging pokemon that were picking themselves up left and right. He could see the ludicolo now, cutting a large swath through the crowd as it flailed its arms terribly.
Zoroark-as-Braixen picked up the pace, closing the distance between them fast. He slid to a stop right at the end of the crowd, where the ludicolo was flailing. He placed his claws on the ludicolo's arm, causing it to stop.
"Hold it there," he announced loudly. "You're under arrest."
The ludicolo turned around and suddenly bared teeth at Zoroark that were much sharper than what should have been on a ludicolo. Zoroark wasn't phased. They weren't real.
"You're coming back with us to headquarters," he said. The next part, he said in a hush only loud enough for her to hear. "For your sake, behave. Otherwise these pokemon are going to see what you really are."
The ludicolo, reluctantly relaxed. Zoroark-as-Braixen began to tug her away.
"How did you two get down here?" she asked, eyeing Alice helping put out the last of the fire on the right-hand side of the gate. "I thought I blew up the stairs!"
"You didn't blow up both of them," Zoroark-as-Braixen said. "We went down the other staircase."
"But that's the thing…" Marley stressed. "I did blow both u—"
A loud explosion ran out, nearly blowing off Zoroark's ears. It was followed by a cacophony of crashes and splintering squealing metal. He shielded his eyes, protecting them from slivers of debris. When he opened them again, he saw that the entire wall where the left-hand staircase had been had collapsed in on itself. There were some small, disconnected fires burning amongst the shattered wood.
"…Oh," Marley muttered, dumbfounded. Fire workers quickly tried to put out what was remaining before it could blossom out into something that could destroy what was left of the wall.
The wind ruffled Zoroark-as-Braixen's fur, but his disguise didn't ruffle with it. It blew off over the wall, and towards the rickety buildings that made up the outer ring of Pokemon Paradise.
Pokemon Paradise must fall.
The black void that Sparkleglimmer had come to know well surrounded her. In front of her, a fuzzy view of the downtrodden towers of the city floated.
Little as she knew about it, the Voice had never led her wrong before. No matter how counterproductive it seemed, whenever she did what the Voice asked her to, it always panned out in her favor.
And yet, something about this seemed especially wrong.
"Pokemon Paradise is HAPPI's base of operations," Sparkleglimmer said. "It's our biggest economic boon. Why does it need to fall?"
Because it is integral to the Plan.
"And how does Pokemon Paradise factor into the Plan?"
There are traitors and spies in the midst of your ranks there. They must be cleansed, otherwise they will bring about your doom before the Plan's fruition.
"Then kill the traitors," Sparkleglimmer said. "You're in everymon's head, aren't you? Tell me who they are. I'd rather not lose the largest city on the map."
You did not have these reservations about Pokemon Plaza.
"You're right," Sparkleglimmer said. "That's because Wartortle was a hack who knew too much for his own good. It won't take long to wheel in his replacement and start building a more compliant government there. But if we lose Pokemon Paradise, HAPPI suffers as a result. I suffer as a result. It's much easier if you just tell me who I need to erase."
I cannot.
"And why not?"
Because it would affect the Plan.
"When are you going to tell me what this Plan is? If you're going around destroying my major cities, I have a right to know why."
It is the plan for the new world.
"Why should we change the world? I'm happy with the way it is now."
But you will not be forever. In a matter of years, your seat will be taken by others, who have grown dissatisfied with your rule. Would you prefer to go the way of the Rescue Federation, or would you like to preserve your rule forever?
"How do you know that?" Sparkleglimmer asked.
It is the inner logic of the Plan. Prevention, rather than Defense. Need I remind you that we are not enemies? In the new world, you will rule this land uncontested. But for that to happen, there must be change. There must be sacrifice. I have aided you for fifty years. I now ask you to make a sacrifice. Will you oblige?
"Director?"
The voice flickered through the void, echoing around the chamber.
"I'm needed elsewhere," Sparkleglimmer said. "Let me think on it and get my answer back to you."
So be it.
The void dissolved around her, and she lifted her head off her desk. A bellossom looked at her from the other side, slightly concerned.
"You fell asleep at your desk again," she said.
"Travel lag from the trip to Grass," Sparkleglimmer smoothly answered.
"Didn't you have travel lag last week?"
"You needed something?" Sparkleglimmer asked, cutting through the question.
"The head of the project on the bottom floor wants a word," the bellossom said. "In private."
"And why is the head on the project on the bottom floor sending messengers to me instead of mailing me himself on his connection orb?"
"It has to do with an intruder," the bellossom explained. "He wants to keep it off the books."
Sparkleglimmer nodded. An intruder was a very reasonable reason to send for her.
"Very well," she said. "I'll be down shortly."
~\({O})/~
Cloud Nine
The decks of Cloud Nine grew less and less polished the lower one went. Clean, luxurious walls gave way to dirty metal underneath, and the floors became grates and solid steel planks. The engines transformed from a gentle hum into a loud whirring, and the lights became more sparse and harsh. Sparkleglimmer traveled down to the very bottom floor, to a facility built away from any windows or sides of the ship. Typing in the passcode that only she and a few select others new, she waited for the metal door to slide open before wandering into the pristine white laboratory.
The boltund who was the head of the project on the bottom floor grinned widely as he saw Sparkleglimmer approaching.
"You have finally received my summons, I see?" he said, letting his tongue hang out the side of his snout. His accent had the obnoxious slant heard in pokemon who thought they were smarter than everymon else.
"I want to know why those summons were necessary," Sparkleglimmer said harshly. "You let intruders enter the project grounds?"
"Welllll…. we didn't let them, persay," the boltund said with an exaggerated shrugging motion of his entire head. "They just got in."
"Show me."
"The intruders took advantage of our looser day security to sneak in," the boltund explained as he led Sparkleglimmer through the project facilities. Everything, even the equipment on the tables, was spotless. The room was polished a clean white that wasn't even seen on the upper decks. "They messed up some things and stole one of the components, but it is easily replacable. We don't think they took anything important."
Internally Sparkleglimmer fumed. An unknown intruder running around the ship with top secret contraband… She'd have to catalogue all passengers and actions taken on the ship since last night now.
"How useful was that component?" Sparkleglimmer asked.
"Not useful!" the boltund barked. "Not useful at all! Indeed, to even recognize it, it would take a very experienced eye. They would have had to work with these before to see it as anything but a scrap of junk." He nodded again to drive in his point.
"Do you know who?" Sparkleglimmer asked, her voice much more serious for that one.
"We unfortunately did not see," said the boltund.
Sparkleglimmer tapped the floor with her back paw in annoyance, mulling it all over.
"Make sure a breach like this doesn't happen again," she said. "I trusted your team over others because of your knack for confidentiality. Don't make me reconsider that trust."
The boltund nodded very eagerly. Maybe a bit too eagerly.
"It won't, it will not! We give our solemn promise."
The sheer change in attitude a bit of fear could bring about was almost magical.
"We'll look into tightening security for this unit," Sparkleglimmer said as a closing note. And with that, she left the room.
The elevator ride up to the surface was liberating, like seeing the sun again for the first time after having been trapped underground for days. Years of working on an airship had changed Sparkleglimmer's attitude towards the skies—as long as her feet were on sturdy ground, she liked standing outside and feeling the wind on her fur.
She was beginning to draw attention, now that she was in broad daylight. The crowd of pokemon around her were having various reactions to seeing her as she passed. Only
But as always, she couldn't enjoy it for long. She had more important things to think about right now. And so she turned around and headed back into the government building that made up the epicenter of the ship.
Somemon on this ship was snooping around in things they shouldn't be. She'd have to launch an investigation, and keep things hush for the moment. If any packages had left the ship last night, they would need to be intercepted.
"Have you heard back from the Blackthorn Guild about our proposal yet?" she asked the bellossom upon re-entering her office. "We contacted them a day ago."
"Nothing yet," Bellossom said. "We know they have connection orbs, but our messages aren't being returned."
"If you don't hear back from them by tomorrow, then arrange a flygon trip for that location," Sparkleglimmer said. "I'll have to fly out there myself."
The bellossom nodded, then scuttled off. That left Sparkleglimmer to sort out her affairs at her desk in peace.
Faint swirls of the Voice flickered in her head, the low humming she had become accustomed to after all these years making itself known. But she ignored it for now.
Tonight.
Right now, she had to focus on more important things, like ordering that investigation as soon as possible. She sent a summons on her connection orb for the manetric head of security aborad the ship.
But even so, Sparkleglimmer had a feeling she knew exactly who the mysterious intruders were. She recalled the meeting she'd had just a few days ago, the one with that espeon and umbreon. It lined up too well.
That pair was too nosy for their own good.
~\({O})/~
Pokemon Paradise
~Zoroark~
Once they got off the elevated walkways of the patrol walls, Marley was taken from them by a stronger team that Alice had contacted. She would be imprisoned for destruction of property and disturbance of peace, along with counts for several injuries. Perhaps Zoroark should have told them she was actually a zorua, in case she got away somehow. He didn't seem to have the heart in him to say it. So it went unsaid, and then they parted.
Now they were in the more rustic and developed section of Paradise, the area where the original buildings of Post Town stood and had been integrated into the more modern components almost flawlessly. Zoroark couldn't tell whether that was because the buildings had been updated to fit with the newer ones, or because the entire city was shabby enough that there just wasn't a noticeable difference anymore. He figured it was probably a bit of both.
There was a large tower in the middle, a slightly crooked looking spire that stretched up over all the other buildings by several stories. The ground floor was large and lit brightly even during the day. The unown that hung on the sign above the rustic-looking doorway had been done up in fancy calligraphy:
"You can stop looking," Alice said. "It costs a fortune to even look at the menu there."
The building seemed very, very crowded even from outside, and there were pokemon lining up around the corner to even get in. But what concerned Zoroark more than anything else was that the entire building looked like it could cave over at any moment.
"Doesn't the place look unsteady to you?" he asked as they walked down the streets in the direction of the HAPPI barracks.
"That's Swanna Inn," Alice sighed. "It's the most famous restaurant and hotel on the continent, but the building's so old they need to close it down for repairs. Except that it brings in revenue for the city, so they never get around to it."
They walked in silence for a bit after that. Zoroark mulled over something. Talking to Alice felt like talking a brick wall that sometimes talked back. If he was going to be in this situation for a while longer, it at least made sense to try and reach out to the pokemon he was going to be stuck with.
"So…" he began. "Since we're going to be partners for a while longer, why don't we get to better know each other?"
"Not interested," came Alice's flat reply. It left Zoroark in the dust. Not that he was going to be deterred that easily.
"Why not?" he asked. "Don't you at least want to know who you're working and sharing a bedroom with?"
"I've decided not to make close relations on my job," Alice said. "You shouldn't either. What's going to happen if you have one of those and your partner, say, dies on the job? Or gets reassigned somewhere else? Then you have to do it all over again. Not for me."
She walked onwards once more, pointedly leaving Zoroark-as-Braixen behind.
Zoroark wasn't sure how to follow that up. He supposed… if she wasn't up for it, she wasn't up for it. Not that it made his day any brighter.
He looked up at the sky, which was in that phase right before it got darker. He suddenly remembered what Amadeus had asked of him. He was going to be late! He needed to go now.
Zoroark took a look at Alice, then, without a hitch, ran into an alleyway and began to take a back-route to the HAPPI building that was clearly visible in the distance.
He needed to do this part without being seen.
~\({O})/~
HAPPI Building
When Zoroark-as-Braixen approached the HAPPI building, it suddenly looked a lot more ominous than it had the day before. The walls that lined the institute seemed like they were claustrophobically snaking around the building. The building's towers had eyes, all watching him as he walked through the grounds. Like they knew. Every door was a large gaping mouth waiting to swallow him up, every window was another eye to watch him with, and every brick was an ear of some kind he couldn't see. It was like the entire building knew what he was about to do, and was prepared to strike him down.
But that wasn't possible. Not really. No-mon knew. And he wanted to keep it that way.
Zoroark-as-Braixen tried his best to look causal, walking down the hallway. He tried to feel causal too, almost convincing himself that he wasn't here to break in or steal or potentially get himself caught. The calmer he was, the smoother this would go, and the less he had to focus on keeping his illusion steady.
It wasn't long before he outwalked the other pokemon in the hall, the billboards and banners lining the walls, and the inviting doors that lay half open, entirely open, or closed on either sides. The halls became empty, the doors were more utility-based than anything, and the only 'mon Zoroark saw in the halls were janitors and 'mon pushing carts around.
It was here that he stopped in the middle of the hall, realizing: He had absolutely no clue what he was doing. He knew what he was supposed to do—"Find the records"—but it wasn't like there was a big neon sign pointing out the records room or anything. In fact, none of the signs said that. There was a janitor's closet, a general supply room, a staff break room for in-building staff, but no warehouse or records division.
"Listen—please hear me out—I think I found something."
Zoroark's ear twitched, sensing voices coming from the one room he hadn't paid attention to. It was behind him to the left, and the sign read "spare break office". Other pokemon here… not good. He didn't want to be caught in this section without a pass – it would just make his job harder. Carefully, he slunk up to the wall near the door and began to listen in on what was being said.
"Just give it up," one of the voices said. "You've been looking for stuff like this to pitch all day."
"But this one works!" That was Elliot. What was going on? "Just only with your vote."
A sigh, from what Zoroark assumed was Alexis. "Fine. Let's hear your plan. But you probably already know which way my vote is going."
"If somemon finds themselves unable to vote for a project, they can give their voting rights to somemon they trust. And… I got that. I got it. With your vote, we have enough votes to—"
"—With the director's blessing, bring the vote to a tie. You're grasping at straws, Elliot. What are you trying to accomplish? Stop the project? All you're doing is pushing it back."
"But that's the point!" Elliot cried out. Zoroark's ear instinctively flicked back.
"The point is you're trying to push it back?"
"I'm not trying to stop the project, Alexis. I'm just trying to push it back long enough so no-mon gets kicked out into the streets."
"And how do you expect to do that?"
"If I had another month, or another week, even, I could set up something. A warehouse. Somewhere for them all to go. We could write it into the contract before it's sealed."
There was silence, for a moment. The tapping of a foot. Zoroark didn't know if that was Alexis or Elliot.
"Does that sound doable? Alexis?"
"I'll think about it."
There was the sound of walking towards the door, and it suddenly swung open—
Zoroark reacted just in time. Alexis marched out the door and down the hall, not aware that anymon other than him was in it. Zoroark barely dared to breathe, listening for anymon coming to or from as he stayed. Soon after, Elliot walked out, looking quite run down, before going the same way as Alexis had.
It was a full five minutes before Zoroark thought to release his vanishing illusion. He collapsed to the floor, panting for breath. The tiredness was beginning to seep into his bones, and he didn't know how much longer he could keep an illusion up for. The vanishing illusion was too intense. He was going to need to find some kind of different cover…
His eyes wandered towards a semi-empty trolley that had been abandoned on the other side the hall. Perfect.
He wasn't going to compromise his braixen disguise in any way, shape or form, so he became a blaziken instead. It was bipedal, about his size, and relatively easy to fake. As long as no-mon asked too many questions or looked at him too hard, they wouldn't notice the texture of the feathers was slightly off, or that he moved like he was carrying much more weight than a blaziken would. He didn't have the energy for realism right now.
Now that he had cover, he had to focus on finding the room. He glanced around at all the signs on the door as he walked down the hallway. None of them were the records. At this point, he was going to make a full loop of the building before he found anything…
There it was! He wouldn't have found it if he wasn't looking. It was a cramped, slightly narrow doorway that nearly blended in with the wall around it. Sticking out above was a small, gold-colored sign that read
"Records and archives"
Zoroark immediately parked the cart and made a beeline for the room. He checked the door for locks; there were none. It looked like it was an open room for the most part. The guild probably trusted their employees not to be poking around in here for the wrong reasons. Which didn't make him feel any better about what he was about to do, but worked out for him regardless.
The door opened with a creak, letting light spill into the mostly dark room. It must have been a basement, and sure enough, there were stairs leading down. Zoroark left the door open, because he hadn't found an electric light source to turn on yet and until he did, the open door was his only light source.
He just hoped he wasn't found before he found what he was looking for.
The record room was large, almost like an organized maze. There were thick, dusty records sitting on shelves everywhere, and Zoroark could barely see the end of the room. Finding this wasn't going to be easy.
He crawled through the shelves, looking for any kind of identifier. The shelves seemed to be marked assigned to some kind of system, so he looked for one that was relevant to his find.
Archeology to Electricity… he started at the nearest section, then began to work his way back. "Architecture" started with an A. The paradise expansion project was about building, right? So he figured it would be here.
The A section turned out to be a bust. There were several building plans, but none of them titled "Paradise Expansion Project". With a sight, Zoroark decided to loop around.
In a burst of dumb luck, he found it under "P", marked for "Paradise". It was almost the whole shelf. A quick skim said this was a project that had been in development for years, but was only now coming to fruition. But there were so many, Zoroark didn't know which ones to take. He figured he'd take whatever looked most recent, and grabbed the two least grimy-looking files off the shelf.
Then the door slammed shut. Zoroark froze. It cast him into darkness.
It opened a second later, but there were shadows standing in the doorway. He could hear voices, conversing rather loudly above:
"That cart parked by the stairway was supposed to go to the other side of the building. How'd it get here? And what's with the open door?"
"Is this about those ghosts you insist are real again?" A sigh.
"It's not the bloody ghosts! Well, unless it is, but they usually do stuff at night."
"I see."
Whoever said that sounded like they in fact did not see and were just humoring the other pokemon.
The other person sighed in defeat. "I think somemon is down there. You're security. Can you just check?"
"Yeah, sure, I'll do a sweep. It's my job. Just stand back. If I'm not out in five minutes, call backup. And then once this is over, make sure the door's locked, will you?"
"Got it!"
Zoroark stayed completely still, trying to use the shelves he was behind to hide his big mane and lanky arms. If he had to do illusion gymnastics now…
Somemon tromped down the stairs. Zoroark watched through a crack in the shelves, as a shadow made its way down the stairs…
A lucario walked into the room, carrying what looked like a miniature luminous orb. Zoroark saw his face—it was the same lucario that had accosted him back when he had tried to sign up here! He immediately hid himself from view, and tried his best not to make a sound. That was the worst pokemon who could have come down here—if he was found out…
He mind recalled the wanted poster that had been plastered to the billboard earlier today, and he knew he couldn't get caught under any circumstances.
Zoroark stayed completely still, not even daring to breathe as the guard made his rounds through the room. It sounded like he was going by shelf, though Zoroark couldn't see any of it. All he knew was that the tromping was getting closer, and he had to do something.
What were his options? He frantically looked around, trying to find something, anything he could disguise himself with. But the halls were pristine. Something in his bones told him he didn't have the energy for the vanishing illusion right now.
That only left one option. He'd have to escape on his own. Maybe there was a door on the far end of the room he could step out through.
Tromp… tromp… tromp…
And he had to go now.
Zoroark took a look through the cracks between the books to see where the light was coming from. It was just a shelf down, heading towards the right. Slinking as silently as a furret, Zoroark went down the left side of the book cases, and then weaved a couple shelves further over.
He could see the wall of the far end of the room from here. It was solid stone all the way through, and most importantly there wasn't another door here. That meant the only entrance in or out of the room was the one on the other side. The one that would be locked after the guard did his rounds.
Tromp… tromp… tromp…
Zoroark had a plan. It was risky, and everything had to go exactly the way he planned, but more and more it was looking like it was the only way out of a bad situation.
He could hear the guard making his way around to the end. He quickly scampered to the opposite side of the room, and waited for the guard to make the turn. Once he did, Zoroark quickly ran for it. He reached the entrance of the room, stopped at the stairs, and then steeled himself for the most important illusion of the day.
"Did you see anything?" the growlithe standing outside the door asked as the lucario guard came up the stairs.
"Nothing," Zoroark said, doing his best to imitate the lucario's gravely tones. "Must've been some idiot leaving the door open again."
"A-and what about the cart?" the growlithe asked.
"Another idiot?" Zoroark offered with a shrug.
Growlithe didn't look convinced, but he wasn't going to argue with security.
"Go on," Zoroark said, hoping the growlithe would buy it. "I'll lock up."
"Alright…" the growlithe took the cart by one of the pull-strings for quadrupeds, and began to pull it down the hall, back the way Zoroark had come. Only once he was gone did Zoroark dare to drop his illusion. He breathed a sigh of relief, and tightly clutched the files in his claws—that had been too close for comfort.
He then heard the actual guard tromping back up the stairs, and acted on instinct—by the time the guard tromped up into the hall again, he was a garbage can.
The lucario looked around, then folded his arms and sighed in annoyance.
"Can't rely on anymon these days…"
~\({O})/~
Cloud Nine ~ Nighttime
~Sparkleglimmer~
After office hours, the political district of Cloud Nine and the gardens out front became silent. That worked out for Sparkleglimmer, because in the quiet, she worked the best. And tonight, there was a lot to work on. She had to finish organizing the investigation for the mystery thief. All packages had been checked and all departures had been logged; no-mon had left the ship in the window between the robbery and now. That meant the mystery thief was still aboard this ship. A matter for tomorrow; she planned to have the major suspects screened and
The Blackthorn Guild still had not contacted HAPPI yet. Something about that made Sparkleglimmer uneasy. Grass was backwards in many ways, yes, but she had specifically singled out the Blackthorn Guild for their progressive ideologies and willingness to move forward with the new norms. They would have been ecstatic to receive an endorsement from HAPPI. And yet, for two days, there had been no word. And that worried her.
And now, in the absence of any sound, came something else. The humming that lay ever-present in the back of Sparkleglimmer's head intensified, and with it came a voice:
The day has ended, and I have come once more to await your decision.
Sparkleglimmer's day had been consumed by more important matters, and she hadn't thought on it at all. At the same time, she needed to make a decision now.
"Alright," she said. "I will allow you to do what you need to make your "plan" work. But on one condition."
What condition?
"I get to move the valuable assets out of Pokemon Paradise before you do," Sparkleglimmer said. "We can rebuild easier if we have those."
To this, the Voice had no reply.
"Is that acceptable?" Sparkleglimmer pressed.
Finally, an answer: It is.
Something about the decision rubbed her the wrong way still, but the Voice had never led her wrong before. This would pan out well for her in the end, she was sure of it.
A knock on the door roused Sparkleglimmer out of her trance. In a blink, the humming dissipated.
"Come in," she announced.
The door opened, and the bellossom secretary from earlier stepped in. She carried a parcel in her arms.
"Mail just arrived for you," she said, putting the package on the desk. "It's from the Grass Continent. No sender or return address."
Sparkleglimmer looked down at the parcel. Brown paper, wrapped with strings and nothing on it but a scrawled deliver address to the director of HAPPI. She already had the feeling she wasn't going to like what was inside.
"Let's open it, then," she said. Sparkleglimmer used her ribbons to undo the ties, letting the paper come undone and reveal what was inside.
Sitting on the desk, surrounded by nothing but brown folds of paper, was a scorched piece of wood with the emblem of the Blackthorn Guild on it.
Sparkleglimmer stared down at the piece of wood for a while, trying to figure out what to make of it. The bellossom looked jittery all over, like she was scared and trying not to show it.
"You are excused," Sparkleglimmer told her. "Thank you for delivering the package."
The bellossom took the nearest opportunity to nod in acknowledgement and leave the room.
Once she was gone, Sparkleglimmer stared down at the piece of wood, and finally drew her conclusions about who had sent it, and what it meant.
"So that's how it is," she muttered to herself.
~\({O})/~
Music of the Week!
Deep Sixed – Richard Gibbs