Chapter 4: Bad Moon Rising
"I see the bad moon a-rising; I see trouble on the way." ~Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bad Moon Rising
"When fate throws a dagger at you, there are two ways to catch it;
By the blade, or by the hilt."
~ Chinese Proverb
AN: Boo! Mer... I can't think of anything fun or witty to say... digital garlic bread to all readers. Toasted digi-garlic bread to reviews. Lols- my Swedish heritage will feed you!
In other news, this chapter (and most of those up to chapter 11 at least), have been brought to you by pretty much every song that has ever come out of Dean Winchester's radio~
Um, non-claimers? Darius and Ark, all mine~
Darius brought his newly purchased bicycle to a stop at the exit to the cave, smiling as he took a deep breath of salt-touched air. It reminded him of Sunnyshore city, where he and Saturn had lived before their uncle had brought them into Team Galactic. The smell also reminded him of his friends back in the Hoenn region. May being the first who came to mind, followed by Tyler and Edward Stone, and even to an extent Steven. Saving the world from the apocalypse had a tendency to bring people together after all. Shaking his head to dislodge his memories, Darius turned the bicycle towards the rocky path that led down the cliff face, just barely restraining the urge to whoop in exhilaration as the salty wind nipped at his face. As he neared the bottom of the trail, he felt Rayquaza's mind shifting slightly, curiosity echoing through their link.
/What are doing hatchling?/ The dragon asked in mild confusion. /Looker will not be happy to see you hunting leads on his case./
"Which is why I'm only here as a tourist." Darius said out loud, grinning at the taste of salt on his tongue. "Besides, I have next to no leads right now; the only way for me to find info is to trip over it." Darius got a distinct feeling of amusement from the dragon, and he could imagine the enormous head shaking ruefully before the presence retreated once more, allowing Darius to focus once more on the path his bike sped along. Which turned out to be a very good thing, considering the pokemon that had unexpectedly stepped out from the bushes to the side of the track. Gritting his teeth, Darius squeezed both brakes and twisted the bike so he skidded sideways, stopping just a few feet short of the white-furred pokemon, which hadn't so much as flinched. Curiously, Darius noted it was an Absol. Which may or may not have meant anything, really; he may have been on the coast, but there was a mountain just behind him.
Slowly, the Absol sauntered towards Darius, who perched upon his bike silently, curious to see the Pokemon's intentions. Humans projected as easily as they breathed, but pokemon, especially wild ones, were much harder for Darius to get a read on. Gently, the disaster pokemon sniffed Darius's coat a few times, before giving his hair a sniff and nipping at a few of the wayward blue strands before stepping back, tilting its head curiously. Then, almost as abruptly as it had appeared, the Absol was leaping down the rocky ledge to Darius's right, down the mountain.
Darius watched the lithe body until he could no longer see it before shaking his head and turning his bicycle once more. He was definitely onto something; whether or not that was a good thing was still to be seen.
Archangel sighed, letting his head hang over the back of the sofa he'd practically fallen on once he'd returned to the hotel he'd been staying at. He'd spent the past week trying to track down where Titan had gone after their confrontation in the coffee shop, but the blue-haired young man had seemingly vanished. If he was an agent for some investigative agency, Ark knew it was only a matter of time before he and Titan crossed paths once more, hunting for Team Flare. Taking a breath and lifting his head once more, Archangel reached into his bag, withdrawing the datapad, switching it on and logging in, thankful that at least the data banks were working, even if he still couldn't get in touch with Watcher or Tower.
Archangel stared at the keyboard for a few minutes after that. The problem with the open databanks was they were weak on details for open cases. Which was exactly what the investigation into Team Flare was, if it had even been started yet. He'd already researched what little data was available on Team Flare, and Lysandre, and the legends of the Kalos region. What else was there to research? What could give him a lead? Suddenly, Archangel's thoughts came to a stop. Of course!
Quickly he typed 'Titan' into the database, frowning at old articles of a criminal gang in some other faraway region and studies on an alien moon. He adjusted the search to 'Agent Titan' and ran the scan again. He was about to sigh in defeat at the lack of data when he noticed the discrepancy. There weren't nearly as many mentions in the database on Agent Titan as there would usually be for an active agent, but those that were there referred to him in junction with an agent named Looker. Which meant Looker was probably Titan's commanding officer like Watcher was for Archangel. A quick search on Looker however yielded him nothing more than a list of sealed cases attributed to the man. Nothing on what he was working on, which meant Archangel didn't have the clearance to research it. Finally giving up, Archangel powered down the datapad and tucked it back into his bag, his mind running full throttle. The response, while containing no actual data, held quite a few answers. At the very least, Titan worked underneath a high-level agent, meaning he was probably a rather high level himself.
Growling under his breath, Ark dropped his head into his hands, pressing the heels of his palms against his temples. If only he could contact Tower, or even Watcher. It was Tower's job to get info out to Archangel and Watcher, and Watcher was his senior agent. Archangel wasn't ready as either a person or an agent to work such a massive case on his own yet. This was supposed to have been his first job. Cleaning up fallout, not trying to prevent it from happening in the first place.
Archangel's line of thought was interrupted by the sound of two other hotel-goers descending into the lobby where the young agent had made himself comfy. Ark listened to their voices echoing down the hallway for a minute before smirking at what sounded like an old argument between the two.
"…No such thing as coincidences with him." The first voice growled, sounding definitively annoyed.
"Benefit of the doubt then. He took vacation all the way out here; that looks like he was trying to get away from work to me." A second man's voice answered, younger and full of amusement.
"All part of his schemes." The first voice retorted. Archangel craned his neck to see as the two entered the lobby area. The first man had black hair which was peppered with grey, and he positively stalked out of the stairwell, tan long coat billowing out behind him like a cape. Behind him a middle-aged man in a light brown suit bounced along, grin firmly in place under his short-cropped sandy blonde hair.
"Arceus help the next red-haired loony I lay eyes on." Long-Coat growled, making his was quickly across the lobby.
"What about blue-haired loonies sir?" Sandy-Hair asked with a smirk, hopping slightly so he could walk next to Long-Coat.
"Arceus help my sanity. I do not need that kind of headache right now." And before Archangel could do more than jump off the sofa he'd been occupying, the two were out the door and gone. He quickly darted out the door after them, but they were already lost in the afternoon rush.
Darius rubbed at his sore bottom, positive he wasn't going to be able to sit right for the rest of the week. He'd thought it was such cool idea at the time, to have a ryhorn carry passengers across the dangerously rocky path.
"After this, I'm flying back to town." Darius grumbled under his breath as he approached the mouth of Glitter Cave. He paused inside the mouth of the cave to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and he couldn't help but smile at the soft green and blue light emanating from the crystals that jutted out of the walls. It was quite beautiful, in an odd unearthly way. Darius studied the crystals for a few minutes before focusing his mind onto the main reason he'd come all the way out to the cave in the first place. People didn't just go missing afterall.
Serena sighed in relief as she watched another member of Team Flare withdraw his wounded pokemon from battle and flee into the darkness behind her. Whether or not they were able to find the exit in the dark, the girl didn't particularly care. She'd lost all patience hours ago when she'd gotten lost in the twists and dead-ends in the dark cave. The members of Team Flare who ran away were out of her way, and she was one step closer to finding the missing, kidnapped, researcher. Although, what Team Flare wanted with a bunch of fossils when they were apparently obsessed with 'style', the blonde-haired girl didn't have a clue.
"You ready to go Fennekin?" Serena asked the little fox pokemon by her feet. Fennekin yipped in agreement and trotted forward, large sensitive ears flicking about in search of threats. Serena was positive they were almost to the end of the cave when Fennekin froze, one paw still reached forward, ears angled sharply forward. Before Serena could ask her pokemon what was ahead, she heard the growling. A few seconds later, she saw the source of the growl.
The pokemon resembled a wolf, and even crouched in a threatening pose the dark fur running down its back came up to Serena's elbows. Shorter grey fur covered the lower half of the pokemon's body, and sharp white teeth glinted underneath keen red eyes. Fennekin growled softly, but Serena could see the little fox shaking; this pokemon was not one they would be able to defeat. But it was too late to run, the pokemon was still stalking towards them, ever so slowly.
Abruptly, Fennekin panicked and spat a mouthful of embers at the dark muzzle. One of the wolf's ears twitched and he snorted to get the smoke out of his nose, but he didn't so much as flinch from the attack. His growling grew louder, and Serena quickly darted forward, scooping up Fennekin in her arms and backing away, almost loosing her balance on the uneven ground.
"Kuraishi?" A voice called from within the darkness, and Serena tore her eyes away from the shadowed demon before her to the man who'd almost literally melted out of the darkness. Which seemed almost impossible considering the intense blue hair should have stuck out like a sore thumb.
"I thought you guys all had red hair." Serena growled before she could catch herself. The blue-haired man's eyes narrowed and she squeaked, clutching Fennekin closer to her chest in fright. It took her a second to realize that it wasn't an action of anger however, but of confusion. The man didn't have any idea what she was talking about.
"Is that a friend of yours?" A new man's voice called from the darkness behind the blue-haired man. Glancing over his shoulder, Serena saw a stringy, slightly balding man in a while lab coat coming out of the darkness, holding one of the glowing crystals in one hand as he squinted at the clipboard in his other hand.
"This is a public cave professor; she's probably just here to see the crystals. Kuraishi, that's enough." At the young man's command, the hound ceased growling, lifting his head and settling into a more casual stance.
"Oh yes, the crystals are quite interesting, truly." The professor mumbled, nodding slightly without even taking his eyes off the clipboard. And he was still walking forward, which meant he almost tripped over the dark-furred wolf standing in front of him.
"Are you the professor from the Fossil Institute?" Serena asked, loosening her grip on Fennekin slightly. She didn't want to crush her poor pokemon afterall. "The one that was missing? That everyone thought was kidnapped by Team Flare?"
"Why would Team Flare be after a fossil researcher?" The blue haired man asked, tilting his head to the side like a bird. The professor in question glanced up to look between the two for a moment before shrugging and going back to his clipboard.
"I don't know, why was this cave practically crawling with them earlier until I chased them out?" The girl retorted. She was beginning to doubt that the stranger was with the criminal organization, or even that the professor had been kidnapped in the first place. Her suspicions were further strengthened when the young man's eyes went almost comically wide and he looked down to his pokemon.
"For once, we actually missed something!" He said in what couldn't be anything but surprise. Then he smirked. "I knew my luck sucked enough that my first tourist destination would have Team Flare as a feature. Even if I did miss the action."
"You sound happy about running into them, but if your luck was that bad, wouldn't you be having a hard time finding them?" Serena asked, finally loosening her grip on Fennekin enough that the little fox could wriggle out of her arms and jump up on her shoulder. In response to her question however the blue-haired man just shrugged and turned his attention back to the professor.
"Sir, if you've been gone so long that people are assuming you've been kidnapped, I think it's high time we got you back to town." He then glanced over at Serena. "You want a lift back?" He asked even as he plucked two Pokeballs off his belt, recalling Kuraishi into one and releasing a tall humanoid green-and-white pokemon. Serena eyed the vaguely familiar pokemon curiously; the basic shape looked familiar, as did the colouring, but she couldn't identify it. Just like the dark-furred wolf he'd called Kuraishi. Noticing her gaze, the man glanced at his pokemon and smiled.
"That's Ayashii. She's a gardevoir, evolved from ralts and kirlia. She's a psychic-type, so she'll be able to teleport us back to town easily. That, and I do not want another ride on those ryhorn. Don't know how those racers can walk afterwards." Serena was torn between smiling about how she'd been able to somewhat recognize the third evolution of ralts, or frowning at the man's comment on the ryhorn. She decided to compromise.
"My mother is a ryhorn racer." She informed him scoldingly, even as she smiled and joined the little group around Ayashii. The young man, he could only be a year or two older than Serena now that she was looking, simply nodded, shifting his gaze to his pokemon, who seemed to take that as a hint. Moments later, the cave was empty.
"Once I rose above the noise and confusion~ Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion~ I was soaring ever higher~ But I flew too high~"
...wanders off singing slightly off-key...