[Part 1]
Buying a second-hand trainer phone from a 24/7 pawn shop did not come cheap. Neither did this thing even look second-hand - more like third-hand, at best. The banged up device had a few cracks in its screen, and its shell was plastic, chipped and worn down either by elements, or someone carrying this sorry piece of tech in a pocket made of sandpaper. Still, the device's sorry state meant that nobody would bat an eye over her carrying it. For all they knew, it could be some sort of a family heirloom from grandpop's days as a newbie trainer.
Still, this phone was good enough to check the Internet - and given how 'Okehazama' was both a Contest Hall and a site of a publicly known tragedy, she figured it was safe enough to look it up, meaning she could both figure what to expect, and look up the location right in the pawn shop.
She left that seedy establishment with some very particular pieces of extra gear.
Mere years ago, Okehazama was the most pivotal Contest Hall in Nagoya. This Art Deco building shone through its more contemporary surroundings, casting over them a grand shadow only comparable to its own radiating brilliance. The photos from that time looked downright glamorous.
Now, though, this place was eerily silent and glum, its windows clouded in deep darkness, its once luxurious red carpets and marble floors smeared in dirt and dust, and the city blocks surrounding it nearly completely abandoned.
And most of that because this building was literally emanating frost.
Every ventilation shaft, every window crack, even the walls themselves emanated this deep, frigid cold that seeped straight into your bones. This chill easily penetrated through steel and concrete, rendering nearby buildings completely unliveable, and forcing few people who went close to the epicentre to dress in Arctic-grade winter gear. Just like the itchy blasted things she wore over her own clothes, as she checked the Contest Hall from afar.
There were only two types of people that generally went close to the building. Either those employed by the League, or those that came here to mourn. The Contest Hall itself was big enough to seat an audience of 2000. And when the tragedy struck, there were also 500 staff members, contestants, reporters and other miscellaneous people inside.
None of them had left.
Also, the information about the incident was really scarce, and some of it seemed wildly inaccurate.
She did not find any videos - either there were none left, or they could only be found in the deep, dark corners of the web. Naturally, there were no reports from inside the Contest Hall, but the official version was that some or the other evil Team smuggled in a Legendary ice bird Articuno, and the avian Pokemon froze everyone inside, before leaving - only to be subsequently captured in some dank cave north of Nagoya by the League.
Still, Honnoji said it was done by a Glaceon instead, and she was not about to start questioning the validity of Dark Type's claims. At the very least, not until there was any solid proof to the contrary.
Given the status of Okehazama Contest Hall as this hazardous place, there was not much security - just a couple of miserable-looking guards, each with a few Pokeballs on the belt. Presumably, all packed with Ice Types, given how freezing it was in this city block. One of them was sitting in a booth next to the front entrance, desperately clinging to a hot cup of liquid in his hands, and the other was patrolling the perimeter - each completed the tour and switched at roughly 15-minute intervals. Meaning there was just not enough security to keep anyone determined enough out.
After all, why go out of their way when whoever went in was very likely to freeze to death?
Even from the first floor of an abandoned building next to the Contest Hall, and while wearing enough layers of clothes to have troubles with moving well, she could feel that dreadful cold washing over her body.
"Think you can break the door quietly enough?" she looked at the Absol. The Dark Type looked at her with uncertainty, "Well, okay. It won't matter how loud we are if we enter fast enough"
The emergency exits and the windows on the bottom two floors were sealed off. Not that it mattered much when faced even with a barely trained Riolu or Machop - although, she supposed not many people could afford to keep a Fighting or a Steel Type. And those that did probably had better things to do than to break into a glorified graveyard.
For a Pokemon as physically inclined as an Absol, though, breaking in was going to be easy enough.
"Alright," finally making sure that the roaming guard was too far away to even see them entering, she nodded to Honnoji, "Let's go"
[Part 2]
Honnoji jumped down to the ground, and ran towards the entrance into the building, trying to ignore the cold viciously biting her even through her matted off-white fur. The not-human could not bend her legs or arms well in those weird-smelling clothes, but she managed to keep up well enough not to fall too far behind.
"Look, Honnoji, you need to strike around here," she pointed at a metal thing protruding out of the metal door, "This is where the lock is. Unless the door's barred from the other side, this is the weak point"
She nodded.
Then, the Absol jumped, turning around in the air, and slamming into the pointed out protruding thing with her hind legs. The metal door instantly caved in on itself with a loud, nasty sound, flew in while barely holding on its hinges, and hit against a massive ice formation, before screeching to a halt, as a wave of even more frigid air washed over them.
Shoot. This was TOO loud.
"Quick, inside!"
They ran in, weaving past massive chunks of ice. Or rather, the not-human ran rather slowly and clumsily even by human standards, and she followed, looking around as she could not help the growing sense of wrongness gripping at her gut.
The insides of the building were dark. Although unlike the ball she slept in, this darkness was deeply uncomfortable, and not just on account of the cold. It felt like they were intruding into a lair the master of which was still around. That was probably the case.
After just a few corridors, they began to see pieces of wooden furniture, cups, plates and food strewn across them, all frozen, and partially submerged into ice. Few rays of light coming in through the gaps in barred windows were glimmering across crystalline formations and sending cold beams across the air, cutting through the freezing mist and creating an eerie, if silent, atmosphere. The cold bit harsher into her flesh with each step, to the point where her own limbs were hindered, not akin to not-human's.
Then, they've heard a sound.
A haunting, icy sound somewhere close, yet far away, as if wind playing an ominous tune over icy plains.
By the time they approached a massive carved rock spouting cascades of frozen water, the sound picked up, growing stronger, louder, its tune more otherworldly.
"Huh, you hear that?" the not-human whispered. She nodded, trying to psych herself up for what was surely soon to follow.
They climbed a set of stairs covered in a filthy red rag, approached a massive, open set of carved wooden doors, and peered in.
On a massive scene, there was a lonely figure, standing in the middle of a snowstorm raging through the air. Particles of cold were picked up by a whirling, howling wind, circling the scene in complex patterns, as rapidly forming and decaying ice formations growing out of the ground sang a wordless, beautifully eerie song, while illuminating the figure in a flickering, almost ghostly light.
"So that's what you meant by 'froze the entire audience'," the not-human whispered. At that, Honnoji tore her gaze away from the scene to check what she meant.
In front of the scene, were hundreds and hundreds of rows of seats. even more were over the walls, on several floors, and even on a second story above the central rows. And in every seat, there was a figure of a human - of men, women, elders and children, some alone and some with their Pokemon - all of them covered in a thin, crystal-clear layer of ice, their expressions stuck in permanent confusion, panic, horror, pain, or anger. Some seemingly tried to leave, to run - but got caught in the cold, moments after their attempt. Some were holding a Pokeball in their hand, as they clearly planned to release a Pokemon. Some were covering behind the seat in front of them, as if hoping that the cover would've saved them. And there were even more human and Pokemon statues that were not in the seats, their expression marred more with confusion rather than fear, as if they were carried here from someplace else.
Suddenly, the music stopped.
Next second, Honnoji felt a thin, sharp shard of ice brush against her cheek, leaving a shallow cut, and nearly causing her legs to collapse from the shock. As the storm at the scene subsided, and the figure of a Glaceon became more visible, he threw a cold glare towards the intruders. Subconsciously, she took a step back, only to realise that there was now a literal wall of ice cutting them off from where they came from.
They were trapped
"W-wait, we're not here to harm you! We're here to tal-" the not-human started, only for another ice shard to shoot through the air, tearing a part of her strange clothes' head covering.
Seeing as they both were quiet and paying attention, the Glaceon flicked his strangely well-groomed mane, and two icy formations in a shape of seats similar to all the occupied ones grew out of the floor, after which he looked at them expectantly. The not-human opted to sit on the floor instead, and she followed suit, after which the two seats disappeared into fine glimmering dust. The Pokemon on the scene looked at them with a silent threat for just a few more moments - and then the wind, the snow and the ice on the scene picked up from where they stopped.
The message was pretty clear - this was a performance, and they had no choice in wherever to watch it.
