Daniel groaned as he stirred in his bed and, with some effort, sat up. His back, shoulder, bits of his face - all of him, really - stung. But Doc came through, like always. He didn't remember most of what happened; according to Johannes, he and Charles dragged him into the laundromat and Doc went to work at once. He had punctured a lung, though only just, and while Doc's "patch" job was intended to shorten his recovery time, he also wasn't a miracle worker.
Six to eight weeks was the standard; with a lightly punctured lung that received a little fancy treatment that involved, as Johannes put it, "bottles of substances I didn't want to know the contents of," Daniel's prognosis looked like he'd be back in action in two or three weeks flat. Johannes also mentioned that Doc insisted he buy a new anti-stab vest as soon as he could as well, "as it was the only thing that kept you from earning a one-way ticket to the plains of the Alpha."
Bed rest, minimal strenuous activity, maybe some time reading books, or writing a will - this was what he required, or so said Doc. Daniel intended to completely ignore these orders.
He rubbed his eyes and recoiled when he saw Ana kneeling on the bed, staring at him with a wide, unblinking eye, her iris quivering to the left and right with minute little movements that looked unreal. Her mane of wild black hair had begun to take on the curious deep, rich purple quality it had the last time she was actively practicing, and it curtained her other eye. Tied with brilliant red yarn to locks of her hair here and there were tags adorned with black runes that Daniel could not decipher.
She was also nude; her bare chest and stomach bore an immense midnight blue rune made of dried paint. She leaned forward and reached out with a trembling hand to cup Daniel's face.
Her lips moved but he heard nothing. The hair that obscured her other eye shifted, and he stared back into mismatched eyes - one, a soft black rimmed with a delicate purple, the other a brilliant violet adorned with a pitch-black spiral that wound out from the pupil.
"W-what?" asked Daniel. Her fingers felt like ice.
Ana crawled towards him and pulled him into an embrace, thick drapes of hair falling all around him. She squeezed and began to wail.
"Ana, please," said Daniel, pushing himself away from her, "what's wrong?"
She seized his shoulders and looked him in the eyes, her own bloodshot and her cheeks tear-streaked. "They burnt away your soul. I saw it. I fixed it, I fixed it, I fixed it. I was so worried." Her words were breathy, almost inaudible whispers. She pressed her lips against his - they too felt like ice, though when she pulled away Daniel was relieved that she was at least smiling now. "The shades cannot burn away the soul completely, not so long as you have a shred of it left. I can fix it, I can fix it, I can fix it."
She pulled him into an embrace again and began to sob. "I can make you whole again."
Daniel sighed as she pushed him down onto her lap and began to run her fingers through his hair. Where Ana may have been smiling, his own face was pulled into a tight-lipped frown. I need to kill this fucking King. She's almost gone.
"Daniel," she said, her voice distant.
"What?" he replied.
"I love you."
Daniel closed his eyes. "I love you too."
"This is a day to rest, Daniel. So should the next several days, really," signed Ricard.
"Oh, come on, Ricard. I could be out there digging through the sewers looking for another way to get through that wall with the seal on it. It probably leads into the sewers anyway, given we were underground in that office," replied the detective. The deaf-mute crossed his arms and pointed insistently at Daniel's couch. With a groan, Daniel pulled his jacket off and tossed it onto chest of drawers next to the door. "Can I go buy a new anti-stab vest?"
Ricard's eyes narrowed and he made a clicking sound with his tongue. He was not pleased.
"Fuck, fine." Daniel trudged to his couch and laid down on it. His back twinged as laid weight on his bandaged injury, and the felt someone tap on his shoulder. It was Ana, now thankfully fully clothed. On her shoulder sat Jean, who stared at Daniel with narrowed eyes and a frown.
"You told me to nap, but they wouldn't stop screaming," she whispered. Dark circles sat beneath her eyes - how they'd developed in the few hours since Daniel had last seen her eluded him. She sat him up and then laid his head down on her lap after she sat down. She traced a finger around the small bit of gauze taped to his face over the tiny pits the salazzle's poison had eaten away.
Daniel frowned. He reached up and put a hand to her cheek - she grasped it with her free hand and held it against her face. A smile spread across her lips.
"They keep screaming, but your aura wards them. They will not come near while your light still burns." Her hand went slack and she slouched into the cushion behind her, asleep.
The detective dropped his hand and turned to look at the television. "Charles, can you toss me the remote?"
The bisharp sat nearby at the kitchen table, sliding a whetstone across the blades upon his arms in a steady rhythm. With a grunt of affirmation, he stood and picked up the remote from the floor to the side of the couch and tossed it to Daniel.
The detective caught it and switched the television on. A weight settled on his stomach - it was Jeanette. She threw him a dirty look, her mouth in a deep frown and her eyes narrowed and then turned to the television.
"Look, I get that banette are supposed to be angry and spiteful, but you're plenty nice to Ana and a bitch to me. What gives? Why don't you like me?" asked Daniel. His tone carried only the faint bite of annoyance, and it bothered him. He'd been tough on Jean the entire time he'd known her, but now, with Ana's health weighing heavy on his mind, he found it difficult to avoid becoming misty-eyed. Jean had been invaluable in keeping Ana sane, and the fact the two of them never properly got along bothered him somewhere in his heart of hearts.
The banette looked away from the weather broadcast, still frowning, though the muscles that formed her brows had become softer. Distressed. Sad, even. She looked from Daniel to Ana's peaceful, sleeping visage and then back to the detective again. She inclined her head and turned back to the television.
Strange whispers, soft shrieks and hushed murmurs met Daniel's ears, all of it incomprehensible. His eyes widened - she was responding to him, though the meaning of her strange tongue was lost on him.
Charles raised his head from his task and watched Jean speak.
"...don't seem to understand. I am nearly full. The tear in the veil that seeps into her body will overflow me soon, and when that happens, it will have nowhere to go but her body, and it will pour from her eyes, her mouth - all of her. When that happens...she'll be gone.
"I will not lose Ana. But she is willing to lose herself. For you."
The banette reached up and brushed a curious swirling black and purple liquid from the corner of her eye.
Daniel's mouth fell open. "I… I don't know what the fu-" He cleared his throat. "I don't know what you just said, but… I'm sorry."
Whether she heard, understood him - even cared - Daniel did not know, as the banette made offered him no acknowledgement. He heard Charles growl something in his strange tongue and furrowed his brow. To his surprise, the bisharp stood, strode over to Daniel and picked up the banette, then walked out of the room with her laying in his arms.
Daniel watched his bisharp trudge out of the room and close the door behind him. "What was that?" He turned to Ricard. "Why the fuck did d'Artangan have to be asleep now?"
Jeannette could not meet Charles' eyes. He had sat her on the sink in the bathroom and kept turning her head in an attempt to get her to face him and finally growled, "Look at me."
Tears began to roll down the banette's eyes and she complied. "What? Is this what you want? To see me cry?"
"They are mates. You know that, Jeannette." He continued to look her in the eyes.
The banette buried her face in her hands. "He will be the death of her. And she will march to her end willingly. What kind of ward am I if I let that happen? Especially if I cannot stop it? I guide her through the infinite black, away from pits and the gaping maws of restless spirits that have claimed many souls. But she'll walk. Willingly. Willingly. To her end." She looked up at Charles, the red sclera of her eyes tinged with purple. "I'm scared."
"Be scared," he said. The banette looked at him in confusion. "Be afraid. But always act. Always defend. Faltered before, in the tunnels. Feared the heart and the pedestal. Feared the calls of the King. Will not be stopped now. Daniel willing to die for me." He beat his chest thrice with a balled hand. "Will die for Daniel."
Jeannette sprang from the sink and wound her arms around Charles, pulling him into an embrace and began to sob. "You idiot. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of surviving without Ana. If she overflows, she'll be gone."
Charles sighed and gave Jean a few pats on the back. "Will survive. Will not overflow. King will be dead soon."
Jean pulled away from him and cupped his cheeks. "Promise?"
Charles tried to wrench his head from her grasp as he mumbled, "Promise."
She kissed his cheek. "Thank you." She rushed from the room, phasing through the door.
Charles sighed and then chuckled. "Wasn't lips at least."
Daniel tore his eyes from the weather forecast when he saw Jeannette phase through the door, followed shortly after by Charles. Whatever it was that they had done had improved the banette's mood somewhat. To his surprise, she came to a stop before him, floating in the air and looked him in the eyes.
She averted her gaze for a moment and mumbled something incoherent. With what sounded like a chorus of sighs, she looked back at him and pressed a single stubby finger to his forehead. When she pulled it away, a thin grey thread linked his forehead and her finger.
"Bridge the veil. Burn the light of the soul brighter. Through the here and hereafter." The thread shone a brilliant white and then dissipated. Jeannette finished her incantation and then floated back to Ana's shoulder and sat herself upon it.
"What was that?" asked Daniel, sitting up and glancing from Jean to Charles to Ricard. "No, really, what was that?"
Charles chuckled and sat back down at the table to resuming sharpening his arm blades.
Ricard snapped his fingers several times to attract Daniel's attention and pointed at the television - a woman stood in front of the Diggersby, interviewing a woman whose face had been blurred. Daniel flipped the closed captions on and sat up with a groan, the wound in his back protesting the sudden exertion.
"...and next thing I knew there were gunshots. Something was throwing these awful balls around and people and pokemon were dropping everywhere. It was horrible, this club has never been like this before."
The reporter nodded and thanked the woman for her time. She walked off screen and was replaced by an officer clutching a mug. His unshaven face, baggy, bloodshot eyes and slouched posture betrayed what Daniel guessed was a very long night.
"Do you have anything to offer concerning a motivation for the attack, Officer Bisset? Or any comment on rumors of a body count in the dozens?" asked the reporter.
The officer yawned and waved off the question. "No, no, no. There aren't a dozen dead. We've confirmed four dead, and I am at liberty to divulge that of those four, two were pokemon, a salazzle and a female braixen. We've yet to identify their owners."
"Have the causes of death been determined?"
The officer waved the question off again. "I am not at liberty to release that information. It will be made available at a later time. I am, however, required to inform the populace that the club that was hit is not in violation of any city ordinances concerning sexual misconduct with pokemon, and is nothing more than a standard nightclub and brothel."
The reporter's eyes widened. "Officer, there have been numerous reports-"
Bisset grumbled and pushed the microphone away. His voice was less audible as he turned away and was not captioned, but Daniel caught him mumbling, "Merde. Just leave us alone, lady."
Daniel signed this to Ricard before adding, "These fils de chiennes are just flat out denying that the Diggersby is a pokephile brothel? Half the fucking city knows if you're that deep in the rouge then human-only brothels are the godsdamned exception."
The accountant, however, looked at his friend with wild eyes. "You mentioned a seal. Behind a bookshelf. The police are investigating. We have an opportunity if I call in one more favor, Daniel."
The detective raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were out of favors to call in."
Ricard shook his head. "I am, but I can ask for a favor and cut my contact an IOU. He'll take me up on the offer, I know it." He stood and made for the front door. "He hates the rouge as much as you or I."
Daniel glanced at Charles, his brows furrowed and said, "What the hell is he up to?" The bisharp shrugged. With a sigh, he added, "Well I'm gonna enjoy my forced day off I guess. Wake me up in an hour, I have to call Jo." Charles looked up from his blades and nodded.
At this, Daniel sat up and scooted next to Ana, lifted her arm and tucked himself under it, reclining his head against her shoulder. He intertwined his fingers with hers and closed his eyes.
Ricard stared at Pierre's digital face with a hard expression on his own. He signed, his movements sharp and insistent, "This is your chance, Pierre. You won't get another one - just show up and insist that you've been assigned to help with investigation. Take along enough plastic explosive to tear down that wall and destroy what is inside."
The police officer groaned. He had the authority to do so - he'd never had the privileges revoked even after he'd taken that punch to his leg that shattered the bones in it. Bloody machoke bodyguards. He could assemble a team of men, declare a sweep of the Diggersby and do what Ricard asked.
"I do not want to do this, Ricard," he signed back, shaking his head. "I did not want to know what you were doing before, and I certainly do not want to know now."
Ricard slammed his hands on the table and then began to sign with sharper, furious motions. "You do not understand the gravity of the situation! Whatever is behind that wall is protected by something beyond your comprehension, but not beyond the comprehension offered by the liberal application of plastic explosive. There could be drugs in that wall. Shipping manifests that could put the Diggersby under. There could be both. Whatever it may be, there is something in there that I must demand you destroy, and you will know it when you see it. Shoot it. Crush it. Stab it. Just. Kill. It." The accountant's chest heaved, his raspy, short breaths coming through as static on Pierre's end.
With another groan, Pierre turned to pull up a list of reserve team members available for this "operation" from the console at his desk. He scanned the names and tapped three of the ones he knew were trustworthy to ping them to meet with him later. "Fine. I know I said I would not do another favor for you, but I shall do so. But you owe me, Ricard. You are in my debt now, not the other way around. Understood?" he signed.
With a sigh of relief, the accountant nodded. "Of course. And thank you, Pierre. When you arrive at the Diggersby, you will understand why it is I say you are doing the right thing."
"I will be able to mobilize them in roughly 48 to 72 hours," explained Pierre, "And yes, that is the absolute fastest I can get them. I cannot tap the main team, as I do not know any of them enough to trust them with this. The reserve team, however, has three extremely trustworthy members. I would put my life in any of their hands. And I like to think they feel the same way about me."
Ricard nodded again, this time with a sigh. "It can't be helped. My associate has to recover anyway."
Pierre's eyes widened. "Associate…?" He looked around and drew closer to the projection, signing with smaller, more discreet movements, "That's not the lunatic that went in and fired a gun off in a nightclub is it?"
With a roll of his eyes and the ghost of a smile, Ricard replied, "Please give me a call before you move out. If I don't respond, leave a message, but do not let me delay you. This must be done no matter what." He hung up.
Unseen, Pierre continued to stare at the inactive holocaster and sighed. "You crazy bastard," he mumbled.
Vassal rubbed his face in irritation. He sat in his office deep in the Diggersby and watched with mounting frustration as it was picked apart and inspected by the police. The dead salazzle had long since been removed, but the various bullet holes in the walls, the blood stains upon the wood floor and little droplets of once molten metal had left the entire room worse for the wear. Exacerbating this was the clean-up team in charge of scrubbing the evidence out. When they had mopped away the last of the blood, he urged them from the room.
The trap had failed. That connard Terrence, much as he might have done to bungle this, is not entirely at fault. That detective and his bisharp… they are resourceful. They have worked in the rouge before. Know what to look for, and how to act. And that bastard knew how to prepare. His mind wandered to the empty antidote syringes they'd found in his office and the discarded spray bottle. He thought of how they'd breached the club door to the hallway that led to his office with some kind of silent device - but knew to simply shoot the doorknob off once he'd made it to the other end of the hall.
"Terrence wasn't shot out of carelessness or lack of ability - not entirely, anyway. They did not penetrate this club, control the situation and escape with their lives through dumb luck. Not entirely. No...this man and his pokemon - they are the worst kind of dangerous, Karan: they are competent." Vassal reclined in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. "And there is no easy way around competence."
Karan was only half-listening, and responded to his declaration with a faraway kind of purr. She had spent the entire monologue running a claw down the cut on her forehead that stretched up behind her plumage. Each stroke filled her with a cocktail of emotions.
Stroke.
Rage. She grit her teeth and hissed.
Stroke.
Desire. She purred and threw a glance at Vassal.
Stroke.
Fear. She felt herself sucked backward through a hole in the wall somewhere far behind her. She sped past an incomprehensible array of colors and sounds and landed in dark alley.
Cold. Alone. Stinking. Aching. Dying.
She snapped out of her nightmarish vision with a loud hiss lined with fury and concealing fear. She turned to Vassal, her eyes wide and wild and jumped on him; her hands seized his face and a claw traced a delicate line down his cheek. Her eyes softened and a quiet, inviting purr rose out of her throat.
Vassal scoffed. "Upset, are we, Whore?" He turned away from the light touch of her claw and shook his head. "You'll doom the King if you intend to use me as an outlet to vent the frustration over your little cut." Karan's eyes widened in anger again. "You almost died, whore. It is through dumb luck - DUMB LUCK - that you are alive right now."
Karan recoiled, her eyes widening in fear and a whimper rising out of her chest. Vassal saw his own smirking visage reflected in the glassy orbs: unshaven face, unkempt black hair, and bloodshot green eyes. His smirk widened to a smile and he tossed Karan off of himself onto his desk, where she scuttled back to its edge away from him. He slammed his hands down on either side of her and drew close to her face. "Do you understand that, Whore? Luck saved you last night. You are not invincible. You are not almighty." He seized her by the cheeks and pressed his lips against hers. "You are nothing but a little Whore. You would do well to remember that. Your strength does not keep you alive. It is the King who saved you. Do. Not. Forget." He backhanded her, sending her flying from the desk with a shriek of pain.
"Tell that useless Peasant we are going to stake out the home of this obstacle and his precious knife in two days time. And then we will return to the King and see him ascended." He pointed to the stairwell out of his office and roared, "NOW!"
Karan stumbled from the room and sprinted up the stairs and out of sight.
Vassal collapsed into his chair and stared at the ceiling again. He ran two fingers across his lips.
Viola shuddered and rolled off of Johannes, panting. She seized his head and pulled him close to her chest, the horn that stuck out from her phasing through him completely. She muttered something soft and musical in her language.
Johannes blazed a trail of kisses up her chest, neck and across her lips, then brushed her messy hair aside and kissed her forehead before rolling onto his back. He threw her a smile and groped on the nightstand for his C-Gear to check the time.
His wife rolled to her side and laid a hand across his chest and began to draw tiny circles. Her voice came alive in his head as a blaze of pinks and greens, "Are you expecting a call, Johannes?"
The researcher nodded and laid his arm down at his side. "Yeah. I'm waiting for Daniel to give me a ring. He said in his anesthetic-induced stupor to expect a call from me at some point today, and I wasn't too sure when it'd be coming. I'm wondering if maybe we should just go visit him."
He felt her lock a leg with his to the sound of a low whine. She brushed her lips against his cheek and begged, "No, no, no. Let's just stay in bed. We spent last night in the essence of nightmares themselves; we do not need to be in such a hurry to throw ourselves into the line of danger again. Besides, you heard what Daniel's doctor said - he needs bed rest for at least two weeks."
The C-Gear began to ring and Johannes threw Viola a meaningful look before answering. The gardevoir pouted and rolled over. "Johannes." He heard a long, poorly stifled yawn and then Daniel continued, "Sorry. Had a nap. Today's a dead day, no getting around it. Come by tomorrow. Early. Got shit to discuss."
"Sure thing," replied Johannes. To his side, Viola rolled over, excitement written large on her face with a matching wide smile.
"Is the rest of the day ours? Can we actually treat today as a part of the vacation we were ostensibly on?" she asked. Explosions of bright pink and green rippled across the ether of Johannes' thoughts. "This is wonderful!"
Johannes chuckled before speaking into the C-Gear, "Alright. We'll be by tomorrow. How's your lung?"
"Punctured."
The researcher frowned. "Well, you're taking it easy, right?"
"Today."
His frown deepened. "And tomorrow?"
"Probably."
Johannes shook his head. "Daniel, you can't just throw yourself back-"
"Who the fuck says I can't? Be here tomorrow. We'll discuss a plan of action and hit up Prism Tower again. Personally, I think it's high time we take advantage of what Viola can do. A dowsing rod could come in handy pretty well, especially when you see that door Charles and I had to deal with." He paused and grunted in an undertone, "Gods damn it all this stings."
"Daniel?"
The detective continued, ignoring Johannes' interjection, "Just be here. Don't worry about my health. You got yours and your wife's to worry about as is. Got it?" His voice became distant, and Johannes caught him saying, "Ana, what are you doing? No no no, hon, please put your dress back on - where the fuck did you get all this paint? Jean! Jean, for fuck's sake, help!" The voice became clear again and he added, "Ana's going off the deep end soon. Not now, but soon. This shit I'm used to but I'm fucking rusty, so just - Ana, honey, please stop trying to paint runes on my stomach, please just sit down - I need this shit done yesterday. Not losing her to my own shitty decisions or this fucking Ghost King." A loud wail came through the receiver and crackled, followed by Daniel's distant voice shouting, "What, Jean, this book? What the fuck is "The Fourth Cant of the Renegade?" I can't read this shit, it's in fucking-" A distorted shriek rang out from the receiver and Johannes heard Daniel hastily reciting something in accented, stumbling, broken Sinnohan.
The line went dead. Johannes stared at his C-Gear and turned to look at Viola. The gardevoir's eyes were wide and her mouth was turned into a thin frown.
"What on earth was that?" she asked.
Johannes tossed his C-Gear aside and pulled her into an embrace. "I don't know. But it sounds like we're going to need your help in some weird room at the bottom of Prism Tower."
Viola held Johannes tight against her body. Her breaths came as soft shudders and she caressed his face with a frown. For a long while, she stared into her husband's eyes and then finally said, "I don't want to lose you."
The researcher brushed his lips against hers and brought a hand to the small of her back. "You won't, I promise," he mumbled. "We'll be fine. Daniel's got an idea, he's ready to act, and we've got your mega stone and-"
Viola kissed him and rolled on top of him. She broke away for a moment and mumbled something, holding his cheeks in her hands.
"What?"
She looked at him, a small, sad smile on her face. She planted her lips against his, and a chorus of pinks and blues erupted in Johannes' head. No words came with them.