This story was co-developed by Titan127 and beta read by ShonnaRose and JhinoftheOpera.

[6-3] The Chat With the Blood Trail

It was comfortable. She hated it.

That was Kris's only feeling sitting inside Lucian's office. The soft couch seats, the curving bookcases, the carpet that gave way under her feet, and the intricate designs etched into the wooden walls were all carefully designed to be habitable. Everything, even the tint of the lamps, was cast in a low crimson that urged her to relax. But she didn't enjoy being coddled. It felt unnatural.

The door opened silently, alerting her that her moment of rest had elapsed. Kris clenched her fingers against her thighs.

"Of course, we can do that, Mr. Sylvester," he said to someone just outside the door. Only an arm and leg of a suited man were visible from her angle, and he soon stepped clear. The man offered a good day wish, and the door clicked behind him.

"Thanks for your patience," said Lucian, who took the seat opposite to her with nothing more than a notebook in his hand. "While I was gone, I received clearance for your security to remain at a distance. I am, perhaps, the best of our Elite Four, even if Bertha perpetually keeps some secrets."

"Sure," she said, then looked around the artificial womb. "So this is where you do your… thing?"

"Ah, not my main office, but yes. Due to my affiliation, I have a secondary office here in case any business happens to sneak up on me." He crossed one leg over the other and set his glasses gently on the table between them, removing the barrier between their minds. He extended an open hand.

"Why?" she asked as she reeled from it.

"I normally introduce myself to all my patients, but perhaps that's not relevant," he said.

"I'm not a patient."

The words dripped from her mouth, and the sudden surge of anger was pushed further when she noticed he was already subtly writing in his notebook. He lifted his pen and gently set it down next to his glasses, ensuring that the entire motion was within her sight.

Lucian let out a sigh and arranged his hair. "Of course not. You weren't referred by a general practitioner, and while we may not be friends, I'm sure my relation to your mother would stress some medical accountability laws. So, we'll consider this a casual chat."

Kris had second thoughts from the moment she stepped in here, and now they'd become third and fourth thoughts. She would have stormed out and slammed the door if the seat cushion didn't feel so nice beneath her.

"Let's just start with why you're here," he said.

She glared. He didn't so much as flinch.

"I know it may seem obvious," he continued, "but I need to hear it from you."

Her fingers relaxed, and softly rubbed her legs as they struggled to find a place to rest. She closed her eyes to focus on what exactly she should say. "The past month, I haven't… been feeling all together. I'm not really happy with what I've been doing."

His gentle smile urged her on, even though she'd already reached the limits of her thoughts on the matter. So she tried to search deeper.

"It's, umm… it's like I'm feeling bad about— no, that sounds terrible." She bit her lip, annoyed that the sentence bypassed her mental editing. She took a few moments to feed coal to her train of thought. "I don't feel motivated, I guess? I used to have a training schedule, but now I've missed a few days." Most days. "And I've been slow on some classwork." Not working at all.

"And you said this has been occurring for about a month?" he asked.

"Maybe less. I don't really remember the first week after, umm—" She cut herself short, but not intentionally. It just wouldn't come out.

"You don't have to be direct, but if you're able to talk about it, I believe it might help."

"It's fine, I guess. It's just, recently, I haven't come out of my room much. And, like, I want to, but it's not really enough to make me do it."

"It would seem you're not enjoying your activities." Lucian had picked back up his notebook at this point and scribbled whatever it was, but she no longer seemed to care about it.

"I tried piano. And running. And video games, though I think it's just because Saber isn't here to play with me. But then, I didn't ask him to play when he was here."

"Do you think your brother leaving has impacted you at all?" he asked.

She'd been thinking about him for weeks, actually. Doing so drove her back to her room from wherever she was, and she thought about anything and everything to drown it from her mind. It was because he was out there, doing exactly what he said he would, whereas she couldn't listen to herself long enough to make any change at all.

It didn't help that her legion of bodyguards had pulled her aside more than once to grill her on the location of her brother, as if she somehow was in on it. She had absolutely nothing to do with him, but no matter how many times she repeated it, they weren't convinced.

"I feel… like I'm not doing enough. He's out there trying to do something even if it's crazy and dumb and he's dealing with the same things. And I'm just sitting here. I want to do more than I am. I have to."

He declined to comment about Saber breaking the rules, or whatever, even though that seemed like an obvious topic. Logically he should do everything he can to convince her that what Saber did was wrong, as a professional representative of the Pokémon League. That wasn't his job at the moment, she rationed.

"Could you explain why you feel that you have to?"

"I—" Kris wasn't sure what to think of that question. Was this a stupid therapist thing that he just wanted to trip her up? It was almost pissing her off. She continued, "It's what I do. I train hard and study hard and play hard. That's what I should do."

Lucian averted his eyes from her statement, not a true response even though he clearly disagreed with some syllable she spoke. Once again she glowered at him, and he placed his pen down a second time. He maintained a gentle smile, and for the first time since she arrived she truly examined his face. His skin clung to the cage of his bones, and nearly black bags hung beneath his eyes.

For some reason, he allowed the silence to drag himself out, which she knew meant he was waiting for her. Kris finally mustered up a question of her own. This wasn't a "session" of his, for real, so it should be allowed. "Do you miss her?"

He didn't answer immediately, and seemed to weigh His response. "Your mother?"

"Yeah."

"I do," he said. "She drove me to academia, and stayed behind me every step of the way. She offered support to every one of her friends and associates, and I don't think I've ever met anyone whose faith was so genuine."

Kris could only hum. She had been the recipient of that faith too, but she wasn't always sure how it made her feel. Stop. Stop. Stop. Her nails dug into her forehead as she realized that was the worst possible thing to be thinking at this very moment. Be happy, you idiot. It's okay, it's supposed to be okay.

"Well, I know we haven't been speaking for very long, but I think it might be best to cut our little meeting already," he eventually said. "It's getting a bit unprofessional, and I'll admit I wasn't the most ready for this myself."

Kris tilted her head to his notebook on the coffee table. "Did you… find useful things?"

"I believe I did, yes. Of course, they'll only be useful if you're well enough for another session."

"Sure. Whatever," she said quickly, but with no conviction.

Lucian stood from his seat opposite her and offered his hand again, this time to help her up. She ignored him and stood on her own two legs.

"Might I mention something to you?" he asked.

"You've been talking this whole time."

"Ah, I suppose I have," he said. "You understand the nature of my abilities, don't you?"

"You can read minds," she replied.

He nodded, and though he seemed to be leading her to the door to let her go—something that she thought she wanted at this point—his hand never reached for the handle. He just stood there. "I visited your mother while she was in the hospital a few days before she passed."

That word. Passed. She tried to ignore it, but she found herself tasting it on her lips without thought.

"She had been assigned as a special operative alongside the International Police to resolve the recently-dubbed Orran Succession Crisis and had helped stop that revolutionary group. I don't know the full details of the incident, but I am aware that your mother had opposed the Pokémon League's policy on Orre and its people." Kris couldn't see where he was going with this, but he just kept on talking. It must be one of few things he excelled at. "She wasn't fully conscious in the hospital, but I read her. And she seemed… conflicted about something, like she had made a difficult decision. Shortly after, the Pokémon League quietly reversed a number of its policies on Orre."

And then only a few days later, she…

Why the hell was he telling her this? She searched him up and down for an answer, but he remained staunchly emotionless. Lucian finally grabbed the door handle and held it open.

"Thank you, Doctor," she said.

"Please. Just Lucian is fine."

The door slid closed, stranding her in the hall. It was much colder out here than it was behind the door, and only now did that horrible hospitality seem more welcoming. She debated turning right back around and knocking.

No. Not when she had something else she needed to look into.

She only had thirteen minutes.

Each passage of the cycle, one of the two International Police agents stationed outside the Champion's Suite was replaced by a substitute, who then would enter the suite and peer through her door's spyhole to confirm her whereabouts. She had, at maximum, only that short span of time to act.

Kris waited until late into the night. It was doubtful any random passersby would be hanging around this side of the building at this hour and notice anything was amiss. Anxious in her preparation, she tried to remind herself why she wanted to attempt this at all.

Saber had gone. He'd sought to do everything he could to find out why, yet she had done nearly nothing. That wasn't who Christine Masuta was. She never did nothing. It was time she did something, anything.

From one of her burdensome gifts came a red light, and a stone appeared on the carpet of her room. Its crack emanated light, pulsing dimly on the room's walls.

"Jeb," she said. "I know you're in there. I need your help."

The stone remained lifeless, the empty face etched on its surface staring back at her. His answer made her sigh.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lie to you. I just… couldn't," she said.

The air paused. His purple essence flowed from the crack and took jagged shape. She tried not to flinch at the terrifying grimace, knowing that it didn't mean any true harm. Even with its flickering sharpness, there was something soft about it. Spiritomb could emote far more than most realize—it was a collection of souls, after all, human or Pokémon as they once were.

"Do you mind helping me out with something?" Her clenched fist wavered. "I want to look around the Viceroy's office, but I won't be able to unless I dump the guards outside."

The face stretched towards the closed door, clearly intrigued. She wished she could understand how he truly felt, but there were limitations to his expression. Just like herself, she supposed. Jeb grinned at her again. When the shadow appeared beneath the door, Kris threw it open, making the woman reel in surprise.

The Hypnosis washed over the agent, and whatever scream she had vanished in her throat as she toppled to the ground. Kris caught her falling body, dragged her to the bed, and laid her there. She shoved a pillow behind her head. For comfort.

Dispatching the second guard wasn't much more difficult and, remembering one past experience with guards at her mother's nearby vacation home, she retrieved a dish from the cupboard and let it shatter against the floor. The sleep burrowed into his mind the moment he threw open the suite doors and he tumbled onto the couch for the best nap he'd had in his life.

Jeb returned to the depths of his keystone and Kris hoisted it under her arm as she sprinted, barefoot, into the halls of the Sinnoh League.

Kris ran fast enough that she couldn't feel the contact between her toes and the floor. But her movements were nearly silent, and she melded herself with the wall. Most of the lights had vanished in the late hours, giving her ample shadows to conceal herself when patrolling members of the International Police rounded the corners. The keystone rumbled under her arm.

Her feet graced blue on the top floor, and unfortunately, the much wider hall remained perfectly lit. Kris peeked from behind the stair's railing. She needed some way to distract that guard at the Viceroy's office.

Her hand gripped one of the wooden balusters and she tugged; wood splintered when it tore from its home. She hurled it like a javelin across the third floor, fast enough that even if the guard was looking, they wouldn't have been able to tell where it came from. She heard a distinct shatter somewhere in the distance, followed immediately by the stationed guard jogging down the hall with his face shoved in a walkie-talkie. Only when she couldn't hear his footsteps did she rise from her hiding place down the stairwell and raced to the unguarded door.

She presented the keystone. "You should be able to unlock this, right? It doesn't look very high-tech."

Rather than his full visage, Jeb's mist poured from the crack in a small appendage-like shape. It wormed its way into the keyhole and played with the mechanism until it clicked. Kris quickly slipped inside and locked the door behind her, recalling Jeb into his capsule once she was safely cut off from the rest of the building.

She tried to take a breath within the darkened suite of the Viceroy, but she knew she had very little time to snoop around. Her light feet carried her down the hall to the executive's main office, and she pulled open drawers left and right, leafing through documents to see what she could find. Those with locks got the same treatment from Jeb as the main door, and she couldn't help but laugh at the reasoning Stone had given why the Sinnoh League was "safer" than the Indigo Plateau—just because it hadn't been breached didn't mean it wasn't sorely outdated.

Letters from citizens, faxes and official correspondence with mayors and local League offices, she couldn't find anything worth more than baseline suspicion. She squinted to read the text, as the only light it caught was the moonlight dancing on the snow outside.

Orre. She needed to look for Orre. Files, arranged alphabetically, revealed themselves in a wooden cabinet by the window. She withdrew an entire chunk from the "O" section and scanned through them, finding a handful about Orran Insurrection that were dated only hours apart from each other across the length of the incident. Signed by the office of Oberon Terminus, they mostly instructed on how the Viceroy should have worded his public response to the incident. Condemn it, avoid any wording that implied it was possible elsewhere, and praise the efforts of Cynthia and Lance Masuta to uphold the will of the Pokémon League.

But had they?

Mom was more outspoken about it, but she knew neither of them held the Pokémon League in any special regard despite their lofty positions. She wished she'd asked that question when she and Saber had called them in the midst of the crisis in Orre. If only she'd asked her mother about a lot of things.

It took every ounce of her willpower to suppress her scream when the light flicked on. Her head shot around the empty room, and she was only now aware of noises coming from down the suite hall. There was a tall dresser, basically an elaborate coat rack, nearby, and she shoved the files back where she found them to throw herself inside. Kris pulled it shut and ceased breathing entirely.

She couldn't see, but she could hear his voice. Viceroy Nolsikker. He entered the office, and judging by the distance of the sound, he was moving about the room, pacing as he spoke on the phone. Kris felt the sweat pouring down her face, far more than it ever would when she ran or Trained.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Terminus— no, I will not call you Lord. We're still searching, and you know as well as I do how careful we need to be," he said.

Terminus? He was speaking with the singular most powerful man in the world.

"Stone is following your exact orders." Terminus must have responded, and the Viceroy's answer sounded like a retort. "I'm maintaining high standards in selecting candidates, but we won't have our selection until he finally agrees."

In the next bout of silence Kris tried to wipe her slick hands on her shorts, afraid the moisture would make her slip. It was quickly heating up inside the dresser.

"Enough about the records! I know they're gone. I know. And until we know what happened, there's nothing I can do but start from scratch. Do you think I enjoy being made a fool of?" he asked. A lapse. "It's your International Police who are investigating the assassination, and this is obviously connected. Don't act like they're not to blame for not finding a scrap of relevant info."

Records. If he was still talking about the Champion selection, that meant they lost something essential to it. No viable candidates was how they phrased it. She hadn't found anything useful in the files in the time she had, but this was definitely important.

His voice moved chillingly close to the dresser, forcing Kris to flatten herself against the backboard. It lingered in place, leaving her torn between her paralyzing fear and the realization that she was burning through the time before the next guard rotation.

The Viceroy, after a long pause, answered in a low tone. "I'll personally hasten the process, sir. I already ceased Gym operation for this purpose, so rest assured we will have a Champion soon. I want this as much as you."

Then his answers ceased, leaving a deathly silent room.

She stayed in place, waiting for the opportunity to slip out and praying she could make it back before she was found, not that she had a plan for how to safely rouse the guards she incapacitated. All noises seemed to have vanished in the office. She was clear to go.

And then the doors flew wide open.

Kris, paralyzed, met the eyes of the Viceroy before her. His murderous gaze was almost lost on her, as there was a limit to the stress her mind could process. Involuntarily, she stepped down from within the dresser, having accepted the situation. She looked over to see a filing cabinet had slid open because the lock hadn't fully engaged.

"How much did you hear?" It was far more a threat than a question.

"M-Most," she said.

The man rotated his wheelchair, his fingers tapping on the tires. Kris debated simply running for it. The next logical step from the upgraded security protocol was prison, but she was sure she could make it a fair distance before the International Police caught her.

He didn't face her when he said, "You will speak nothing about this."

Her torturous tension rebounded so hard to relief that it threatened to tear her apart. She breathed for the first time since she entered the dresser.

"How do you know I won't?" she asked.

"What do you want?" he shot back.

Her mind scrambled for a response, more in relief than any sense of want, and she grabbed the first idea that came to mind. "I'd like some more privacy."

"Done. Now, if you'd please vacate my office. I'll call a guard to escort you."

"No," she said. "I'll go on my own."

The Viceroy didn't respond and took his place behind his desk. She could feel his eyes on her as she made for the door.

In truth, she'd expected to find nothing. It was nothing more than a fool's gambit to feed her sorry excuse for a person. But now she'd found something, and she hadn't a clue what to do with it.

She'd hold it tight for now. In case her brother ever needed her.