AN: Okay, so I guess I don't have much to say. I've already uploaded the Interlude 2 earlier today, as a separate story titled 'Saw It In The Sky'. Please check it out if you feel so inclined; it's quite short (1K, it's short to me). Um... Enjoy the chapter?
Uhh... Helps if I actually click 'upload', doesn't it...
"What are you doing?" Michael demanded, leaning against an orange-leafed tree with his arms crossed, frowning in bemusement. Off to his side, Ayashii was circling her arms slowly, glowing with psychic energy as she tugged and pulled all the stray fallen leaves into the enormous pile in the centre of the road. Kuraishi was bounding through the pile, shaking himself free of leaves each time he escaped before pouncing into the pile again. Darius, however, had gone for something different.
"Vacationing!" The young man shouted with a laugh from atop Ryuushi's back before he easily rolled backward, pulling off a backflip mid-air before he landed in the leaf pile. After several seconds of Michael wondering if he'd broken his neck however, the mess of blue hair popped out of the leaf-mountain's 'peak'. Darius was grinning madly.
"I hope you don't plan on just standing over there." The older of the two teased. Michael just shook his head, still staring at Darius and the leaf-pile incredulously.
"One day you're making yourself the thing of nightmares for Flares, and the next you're playing in a pile of leaves like a five-year-old! I just don't understand you." Darius stared at him for a while before sighing, sinking back into the leaf pile and out of sight. Several seconds later, his head popped out closer to the bottom; he appeared to be laying on his stomach.
"A tip for the future? Take as much happiness out of the little things in life as you can; otherwise a job like ours will overwhelm you and drown you in the darker parts of the world." Michael nodded, sinking down to the ground to sit cross-legged against the tree he'd been leaning on. He thought about pursuing that line; Darius sounded like he spoke from experience. But there was something else he wanted to ask about first.
"What did you do to them in the factory?" He asked, knowing he didn't need to clarify. Darius frowned, his arms sticking out of the leaf pile so he could rest his chin in his palms as he thought.
"How pale was I?" Darius asked curiously, throwing Michael off slightly. The younger agent shrugged.
"Everyone looked pale under the factory's lights, but I've seen how you usually move; you looked like your limbs were weighted down. What did you do?" Darius seemed to consider him, frowning slightly. Michael could almost see the gears spinning in overdrive behind his senior's eyes. Finally, his hesitation registered in the teen's mind.
"Does this have to do with how you 'read' people?" He asked. Darius's twitch of surprise was answer enough. He was about to rescind his question when Darius rolled his eyes and sighed.
"Everyone has energy." He explained. "People, Pokemon, I suppose even objects have trace amounts of energy. That's what I can 'see'. A couple of years ago, I channelled a huge amount of energy to control three legendary Pokemon, two of which were fighting against me." He frowned, shifting slightly and picking up one of the leaves to twirl between his fingers. "A person's energy is like a river. And back then; I had the whole freakin' ocean roaring through."
"The banks would be damaged." Michael observed, following Darius's analogy. Blue hair nodded, eyes still fixated on the leaf. This was probably the first time he'd ever gone into detail about what happened, Michael mused.
"When we met up in Shalour City; you were confused, weren't you?" It took Michael a few seconds to remember that meeting. Shalour, at the top of the Tower of Mastery. With the blonde gym leader; he couldn't remember her name off the top of his head. And the Lucario.
"You were doing something with Lucario, weren't you?"
"Turns out the energy I sense is similar, if not the same, as the aura Lucario is known for fighting with." Darius said with a shrug. "Since then, I've been trying to figure out just what I can do, other than just sensing people."
"So in the factory, you used your aura on that lady?" Michael asked, surprised. Darius winced slightly and grinned, though he still wouldn't look at Michael.
"I wrapped it around myself, thinking I could use it to subtly enhance my own strength; surprise people with it while still keeping it a secret." His grin dropped into a slight grimace. "I'm pretty sure I miscalculated that." Michael stared at him before he began to snicker. At Darius's confused, and slightly insulted, glance, Michael elaborated.
"It's just, Lysandre must be getting nervous. He's already got the psychic who knows his plans and how they'll end, and now he's going to get a report saying the hulk's kid brother is after him too!" Michael couldn't help it any longer, he burst out laughing. Several seconds later, Darius cracked a wide smile and joined him in the laughter.
Sine smiled as she listened to Lucas and Dexio having some kind of heated discussion. She'd stopped paying attention a while back, and a glance over to her left showed that Dawn had also tuned the boys out. Dawn was leaning over the railing of the outlook, puffing her cheeks out and blowing white puffs of breath into the air.
"How long have they been at it?" Dawn asked without even bothering to glance over. Sine grinned and checked the time on her Holocaster.
"Well over five minutes; we're getting close to the ten-minute mark." Dawn rolled her eyes and straightened, turning to grin at Sine.
"How about you and I go find a café to settle down in and see how long it takes them to realise we're gone?" Sine tipped her head sideways in thought, and then began to smile.
"I know just the place." She said, beckoning for the other researcher to follow.
Michael winced as he opened the door to the café. Partly because of the blast of warm air that tingled over his chilled skin, and partly because of the array of stares he received from the patrons already seated. The young man glanced around, looking for a good spot to sit, but his attention was caught by a familiar-looking purple-haired woman waving avidly at him. Bemused, Michael walked over to the table she was seated at, nodding politely to the raven-haired girl who was sipping slowly at what looked like a mug of hot chocolate.
"We haven't seen you in a while Ark; how's your Pokedex coming along?" The purple-haired lady asked, offering him a chair at the table, which he accepted with a second's hesitation.
"You were researching Team Flare too, weren't you?" The darker-haired one asked from behind her coco. "I remember Lucas ranting on and on after you left." Michael nodded, finally remembering the meeting in Coumarine with the professor and the research assistants. Even if he still couldn't remember their names. Finally, the purple-haired one, who'd been smiling oddly the entire time, broke into laughter.
"I'm sorry." She apologized between giggles when Michael offered her a dull but curious glare. "It's just, you have leaves in your hair." Michael frowned and reached up grimacing when running his fingers through his hair resulted in several brown leaves falling out.
"I'm gonna hit that guy." Michael growled. "He said I got them all out." He ran his fingers through his hair a few more times just to be sure, ignoring the glare he received from the waiter.
"Team Flare?" The raven-haired researcher prompted again once Michael had settled once more. The cop nodded absently, waving the waiter over to order a hot chocolate for himself before he responded to her query.
"They were siphoning off energy from one of the power plants a while back, and just yesterday they broke into the Pokeball factory up north to steal a whole bunch of pokeballs." He sighed. "I'll apologise, but I don't remember either of your names."
"That's alright." The dark-haired one said with a smile. "I'm Dawn, and that's Sine." Michael nodded to each and grinned when the waiter returned with his cup of hot coco. While he sipped at the steaming drink, Dawn frowned and wrapped her arms around herself in a small hug.
"All this stuff with Team Flare is starting to remind me of Team Galactic." She said with a frown. Michael paused in his sipping, lowering the cup back to the table.
"This isn't the first time I've heard someone reference Team Galactic, but I don't actually know who they are."
"They were a criminal organization in my home region several years ago." Dawn said, wrapping her hands around her coco once more and holding it close. "They wore funny jumpsuits and had weird green hair, and they were led by this crazy old guy named Cyrus. He thought the world was imperfect, and he wanted to create a new one, without all the flaws of this one."
"But they were stopped in the end, right?" Michael asked. Dawn nodded and smiled faintly.
"Yeah. They had five commanders under the boss; Jupiter, Mars, Charon, Saturn, and Titan." Neither woman saw Michael's twitch at the last name. "Titan turned on Team Galactic though when Cyrus revealed that for his plan to work, this world, and everyone on it, would have to be destroyed." Dawn glanced up to see Michael's thoughtful frown, and she tried to elaborate. "Titan may be prickly and cold, and kinda hard to get along with sometimes, and sometimes kinda really scary, but he really is a nice person; he wouldn't have done so much to help us if he wasn't!"
"And I'm just feeling all the love here." Darius snarked from directly behind Michael startling everyone already seated. Grinning sharply, he grabbed a nearby chair from an empty table and spun it around so it was facing backwards.
"I dunno, I think she's talking about someone else." Michael replied, matching Darius's predatory smile with his own. "Prickly and hard to get along with sometimes, yeah, but cold and scary? Mr. Five-year-old?"
"I seem to recall you laughing rather manically right along with me." Michael opened his mouth to reply, but found himself lacking a comeback for that. Even if he had still had leaves in his hair, jumping in the leaf piles all morning and forgetting about everything for a while really had been fun.
"You two know each other?" Sine asked curiously, glancing between the two agents while Dawn snickered softly into her hot coco. Darius glanced over at Michael, who nodded.
"We're both investigating what Team Flare is up to. Right now though we're just applying Stellon Logic." Darius said with a grin. Michael frowned.
"What are we doing?"
"Wander around until you trip over a criminal organization." Dawn translated. "It's the Stellon Logic because Darius pretty much has a monopoly on it."
"Anyway, we have a couple of options now." Darius said, turning his attention to Michael. "We can head down Route 16 back to Lumiose, but something tells me you're not too keen on that one."
"Ya think?" Michael grumbled. He knew he was avoiding the city, but he was glad Darius hadn't made any comment about it. He could probably sense the chill Michael felt in his chest anyway.
"Second, we could head down Route 17 to Anistar to make like tourists. Go see the Sundial. Maybe trip over Team Flare?"
"Second plan it is." Michael informed him.
"Tomorrow then, the Route's impassable on foot due to the snowdrifts, and the Mamoswine that usually carries people across has apparently been acting up."
AN: So, there you go. Um, I still don't have much to say here. I'd liked to have given you chapter 14 today as well, but there's still a whole bunch of errors and I really need to stop dawdling on my homework. I'll try to have chapter 14 for you guys next weekend, but I have mandatory overtime Saturday, so I might just spend the entirety of Sunday sleeping. Thanks for sticking with this through all my ridiculous delays.