Sundown trotted merrily down the road without a single care in the world, his mind utterly focused on nothing and wandering to the more abstract topics that were the greater questions of man. Like why science couldn't explain why the shower curtains move inwards when you took a hot shower, though he reasoned that it was cooler air moving to a warmer area although heat rose-. The pointlessness of the mental argument could be pushed over into Charlie but the woman he loved was a knot of nerves right now and he didn't want to be on the receiving end of that anger any more than he wanted to be the object on which Winter based her frustrations.

His thoughts of Winter made him remember a simpler time before his friend absolutely lost her mind, the time before they had left the safety of the Deep and the comfort of the Under in Orre. Rachel had never so much as went to visit although he knew that Blaylock was pinning to see his daughter again the woman remained stubbornly resolute or ignorant of his summonses. But when one played a game with the thrones of darkness one had two choices: win or die. Already this year there had been thirteen attempts on Winter's life all Firstlings ordered by the Dragon ruler of the Firstlings, the only reason the vile bitch was alive was because if Winter were to kill her then Jayr would be ruler and have the power to petition the other kingdoms for the removal of Caitlin on the bases of madness.

"Then Winter would call Erin and Erin would bring Shannis and I would go with them and we would slaughter anyone and everyone who got in our way." He reasoned out loud, by no stretch of the imagination was he an innocent man but he didn't relish slaughter like Alexii and preferred a quieter life in which to indulge in decadence.

There was a whisper of fabric in the wind which his keen ears picked up, his eyes automatically dilating to half of maximum capacity as Sundown turned his head to smile down the street behind him. It had been a nice night and he had taken a detour through the park that would take longer but put him out closer to Caitlin's villa, the brute at his heels needed to be walked in any case so he didn't take to worrying his teeth together instead of tearing at the furniture.

At first he had assumed muggers but quickly dismissed that thought when he took in the black on deep green in trees, no one seemed to take into account that those of the Void could see color in absolute darkness. An adaption resulting from years of living in underground mining facilities and the cities that now sat where mines had failed for generations. He didn't think they were psychic but he did assume that they were of the same kind that had come after Winter the fourteenth time, he hadn't gotten a good look at those men because Winter had jumped them into the floor and entombed them in the bright room beneath. The bright room was a form of punishment, there were no doors and no shadows anywhere in the bricked up prison cell, the only way in was to be jumped from above and the only way out was to be pulled from below. As curious as he was sitting in a true self-examination room did not appeal to him on any level.

Quickly and quietly he stepped out of the light cast by the street lamp and dipped into the inkiness of the world around him, stuck his little finger into the void and pulled himself into the null space between them. Instantly the world changed and his perception of the world altered to fit the new reality that was around him, everything was in muted shades in a dull grey light at high noon and the black of the darkest forest at night. Objects that were solid on the side of reality that he was born to were solid here but water was dangerous and somewhat solid for what he could make of it.

Never had he been tempted to try his hand at swimming, water linked directly to the Void under the best of circumstances.

Sundown strode through the open air towards his would be attackers casually, his mind reaching out to see if anyone else had jumped themselves and could only sense on the far edge of his perception Widow in a web of energy that was the Thirdling Kingdom. Reassured of his safety, not even Blaylock or Winter could hide themselves here, he took three quick steps and was amongst the four men before any had realized that he had "disappeared".

As the first cries of alarm erupted from them he was back on the physical plane of existence with the nine inch blade he carried in his boot dug deeply into the underside of one of the men's jaw and far into his palate. He fell dead amongst is fellows as the sickening crunch and wail of electrical equipment met his ears a ringing sound of his upper hand. They had had some kind of machine that produced intense light, or so he assumed, and the brute had found it and destroyed it for his friend and master's sake.

That snarling ball of black fur came up and caught another of the three remaining in the throat and pulled him to the ground, thick claws digging at his delicate belly and chest like they were made of tissue paper. The third went down with a vicious blow to his temple, the thin bones snapping underneath the force of Sundown's fist. The fourth made a valiant effort to fight the young man that had appeared so suddenly amongst them, regaining his senses slowly but regaining them regardless.

Sundown danced just outside the bounds of the man's knife, conscious of the position of the blade in relation to his skin. The man was decent, skilled even but as Sundown slapped knife in his hand away and buried that wicked thin blade between the man's ribs a hand moving to cover whatever sound that the dying man would make the superior experience and skill made itself known.

Laying down the only man that fought on the ground and closed his eyes softly with two fingers of his left hand whispering a prayer for the dead. "I think that I should hasten on my way." holding out a hand to his brute Sundown reached out and once more dipped into the space between physical and nothingness where nothing unexpected could come upon him without his notice.

-ooo-

How much heartache can a single question yield?

The answer was an astronomical amount, "Has anyone seen Dawn?" the color drained from the brunette teenager's face and Valerie's boy had rushed to get her a chair. With shaking hands and shoulders the story of the things that had been seen, the places that the other had gone, the oddness of it all so surreal. The final evidence that anyone needed for Cynthia to finally do something about the one that had taken her away from the better relationship.

Valerie spared a glance at her baby and smiled at the tight expression written across his fine features, when he worried he reminded her so much of his father that it made her heart squeeze painfully in her chest. All her life had been focused into making one night of drunken weakness into the pride of her existence, the mark she would leave on this world when she left. Yes, her Valentyne had been an accident the likes of which had made her family disown her and walk out of her life forever regardless of the marriage and the beautiful baby boy that had become the apple of his father's eye.

Her son looked at the door to the gallery and sunroom fixated on something that she couldn't and wouldn't be able to see, the young man sat with his chin resting on a bridge of his fingers elbows on the table. She wanted to prod at him, remind him that it was bad manners, but let him doubting that her son would be able to hear her in the state that he was in. The nuisance batch that he was working himself into would be something fierce, a trait shared by all Alexandria men, she feared for that little girl that his agitation would be released upon if he didn't explode at Cynthia.

For all her regal stature and the prestige of being Champion she was still a girl, in her twenties but a girl thrust into the limelight in such a way that left her bitterly exposed, and had made the mistake of a girl in love. She hadn't seen what was sitting directly in front of her and now they were all in danger because of it, Valentyne scratched his chin and leaned back slowly. His hands moving to rest of his thighs, back pressed hard into the wooden chair, feet braced a part.

"Have I ever led you astray?" he asked softly as Valerie took a seat next to the down trodden blonde, taking the younger girl's hand in hers for support, "Have I ever told you something that was meant to hurt you in some way?" her Valentyne was trying to soften the blow that was coming as best as he could but nothing would make it feel like anything but hurricane storm force taken directly to the chest.

"No, Valentyne, you haven't." Valerie soothed her thumb over the back of her daughter's palm, nodding at him to continue, the gravity of Cynthia actually using his given name and not the nicknames of 'Devyn' or 'Dev'.

"You need to tell Dawn that she needs to disappear, go somewhere and hide for the rest of her unnatural life." His eyes ignited with the volatility of his fury, more horrible because it was cold as winter ice grown thick over a stagnant bay. "I can control myself in this matter; however I severely doubt that Erin can."

Which was true as far as Valerie could tell from her few meetings with the Dragon Master. Polite enough of a girl but there was a feral lethality that lurked beneath the surface of her skin that was awe-inspiring to see, if she were to sum up what she had seen of Erin Lynch Kirkland Braddock in one word it would be 'intense'. The fact that she would dice the young teenager into pieces like she was chopped meat was a given, while she had not really experienced the whole of what Erin had to offer she had no problem seeing the black haired woman killing Dawn slowly with a kitchen knife.

Valerie's eyes flickered to the block on the counter across from them; she was having a hard time not wanting to take the chicken scissors housed there into to the girl herself.

Shaking herself against that thought she watched her baby as he relaxed his shoulders, exhaling slowly, counting to ten in his head as he did when he was angry so he didn't snap at someone. Turning his attention to the brunette sitting beside him he offered a smile with a good natured expression on his face reaching his eyes, "May, are you absolutely sure that you saw Dawn talking to Ash?"

May stiffened and he reached out a hand to take both of hers where they twisted together on the table, she shrunk in on itself like a small prey animal hiding from a predator knowing that it had been seen. His hand closed over both of hers softly and she jumped in her seat nodding furiously as if that would make this whole unpleasant business easier, "This is really important, I need you to answer as well as you can. I'm not going to ask you to do anything but remember what he was wearing earlier today. Okay?" he waited patiently as she digested those words and nodded again. "Was Ash wearing a grey badge or star?"

Cynthia tensed and Valerie's hand went slack around the younger woman's as the girl nodded again, her son brought the younger girl's hand up to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "I'm sorry." He said soothingly as he could.

If Ash Ketchum was involved with them then they might have some previously unseen problems that could prove to be fatal. After his spectacular loss to Cynthia after she had reclaimed a bit of herself, with Erin Lynch Kirkland Braddock if what Valerie's intuition was correct, he had gone underground. His supposed skills had failed him in the last few moments and his lack of knowledge and his blind lust for the place of Champion and Master had pulled the wool over his eyes so that the Mareep could shock him. The young man was annihilated within three minutes of the match starting; the jump start that Cynthia had gotten revived the tenacious spirit and the heart of the master within. Ash in his ignorance didn't stand a chance and should have been honored that the second place contender for Grand Master had taken the time out of her day to pop him a good one like everyone else in the world.

He hadn't been, instead Ash Ketchum had fallen into the delusion that somehow Arceus had conspired against him and changed his tactics up completely, heading to Orre of all places to challenge the coliseums there and hopefully regain some of his fame. He did not succeed, his failure in the Deep was a career crushing one, and in his impatience he had called the monster out of the darkness. Hayden the illustrious master of the blackness had spun around him a web of despair so thick that the crowd had drowned in it, the man had crushed Ash Ketchum into the dirt and left him there like the worm he was.

Twice defeated in such a sound way and once injured by an attack placed intentionally on his person the young man slunk away into the darkness to lick his wounds and try again. Gone from the public eye for the better part of two years no one had been able to find him, not even his mother until he contacted Dawn. Dawn who then entered into a relationship with the first person to beat him soundly about the ears with a slipper, things were looking bad for everyone involved. Whatever he had planned with them it didn't bode well for anyone who so much as lived too near the blast zone and people would be packed into Slateport as tight as Magikarp running in the fall. Like a tsunami racing to the shoreline it would break over everyone in this country and either they would stand strong or drown under the onslaught.

Silently Valerie wondered about her baby's safety but ceased that train of thought the moment that she began to blame Cynthia in her heart for just an instant. If they were interested in Valentyne it was because of his connections to archeology which had begun with Cynthia's fascination with the world that had passed from the surface of recent human memory. The connection with Blue Archeology kept her boy lithe and spry kept his mind racing and insured that he would stay on his toes in matters of the body and mind as much as navigating the ocean. He had come to love it and grow closer to his sister and she wouldn't begrudge her daughter that, a ball of ice settled in her belly for each of the members of the crew.

Charlie Lyhnnmann was a good kid with a heart of gold even if she was just a little bit too much of a smart-ass from time to time Charlie had sat up with Valerie on more than one occasion arguing philosophy and ethics with her. Actually using her degree and exploring her interest with someone who could really give her an intellectual challenge that she could meet without fearing hurting, as much as she loved her son she couldn't argue with someone she had taught herself.

Theodore Mattis was an interesting and charming young man that was always willing to lend a hand wherever it was needed, a boy that seemed to have been born to a very chivalrous father who taught him to behave like a man even if he did insist that she call him Sundown like everyone else. She was one of the few people who actually knew why he preferred Sundown to Theodore or Teddy.

Caitlin D'Arbanville had a beautiful soul and a delicate kind of build and health that prevented her from traveling as much as she liked, the young woman was still as cheerful as sunshine and unfailingly well-mannered in a way that wasn't as fake as the rest of the League's aristocracy. An interesting conversation over Sunday afternoon lemonade and ice tea on the back porch especially if Charlie decided to join them and not run out with the boys.

Aramis Argumn the consummate country boy with a heart of gold full of "Yessum" and "Noma'am", a keen shot with an air soft rifle from the back porch. He treated everything delicate as china, a man who was shy and adorable. Erin Lynch Kirkland Braddock and Rachel Schuyler Sullivan the wild cards, feral and dangerous but contained like the more exotic of creatures that people close to live with, sometimes curling up on your lap and other times ripping your face off. And finally Aihi or just Jayr with no last name, the silent figure was intimidating but kind in a way that imitated Rachel and Erin but didn't quite reach.

All of them had sat laughing and arguing in her kitchen before and she didn't want to see any of them hurt for any reason, especially not for a passion of theirs as innocent as archeology but they must have found something. That was the only reason- her attention snapped back to the room as Valentyne stood slowly from the table, eyes focused intently on the stairs. He looked back at Cynthia and had the expression of a man torn between saving his wife and his child from death with both of them crying for him to save them from certain dead.

"Go on, Erin will be here to pick us up with Shan in fifty minutes or so." The blonde's voice was tired as she dismissed her brother, "This may be the last time in a long time you get to talk to her freely depending on what our sources have gathered. We may have to go underground." Without a backwards glance he went and was up the stairs in an instant.

-ooo-

There was a delicious warmth and heat settled over her back as she slowly came back into the world of the living, it should have alarmed her but set her mind instantly to rest. It was the weight of a man and not the indistinct weight and pressure of the girls curling up to her on cooler nights or when one of them, most likely Legna, had a nightmare and wanted comfort. The man went behind her felt right; his body spooning her tightly against the toned planes of his chest and stomach, his large hands wrapped around her waist one cupping her left hip.

"Go back to sleep, I want to hold you a little while longer." He rasped softly, head moving down to press a kiss against her shoulder. With that sweet gesture she knew exactly who he was for certain and exactly where she was.

"How long was I asleep?" she asked, remembering seeing Devyn from across the opened courtyard of the festival grounds and remembered feeling off in a way that she couldn't get her finger on, remembered coming home with Devyn and having his mother feed her some kind of broth that made her immensely tired.

"A few hours, the sun is down now." Stretching against him she purred at the sensation and turned in his arms to face him, her lips pressing to the underside of his jaw where just the slightest amount of fuzz was beginning to make itself known. "Are you feeling better?"

"Mmmm," the noise was affirmative and almost involuntary as she took in the warmth of his skin and the musk of a man who behaved as a man should. "A lot better." Solidad pressed herself against him, feeling his body prepare itself for her, a new heat and heaviness pressing firmly against her lower belly.

Her hands moved up to cup his cheeks and pull his head down, her tongue tracing a line over his lip playfully before her caught her in a kiss that set her on fire. His hand moved to her hips and caught them before she could settle into the rolling grinding of her hips that she knew drove him insane, he pulled back and buried his face into her hair. "As much as I would like to continue where this is leading, my mother is downstairs and my father is across the hall from us. If you want to continue they will hear us."

Well if that wasn't the ultimate mood killer than nothing was, who would've thought that you would get twat-swatted by your one-time boyfriend and now soul mate? Not Solidad. "Damn." She groaned low in her throat in disappointment.

"How are the girls?" he asked softly settling himself in deeper, falling into a place in the mattress that was seemed to be contoured to fit his body directly.

"Sarah is still a little monster in the making, I find myself telling her mother I'm sorry for what I put her through. Legna misses you so much it's almost unreal." It went unspoken that he missed the twins too, they had mutually adored each other and Solidad had imagined him as their father. Tucking them into bed and taking them to school, teaching them to be good people that accepted everyone in life despite their differences.

How she wished that this man had been the father of her children, the first man in their lives that they had as a steady presence and a positive influence. Sure her brother visited when he had the chance but that wasn't too often, they were close and he called often but he had left for Holon the moment that he was able too. His fascination with Mew and the relation between science and nature had been as strong a calling in him as being a coordinator was for her.

But it had been Devyn that had shown them the things that a father would show his daughters, had shown them that there was nothing to be afraid of in a baby Zigzagoon newly hatched earlier in the week. His legs that her shy little Legna had hidden behind from a Marill that had terrified her when all it had wanted to do was play, his arms that Sarah had run to too show her art project, his voice that had comforted them both during one particularly nasty lightning storm. Arceus if things were different, if only it was him instead of that monster.

He had lived with them for almost a year before the men came after him; the only thing that he was obligated to return to was a P.O. Box in Slateport and his mother and father for one major holiday every year. She rolled to look up at him, one of his hands moving to rest comfortably on her thigh the other sliding around her waist. "When will it be safe again?"

"If I only knew." Her fingers tangled tightly in his shirt, "If I have to go underground, I'm going to come and get you and the girls." His voice resolute and firm, his mind already made up. "I won't have anyone ruin this world for them, no one will go after them so long as I still breathe."

-ooo-

Her hand tightened around her lovers as the taller of the two led her further into a crowded street, venders pushing their wares on the tourists and locals alike. The city had gone all out for the festival and goods ranging from fake badges to foods to hookers three streets over were packed into the commercial district for the two week-long event.

Anyone who knew even the slightest thing about Caitlin D'Arbanville knew that she did not like crowds despite being a member of the Unova League and despite being the overseer of the Battle Palace, people made her nervous. Being in large crowds made her remember the days before she had managed to ride herd on her abilities and was exposed and raw to the emotions and thoughts of others. Sometimes she still accidently slipped but not with her lover's hand in hers. Rachel was a cool touch stone that eased her back into her own skin so that she wasn't so far unattached to the rest of the real world.

Something had caught Rachel's attention and removed them from their very lovely position to a very uncomfortable position brushing shoulders with people who just weren't fast enough to get out of the obviously radio in your car, radiating outwards like some angry beast that made people move away without thinking about it consciously but she'd toned it down for their journey across the city so that the crowd wouldn't watch her leave. It made for slower going but it put whatever had gotten her lover's attention further behind them.

Without looking she knew well that her lover was reaching out for a place to jump, enough shadow to straddle the lines and pull Caitlin with her. Jumping across for Rachel was a thing that was absolutely second nature, it was rumored but unconfirmed that Rachel could jump in broad daylight but that was as of yet unconfirmed. Caitlin was sure that if she asked she would get her answer but wasn't sure what she wanted to answer to be so instead she took to keeping as close as humanly possible to Rachel as she could be without breaking their relentless pace.

Abruptly though Rachel stopped and whirled around so fast that she was a blur of black, the command came clearly through the doorway between their minds, "Down."

Caitlin found her body moving before she even heard it clearly, her knees bent beneath the sweeping arm, the hand that held hers tightened and the one that latched onto the man was strong enough to splinter bone. Her perception of the world changed around so abruptly that it took her breath away, twisting and warping in on itself until she had to close her eyes. It was like standing up too quick or like being lightheaded and turning around too fast and then she was falling.

Tumbling end over end into an abyss although she could still feel her feet securely placed against the ground the world she was now in was wrong, so utterly wrong and she was terrified. Nausea swelled inside her belly and her eyes pressed tighter together, it was like drowning in black and weightlessness. A weight settled in her stomach that helped her find a grounding point in this world so strange and yet so vivid, Rachel hadn't brought her here Winter had.

Winter was awake and doing something unfailingly horrible to the man that she had grabbed and then the world she knew was back. Reality seemed to snap back like a rubber band on a wrist and she was back, her feet securely on the uneven cobbles worn mostly smooth by the passage of hundreds of feet. Arms like steel bands wrapped around her waist holding her mostly upright pressed tightly against a body she knew just as well as her own but inhabited by a creature born in that black nothingness that they had just escaped.

"I'm so sorry baby, I didn't think." Lips pressed gently against her temple and she knew that Rachel was back, the words that remained unspoken were that Winter had almost let Caitlin fall into that emptiness where they had left the man. "I am." and Caitlin knew it as well as she did her own name, it had not been intentional, that man was dangerous and Winter had reacted to protect them both.

Head hands moved up to tangle in Rachel's hair, venerating in the silkiness of that pale brown, she gently urged her soul mate downward so she could meet cerulean to sea foam. "I know. Now please take us back." Steel slammed into those eyes and that overpowering need to protect shone clearly turning that translucent color luminous.

"Not until you're safe as I would dictate." Safe as Rachel would dictate was a place where a combination of herself, Erin, Sundown, and Jayr would be. The more of the better but bare minimum was two. Safe as Winter would dictate would be Orre, in the Deep beneath the Under, or if that was completely out of the question, which it was, then the catacombs and Necropolis of the Thirdling Kingdom was acceptable.

Worse was there was absolutely no arguing with either of the two beings that occupied the body of her beloved, no matter how much you tried. Keeping in mind that this was the only argument that she got in with her lover that she lost Caitlin contented herself with the knowledge passed from every father to his son before the day of his wedding, "You're wife is always right and no matter what you're always right. So protect her with everything you have."

Strange, two months ago she would've blanched at the thought of considering anyone as a partner in her life for eternity male or female, Rachel or Jayr but now… Caitlin relaxed into that embrace and dropped her head more comfortably against her lover's chest inhaling the dark rich scent of her skin.

But now, things were different. She all but felt the liquid power rushing through the being against her like it was within her own body, Caitlin felt Rachel reach out into the abyss and pull at the very fabric of the world they were standing in. Then there was a pinch, not so much a sensation of being pinched but of pinching something very fine and very delicate like a sand dollar between two fingers and drawing it up slowly to eye level. Balance and tenderness were required as much as the sight to find that exact place on the beach where the perfect little circular disc lay.

Rachel held that pinched bit of reality between two fingers and stepped over the gathering as gentle as a sleeping child's breath and Caitlin knew that what they had done was teleported from one place to another. A strange technique, completely foreign to her but not so much out of her range of experience that she didn't recognize it for what it was. Not so much so out of character for both of those distinct personalities that she wasn't aware of just who was holding her tenderly now as the stars snapped into place in the heavens and the warm scent of the sea breeze teased her nostrils.