Daniel sat at the kitchen table across from Johannes and Viola. He looked about at the people and pokemon with him. The couple looked terrible, and while they didn't have the lines and scars befitting a fifty year-old clashing terribly with a face in its late twenties, they did have dark circles beneath their eyes that were not there when he had first met them just a few days ago. At the head of the table to his left sat Charles, focused on the liechi berry tart sitting on a plate before his trainer. Now and again his hand would inch towards the treat and then retreat when Daniel's head turned towards him. At the other end of the table sat Ricard, his eyes shifting from Daniel to Charles to Johannes, and then to d'Artagnan as he walked up and down the table. Ricard gestured at the xatu, and d'Artagnan flew up and settled atop the back of his partner's chair with a click of his beak.
Ana sat to the right of Daniel. In sharp contrast to the tense air at the table, she was wrapped in a comforter that turned her figure into a mass of blanket. Part of it hung atop her head and occasionally flapped in front of her face. With a giggle that echoed too much for the room they were in, she would blow it out of the way. Jeannette sat upon her shoulder, a grave expression upon her face, her zipper turned down into a frown.
Daniel sighed. "I decided yesterday - and doubled down on it while you were on your way here - that we're hitting Prism Tower. There's a weird as fuck room at the bottom and beyond it is hiding-" He snapped his fingers, trying to find a way to articulate himself and finally settled on, "Something, I guess. I don't know, it has to be. Must be. That door is hiding something. Could be the King himself, if d'Artagnan's visions are anything to off of of. Ricard says he's got someone to take care of the symbol upon the wall in the Diggersby, and-" He paused and shook his head. "I don't know how many hearts there are. We've taken care of one. There was a murdered body in that alley you were in so there's probably another nearby? There was that abandoned building at the edge of the rouge that didn't have anything, so there's probably another in the sewers beneath. Unless the Diggersby is housing that one. But we were operating under the impression that the symbols marked where a heart would be."
"Is it not worth continuing to pursue these hearts then, Mortician?" asked d'Artagnan.
The detective sat up in his chair and winced at the pain in his back. He cursed his punctured and patched lung under his breath. "I think we're past the point of finding the rest of these hearts. We took care of one. That should be enough for now, we at least know where to to go looking if we think it's been replaced."
"Has it been replaced?" asked Johannes. Daniel looked up at the researcher and frowned. "I mean… how long has it been since you took care of it?"
"Around a week," signed Ricard. D'Artagnan broadcasted the message for him.
"That is rather concerning. Has no one gone to check?" asked Viola.
"We haven't really had the time: went from hearts, to you showing up to get wrapped up in this, to Ana and her augur, Prism Tower and the rouge - and now we're here." Daniel took a sip from his coffee and set the cup back down, looking to Charles long enough to give him a single nod. The bisharp dug into his trainer's pastry immediately. "And, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not exactly working within the boundaries of the law. Wigs and generally knowing how to keep a low profile have kept me out of the eyes of the police, but what we're about to do could spill over above ground. I don't know really. Anything could happen. All I know is we have to move. Probably tomorrow. Today I'm getting a hold of some gear and making my peace." He paused and then added, "Again."
Johannes swallowed hard. "Again?"
"I always make my peace with everything before I do anything this monumentally stupid, uninformed or both."
"How...uninformed is this push into the lower parts of Prism Tower?" asked Viola.
Daniel trained his eyes on the gardevoir and then stood. He walked to the dresser by his front door and rummaged about it. The sounds of clicks and clacks, the shuffling of heavy cloth and the clink of metal against metal filled the still air of the room. He slammed the drawer shut and returned the table, where he dumped a handgun, suppressor, two magazines filled with ammunition, and the dagger Ana had gifted him on the table.
"I take this with me whenever I have to do work in the rouge or somewhere I expect heavy resistance. Alongside a complement of medicine and potions." The gardevoir look on with incomprehension etched across her face.
Daniel set a piece of charcoal down on the table and then gestured at it with an open hand. "When I don't know what's going on though - I get this. This is my "oh-shit" button. And so…" He pointed to Jean. "...is she."
He unloaded one of the magazines and gathered the ten bullets in his hand. "Jeannette. Curse these." The banette glanced down at his hand and then up at Daniel. There was a softness in her eyes that he hadn't seen before as she unzipped her mouth and popped the bullets in, one by one. He heard Johannes mumble something indistinct, and turned to face the researcher. "What?"
Johannes shook his head. "Nothing." His eyes betrayed intrigue, however, and he sat up straighter, his eyes trained on the banette with professional interest.
An aura of purple light sprung to life around the banette and her eyes flashed a kaleidoscope of purples, reds and pinks. A minute later she unzipped her mouth and spat the bullets back out into her hand; they were glowing a rich indigo and smoking slightly. She returned the bullets to Daniel and zipped her mouth shut again.
As he loaded the bullets into his magazine, he looked between the couple across from him and explained; "Soaked in ghost energy. Gengar thought he had trouble before? That poor bastard won't know what hit him now. Might outright kill him, even on a would-be nonfatal leg shot."
He set the magazine down on the table, the bullets inside still lightly smoking and their glow visible through the slit along one side. He unloaded the second magazine, lined the bullets up before him, then picked up a single one and his charcoal. He rolled the blackened wood between his fingers and it too began to smoke. The smell of burning wood rose into the air around the table, and Johannes' jaw dropped.
"Is that…is that…"
Daniel etched a symbol upon the tip of each of the bullets in turn, and replied to Johannes with a simple, "Yes."
"Do you have any idea how much that thing is worth?" asked the researcher, incredulous.
"Ricard does. Made up the cost and then some by this point." He eyed the bullet he'd just marked and then set it down. "Blessed by the Fire of Rebirth itself, guaranteed." He grinned and looked at Ricard. "Bastard's got contacts that go beyond just this city, you know. A little limited, but the only people that compete with Sinnohans and how crazy they are about history are Johtoans. He's got some scrolls tucked away in his library that were drawn up by one of the only traditional scribes left in the whole damn region." He began to load the magazine, and continued, "So naturally I asked him to get me a piece of charcoal. Nothing like a little extra oomph to help you along when you try to put down a raging cacturne."
Daniel held a bullet up to his face and turned it around in his hand, eyeing it with a stern expression. "I'm putting one of these right between your fucking eyes, knifecat." He loaded one last bullet into his magazine and set it down, then picked up his dagger. "And now I just need this to hurt the aegislash. Ana, do you have a spare cloth?" He turned to his girlfriend, who turned to face with with a wide smile and a giggle.
"Of course I do. I have plenty. Plenty. Plenty. Plenty." Her eyes widened and she shook her head to toss hair from her face - they both bore the bizarre spirals that wound out from her pupils now. "Jean!" She seized the floating banette and turned the pokemon about to face her. "Cloth…" She dragged the word out and delicately unzipped the banette's mouth before pressing her hand into the puppet's mouth. A confused, searching expression arose on Ana's face as she drove her arm further into the banette, before her eyes lit up and she pulled her arm free, clutching a long strip of cloth that glowed a soft indigo. "Yes, yes, yes, here it is. Take it, take it, take it." She held it between her thumb and forefinger and dangled it before Daniel, giggling.
The detective took the cloth from her with a frown and looked down at it. He set it upon the table and brought a hand up to Ana's face and rubbed her cheek. It was cold. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, barely audible.
Ana's smile settled into a dreamy sort of grin and she sighed with content. She brought a hand up to cup his and closed her eyes. They opened again a second later, and had become their original soft black. Her brow furrowed and she clutched his hand. "Be careful." The dreamy expression came across her face again and she closed her eyes once more. When she opened them again they had returned to their bizarre, spiral state.
Daniel sighed and took to wrapping the cloth around the handle of his dagger, letting a small trail of cloth hang from it when he finished. He inspected the pommel of the dagger and unscrewed it, revealing the handle to be partially hollow, though only just. An indentation into the otherwise solid build of the handle was long and wide enough to allow the piece of charcoal to slide in snugly, and after slipping the burnt piece of wood into dagger, he replaced the pommel and screwed it tightly back on.
Johannes eyed the dagger with a look of unease. "That's going to hurt whatever you stick it through."
The detective chuckled. "You think? Any other stunning observations?" When he flicked the broad side of the blade, the edges glowed a brilliant orange for an instant and then faded. "That's the whole point. Anyway, I've got some shopping to do. Come along if you want, might be able to sneak in some touristy shit while you're at it. Then, tomorrow night we're going to head out and take care of our business in Prism Tower."
"Is this really wise, Daniel?" signed Ricard, tapping the table insistently to get his attention. The detective turned to look his friend in the face. Worry had found its way into the deaf-mute's eyes. "You are less than recovered. You are perhaps only at the doorstep of "recovery", much less anything beyond it."
Daniel shrugged. "Don't have much of a choice Ricard." He gestured with his head towards Ana. "Between what little sand we got in the glass with her and the crazy shit d'Artagnan saw through the augur, I think we're no longer in any position to delay any longer than we absolutely have to."
A loud squawk rang out, and d'Artagnan flapped his wings in a frenzy to keep himself from falling to the floor. Ricard turned about in alarm when he felt his chair wobble and signed at him, "d'Artagnan? Are you alright? What happened?"
The xatu flapped his wings and shook his head, anxious. "My apologies, Merchant. A vision gripped me. One that was not of the tapestry." He scanned the room and then looked back down at Ricard. "Forgive me. It was a bizarre vision. One that smelled of fetid water and putrid unknown. There were shadows dancing across wet stonework and with a sound like bare feet against wet pavement and the patter of the rain against cobble; one of the shadows went sailing through air-" He caught himself and clicked his beak. "It was nonsense. These visions did not provide me with anything of use. Though they do concern me. It is incredibly rare that a vision comes to me that is not of the tapestry." A pause. "It is rare that a vision comes to me at all," he added, his tone somewhat sheepish.
"You don't think it was of us in the sewers, do you?" asked Daniel. "Sounds an awful lot like the sewers."
"Impossible. None of the shadows even remotely resemble anyone present. I expect I may have stumbled upon the prediction that reveals to me the fate of a set of workers that are performing maintenance somewhere beneath the streets."
Neither Daniel nor Ricard looked convinced, though the former shrugged, and with a noncommittal jerk of his head said, "We should get going, Jo. I'll see you to your hotel afterwards."
The researcher nodded and stood. To his side, Viola followed suit, and he, his wife, Daniel and Charles excused themselves and left the apartment.
Johannes waved goodbye to Daniel, and looked down at the vests in his hand with unease. The detective had insisted on acquiring vests for everyone, Viola included, though Johannes noticed that Jean and all of Daniel's Pokemon were going to go without.
A balloon, a dog and a walking cutlery rack don't take to vests very well, in case you haven't noticed. Johannes fought down a bizarre urge to grin as he thought the statement over. He was right - grim as that fact may have been.
Viola's hand clenched at his chest, balling some of his shirt in her fist, and he he heard her take a deep, shaking breath. A hand came up to his cheek and when he turned to look at his wife, her face was alight with a bizarre cocktail of emotions. She tugged at his shirt with insistence, and a petal danced across the surface of his lips. He saw tears well in the corner of her eyes, and an array of dull blues and blinding pinks danced across his thoughts.
He sighed and nodded.
Johannes sat at the edge of his bed, facing the open window that spread the city of lights out before him. Behind him Viola lay still, her breathing slow and quiet and her hair a mess. Now and again he'd hear her mutter something in her strange tongue and a tiny burst of pink, blue or yellow would pop into the corner of his thoughts.
The researcher dug his face into this hands and yawned. She was insatiable and inconsolable, and once again he felt as if he was sitting in that tent, staring at her all those years ago in the dead of the Kantoan winter. He looked up, his limbs weary and aching, his eyes heavy, and his entire body, no doubt, in desperate need of a shower. It was nearly two in the morning, and still the city of lights burned.
He heard sheets rustle, and felt the bed shift and hands snake their way over his shoulders. One came up to caress his cheek, the other worked its way between his legs.
"Viola, it's two in the morning," he muttered, equal parts incredulous and weary.
She bit his ear and moaned softly - and then her hands came to his chest and she sagged onto him, sobbing.
Johannes turned about with some difficulty and fell back onto the bed, pulling his wife into an embrace. He kissed the crown of her head and mumbled, "It's going to be alright honey. We're going to be just fine." She sobbed harder into his chest, choking out incomprehensible sounds between cries and pulled him closer.
He shuffled them both awkwardly up the bed and onto the pillows and drew the covers over their naked bodies and began to caress her face. The crying eventually subsided, and shortly after, so did his consciousness.
Terrence groaned. "This is going to end terribly, Vassal," grumbled the gengar. His limbs ached, and he felt empty - too much of his essence had leaked out over the past few days, and he had long past moved the point of worry to outright fear. Essence resurged slowly on its own without a source to draw from, and Vassal had been loath to send him to a Center, believing any time spent recovering there would be better spent trying to track down their targets. "I'm almost in no condition to fight, and you still want to throw me at them. I'm going to get in the way."
Vassal adjusted the collar on his jacket and tugged his beanie more snugly around his head. He cleared his throat and threw a single, severe glance at Karan, who had been peeking over the edge of the car door and out the window. The weavile turned to look at him and with a grimace and a growl, then sank back down with a murderous expression on her face. Vassal's face contorted into a snarl and the weavile cowed. The man drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and ignored the ghost's whinging. "There they are," he said curtly. "Ready yourselves. We could spring an attack at any moment. We only need them somewhere isolated enough."
"Oh, that ought to be easy enough, this city has plenty of utterly deserted places we can take advantage of," called out Terrence, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Just make sure you run them into an alley first."
Vassal ignored this as well, and turned on the car and waited for their targets to get into their own. Terrance saw that the windows and windshields had been completely destroyed and frowned. "Where the hell did they rent that car from?" Vassal said. Karan peeked over the edge of her door again and eyed the car. She caught sight of the bisharp she'd fought - he was recalled into a ball and his owner sat down in the car. "Karan get down." At this, Vassal grabbed the weavile's head and roughly shoved her down into the seat again. "They're pulling away." He looked down at Karan, who stared back with eyes that hid a quiet rage. "Do not forget what I told you." She frowned and nodded once.
Johannes could hear the murmurs of the passersby on the sidewalk and those that crossed the intersection. The destroyed windows and cracked and ruined windshields made sure of it. He had been reluctant to mention the state of the car to Viola, who had precious little concept of how it was that car rentals functioned. Daniel's snickers and low whistles whenever another piece of cracked glass fell loose from the rear window left Johannes dreading when he'd have to return the car to the rental place. He adjusted the rearview mirror with a frown - it, like the side mirrors, had also cracked and a large piece of it had fallen off and left him with a much narrower view of his rear than he liked.
"Take that yellow, Charles hates being cooped up," instructed Daniel.
Johannes sped up to make the light and sighed. At least I don't have to sit at another intersection with people staring at me. To his right sat his wife, while Ana, Daniel and Ricard had crammed into the backseat, and to fit, had stowed Charles and d'Artagnan into their pokeballs amid Jean's smug remarks as she settled herself in Ana's lap.
"Johannes? Dear?" asked Viola in his head.
"Uh, yeah, what is it Viola?" he replied.
"It has just occurred to me - because of Daniel's reactions, that is - that this vehicle is in...disrepair."
"It's - it's just occurred to you? I mean, I'm glad your grasp of comedic understatement is as good as ever but-" He paused and turned to look at his wife, who stared back with a cocked head and a confused expression. "Sixteen bloody plates of the Alpha - you're serious."
Daniel threw his head back and roared with laughter, then lapsed into a fit of coughing, earning him a look of worry from Ana. He controlled his fit and gasped, "What the fuck was that expression?"
Johannes mumbled something indistinct and gave the road his full attention again. "Nothing, don't worry about it."
"That can't seriously be a fucking expression in Sinnoh," pressed Daniel.
"I said don't worry about it," said Johannes, staring at the road with determination.
"It is. I think it's quite silly myself," admitted Viola. The voice in Johannes' head bore a tone of lightness, and to his surprise, he caught the gardevoir turning in her seat to give Daniel a small smirk and a wink.
Daniel grinned and signed to Ricard while also speaking aloud, "Looks like d'Artagnan is back to being the most uptight pokemon in the room."
The deaf-mute looked between his friend and Viola and smiled. Whatever it was he signed in response, it was lost on Johannes.
The wait for the sunset had been uninteresting. Daniel beckoned for Charles to follow him, and the two broke from the group for a few minutes to procure coffee and pastries from a nearby cafe. Daniel noted a few odd stares from the passserby at the collection of people and pokemon standing outside of Prism Tower as they walked off and wondered if it looked as suspicious as it seemed.
The lights within the lobby of Prism Tower went out at last and Daniel checked his watch; it was 7pm. He sighed and took one last drag from his cigarette as he watched the receptionist from the other day leave the building and head off towards a late night cafe nearby. He beckoned for Ana, Jean and Charles to follow and mumbled, "Wait here," to the rest of the group.
Daniel peered through the glass double doors of the building and muttered, "Ana, can you get Jean to phase through this? Or are their tags in order?" Ana turned to look at Jean and nodded once and pointed at the door.
Jean smacked into the glass and frowned - she turned to Ana and shook her head once. "It would seem," Ana began, "that they do indeed have their tags in order. Must remove them. Overpower them. Destroy them. Something. Something. Something." In a flurry of purple sleeves, she placed her hands on the doors, her fingers spread wide. Her hair whipped around, glowing a pale purple and her hands flashed violet once. "Ketsuretsu!"
Nothing happened. Daniel put a hand on her shoulder and asked, "Ana? Ana, what was that?"
She twitched her shoulder once and he released her. "Phase through, Jean. Unlock the door. Let us through and into the dark below." Her breathing quickened and turned to Daniel, her eyes wide and mouth pulled into a manic grin. "The dark below. The dark below. The dark below. The dark below."
Jean gave Daniel a single, mournful glance, before phasing through the door and unlocking it. The detective beckoned for the rest of the group to approach and locked the door when everyone had filed into the building.
He pointed to the door he'd used to access the stairs that led deep beneath the tower. "That one. Let's get a move on." He watched everyone head off - except for Ana, who stood, swaying on the spot, hyperventilating.
"Ana," he called to her. She did not respond. "Ana!" The hexer raised her eyes from the floor to Daniel's face and stepped up to him abruptly. She clutched his face, hands cold and dry, her nails digging in and dragging soft lines through his skin.
"Spiritsflowbelowwherethedarkturnstocoldwhereliveslayaloneinthedarkbelowthedarkbelowthedarkbelow." Her nails dug further and Daniel grimaced.
"Ana!" he shouted, grabbing hold of her shoulder. "Please." His girlfriend's eyes went wide and she let out a slow, shallow breath. "You alright?"
She continued to stare into his face as her grip loosened and changed to a soft caress. She kissed him and then turned to look at the door - Ricard and Jean stared back at them and motioned for them to hurry up. She looked back at Daniel and drew a soft caress across his cheek once more. "No."
She turned away from him and set off towards Jean, floating beside Ricard, worry etched across the banette's face.
In the tunnels, Charles waited for his partner to appear, gesturing in the meantime for the rest of the group to continue to pushing down into the tunnels. He watched as Daniel closed the door behind him and gestured for him to head down the stairs as well. "I'll bring up the rear. Besides, no one needs to see me freaking the fuck out." Charles saw the lights bouncing off pipes and piercing the musty air ahead of him drawing further away and shivered. Behind him, Daniel added, "Get goin'. They're moving up. Stand around and you'll just get caught in the dark."
The walk through the tunnels still made him uneasy. Charles felt as if his stomach had tied itself into a knot that tightened and loosened as they moved from patches of total darkness to patches dimly lit by the grimy maintenance lights above them. They reached the last flight of stairs and stood before the impenetrable door they'd tried to breach last time. Charles, like the others, trained his eyes upon it and the sign it bore, and felt his fear fade now that they'd arrived, though only just. The sewers were better and worse in their own ways. At least fighting in them was easier than this tunnel.
"Charles tried punching this door down and we got fuckin' nowhere with that. Either of you got any ideas?" asked Daniel, pointing between Jean and Viola.
The gardevoir shivered. "Yes. Let us leave. Something wicked sits in the air. It is...awful. I can feel sorrow in the air - and somewhere far below, a bubbling, awful rage. This entire tunnel is steeped in the dying embers of regret and the quiet whispers of the lonely and forgotten."
"Yes, we're all pretty aware," replied Jean, rolling her eyes. The banette floated towards the door and ran her hand across it. "But that's just how the air feels to you. There's something more. Something I can sense. I think Darty over here feels it too."
The xatu puffed his chest out in indignation. "My name is d'Artagnan Tlahtoa Grimaud, and it would do you well to refer to me at the very least as Conduit, much as I refer to you as Vessel and not something mean and common. Like Jeanie."
Viola cocked her head. "Tlahtoa? That is...unusual sounding."
Charles grinned and interjected, pointing at d'Artagnan as he did, "Is concerned with ceremony. Had to pick something grand."
The xatu walked up to and then away from the door several times, a low, throbbing cry in his throat as he soaked in the surroundings. "It is a self-chosen name taken from a list of names that my kind often give their progeny. One of the Merchant's behavioral reports had it." He stopped and looked about. "The air is thick with energy of my kind, Vessel. It must be undone. If you or the Blade here could do the honors?"
Jean summoned a ball of ghost energy in her palm and launched it at the door - the resulting flash of bright crimson blinded all present, only for their vision to clear and find the door unscathed.
Viola frowned and collected a dim ball of pink energy in her hand and then launched it at the door as well. The resulting flash of crimson was blinding, though less intense, but the door remained as unchanged as always.
"Again," directed d'Artagnan. "The flash was less intense the second time. Whatever foul trickery holds it fast is weakening. Both of you, strike it at once."
Again the flash of crimson filled the tunnel, and was accompanied to the groaning sounds of shifting, cracking earth and the patter of pebbles upon the earth. Charles looked about and found they were no longer standing before a door, but rather a hole in the wall, with no sign a door had ever been present. Cracks in the brickwork and the pieces of broken pipe in the path that the hole in the wall opened to caught his trainer's eye, as Daniel noted, "Someone blew right through this wall. From this side. Which means we're heading in there and finding out what the fuck is going on."
Daniel pushed past the group, to the front and turned to face them all, and Charles joined his side. He brought dark energy to life across the blades in his forearms and peered around, half uneasy, half wary.
They were in the dark, in unknown territory, and the he could hear - though just barely - the whispers. The commands of this terrible King that he'd heard in the realm of the dead. He grit his teeth and continued to glance around, straining his eyes and ears to pick up any minute movement or faint sound. He chastised himself in his head. He was acting like a pawniard: weak and feeble, afraid of the unknown, dependent on the guidance - the brutal guidance - of a bisharp.
He was sick of the dark tunnels and the unknown. The random deaths and even more random locations he had accompanied Daniel. Each excursion out he could see the frustration mounting in Daniel's face, in his voice, in his stance as they walked. It rubbed off on him, made him feel like a failure. Charles bit back a growl. He was angry too. When they at last found the King, he would be able to make up for all that he could not do before. d'Artagnan, Jean, Viola - all of them were soft. They could not stand up to the king. To the weavile and gengar. To that human.
Daniel's voice sounded far away to Charles, and he pulled himself out of his contemplation long enough to hear his friend explain, "We don't know what's through this passage. We don't know what we'll find. Be ready for fucking anything and don't discount any weird sounds, even if you think you know what they are. Except you Ricard, for obvious reasons." Charles saw him make the strange hand signs and motions with his arms that Daniel always made to Ricard and watched the man respond with more strange signs and arm motions.
"This could be it. This could be a red herring, we could be out of time, we could have all the time left in the world - I don't know. But if d'Artagnan's vision is anything to go off of, the King is somewhere below us. Maybe deep. Maybe too deep for us to reach. But we're gonna fucking try." At this Daniel drew his pistol and nodded once to Ricard, who did the same. Johannes touched a finger to the metalwork of his mega stone bracelet and glanced at Viola, and the stone at her hip.
Ana reached out and pulled Jeannette to her chest and began to laugh. She kissed the top of the banette's head and marched past Daniel. "Into the dark below, where the lights of the Alpha and Renegade cease to glow."
Charles turned on the spot and looked at Daniel, his face set into a stern expression that his trainer mirrored.
"You ready, Charles?"
He raised his arms and surged dark energy through the blades upon them, snarling all the while. Tonight, a king would fall.