A cold breeze sweeps across Halcion's face as she drags her feet through the forest's freshly laid snow. Her partner, Mienshao, leads the way through the endless night, gripping her badge as if it were a lifeline.
What is she worrying about? The cold? A little snow will not stop one of the Dusk Continent's best. Her partner, thick fur and swathed in a cloak, is not the pokemon freezing here.
"Mienshao, do you mind telling me something?" Halcion shudders.
"Yes, Hal?" Mienshao acknowledges, still walking.
"How do you know the guy you're looking for is up ahead?" She looks at Mienshao's badge - one of their own, with the five spokes marking her as Halcion's superior. "Are you afraid to lose your badge? You've been holding it since we woke up. And unless Five Points have a different ability I don't know of…"
"They don't, Hal."
In a quick sleight of hand, Mienshao replaces the badge with another from a shawl. Brass winglets, and an amethyst centerpiece, Halcion has seen this design before. As she holds it out for Halcion to observe the purple diamond in its center spins about madly until it points in the relative direction of their destination: a mountain which lies at the end of the snowy woods.
"This badge leads to others of its kind." She stows it back in her garments. "The one we are looking for carries the same one. They're expecting our arrival, you're my element of surprise."
There is only one pokemon she knows to have this badge. Halcion grits her teeth, the next question is an ugly one.
"I get it." Halcion grumbles. "You didn't want me backing out, and now it's too late for me to go turn tail."
Mienshao stops. The cool morning winds pass through them. Mienshao's red eyes meet with Halcion's, unflinching. This mission has seemed off since the moment it was thrust into Halcion's hands. And even now, there is a sort of anger to Mienshao she has never seen before. She seems furious Halcion is even questioning her.
"Pardon?"
The Haxorus steps closer.
"I don't know how you got yours, I don't care. You must have taken it from whatever mean Pokemon wore it prior." Halcion towers over her partner. "A very bad person wears that."
The mask of an experienced adventurer fades at the mention of that person. Mienshao quakes for a split second before hurriedly strapping back on some disguise. Mienshao knows; Halcion too.
The Haxorus has had the last couple of days wandering through these snowy wastes to piece together the broken bits of her memory. The badge is the final bit she needs, and all the reasons she loathes the symbol come rushing back. The Idiot, Rei, meddling with powers beyond him. Swiping it from his greedy hands, then losing it to someone not of this world - a creature of pure shadow who wore a badge previously seen in the hands of Prinn.
Even as Halcion speaks, she is sure she is missing something. She remains steadfast.
"You're not looking for her, the thing with the blue diamond, are you?"
"No."
The split second of relief is shattered by Halcion's next words.
"Good. We're after her next."
Halcion strides on, moving onwards to the mountain. She knows what she wants. Her partner's panic only assures the task is worth taking.
"Hal…Hal!" Mienshao steps forward. "You don't want to do that, Hal!"
"Don't say that to me! No one injures the pride of a knight and lives!" Her heart rages and she spews vitriol. "That thing took out a whole town, she put me into a coma! I'm taking the badge of whoever you're tracking and I'm gonna find her myself! Come with me or not, I don't care which!"
"Pride doesn't mean a thing Hal! You were lucky to make it back the first time! I don- I -"
Mienshao's voice fades. Halcion looks back, and sees her slumped like a defeated child, head staring at the infinite snow beneath her clawed feet. She is sweating, shivering. It is hard to tell she is even breathing. Never in Halcion's career has she seen her partner so weak.
"Mienshao?"
Mienshao does not speak; the sounds leaving her mouth are not natural. Halcion steps forward, and before she can lay a hand on her, she miraculously pulls herself together, shuffling past Halcion in a hurry. She mutters something akin to "get a move on" as she leaves towards their destination. The mountain looks so close she could reach out her arms and touch it.
As explorers who have danced the dungeon dance many, many times before, they know each other's methods by heart. How ferals would be dealt with, how they approach the rooms - all of it boils down to a method which works for them alone. unforeseen circumstances: there was no reason to deviate from this, no reason to disturb the dungeon with their voices, and certainly no reason for Halcion to ever put her hand on her partner.
Halcion was an experienced indie before she joined the Sundown Guild. She did jobs for whoever was willing to partner with her, mostly newer folks whom she still loves showing the ropes to. Her refusal to find a partner ended some time after she evolved.
Her skill is to be marvelled, so the guild says, yet she needs someone to keep her in line. A more experienced explorer stepped in, making Halcion her partner under the mutual understanding they would keep themselves at arm's reach. Mienshao keeps an eye on her, Halcion does as she pleases.
So far they have been working superbly together. In times when both explorers are needed, they work with a level of finesse some of the other guildies call mad. Maybe they are so efficient because of Halcion's past as an indie, perhaps they have a goal outside of their faith in the guild. Halcion does, and only she knows why she works herself mad.
It's for Mienshao.
Halcion follows her partner through the last hole in the floor, landing them into a part of the dungeon lit by walls of ice. The snow filled, dark caverns of earlier do not match to this strangely luminescent section. Unless there is a secondary dungeon lying in wait for them, this for sure has to be its end.
"I no longer sense any madmen." Mienshao's whiskers flicker. "We're at the end of the dungeon. He'll be in there."
"So this mystery person is a He now? Thanks for the elucidation." Halcion fails to rain herself in, and snorts. "Were all the sleepers up his work? The ice makes it obvious they got smashed into the walls.'
"Yes. He's a psychic."
No wonder she needs her. If a psychic up there has painted the walls with ice-types, then fighting-type like Mienshao will be nothing to him.
"Need me to go first, Mienshao?"
Mienshao does not answer her. She just leads the way as she has been doing. What a powerful psychic he must be if she is not worried about him in the slightest. With a strong, cool dragon-type like Halcion behind them, anyone would be as brave.
Creeping down the passage with her fellow explorer, Halcion begins to see something orange and warm in the distance: a strange light glistening off the ice-covered walls. Unlike fire the light here does not flicker. It is constant, almost blinding after an hour of trending through the dark.
A sound begins to hit her ears. Wind? Mienshao holds a hand out, stopping them.
"There's a crevasse in the room ahead, I'll keep him from it so he has no chance to toss us. We'll drop him in there when we leave."
It's a hit, right.
"I'm not-".
"I know." Mienshao cuts Halcion off. "I'll be the one who does it."
The howling picks up. A bridge of ice and masonry cuts across a giant chasm, and ahead is the source of the light: a floating object surrounded by flanges of glowing wings. It's a Time Gear! And their target was about to get their greasy hands on it! Not this again, not while she still breathes!
Halcion pushes herself past Mienshao, leading into the opening with an earth-shattering stomp. A chunk of earth upheaves and she whips it in her tail, sending forwards a rocky scattershot. The psychic leaps away from the hail on its wings as Mienshao sprints into the frey, her claws slicing into the ice floor with every leap and bound.
The explorers race across the precipice as the figure lands near the gear. With a wave of its wing, a chunk of ice nearby is lifted up, then thrown their way. Mienshao dodges it with grace, sliding along the icy bridge as Halcion slashes the chunk into a fine powder.
Meinshao crosses the bridge. And as the cold dust settles, Halcion sees two figures beneath the time gear. She finally sees the man they've been hunting.
It's Xatu - the town elder, a psychic. What was he doing out here? Why would their guild hold a grudge against one of its proprietors?
Face to face with Mienshao, his telekinetic tricks are worthless. He throws bits of ice her way as he is, Mienshao lets loose strike after strike, never hitting but furthering the bird into an inescapable corner. Halcion runs across the remaining bridge, trying to make sense of the situation it unfolds.
As Mienshao pushes his back to the cavern walls, Xatu flaps his wings, letting loose a gale of Air Slash in her direction. The super-effective move slices into her partner, and a cloud of ice drafts where there was once a Mienshao. With one dealt with, he flaps his wings, then speeds towards Halcion.
When suddenly, a set of claws slashes through the air, cutting clean into Xatu. Halcion reaches the other side as he scrapes onto the ice, painting a long red streak of ichor. The fog disperses revealing a Mienshao with her hands utterly drenched. She just tore into him.
Halcion walks up, staring down at the poor thing. His eyes are wide with fear. His wings hide the gruesome sight of his chest wound as he lets out pitiful, laboured breaths. Just what her partner did to take him down as another question to add to the hundreds whirring about her head. She stares down at him.
The dark-green avian wears a familiar badge, the diamond in it is the same hue as his feathers. He may don the mark of a foe, but he has done nothing to her or the guild other than be a town Psychic. His oval-shaped eyes are as wide as they can be, darting between the two explorers towering over him.
Halcion glances at Mienshao who is staring at her hands, panting.
Xatu is a famed psychic, he has likely foreseen this. Mienshao has hit something vital, and as he opens his beak, the only sound which leaves him is an awful wheeze. These are his last moments in this realm, and Halcion has no idea what has led them to this horrid situation.
"Mienshao." Halcion speaks, watching over the wounded avian. "Is this…?"
"He is who I have been hunting." Mienshao states. "He has led us here, probably in hopes the dungeon would sort us out. Pitiful to look at."
Mienshao takes a deep breath, drawing in the courage to say the following words.
"Avert your eyes, Hal. Let me do what must be done."
Xatu's gaze haunts her. He knows what is about to happen and yet seems so tranquil. There is a soft satisfaction across his face, he's smiling.
As Mienshao steps towards him, Halcion catches a glimpse of her hand. The tips of her fingers are smeared in the bird's ichor. Did she rip something out of him? Mienshao fights nothing like Halcion, she does not have the axes nor talons to rip into people. The only claws she has are on her feet.
Mienshao glances back, nervously for Halcion to avert her gaze. Nevermind the death, the only thing on the Dragon-type's mind was the surrealness of it all.
"Hal?"
She is talking like she has not registered what she's done; like this is an ordinary job. She's yet to take his life and she seems so relieved, as if this was her sole reason and she is about to fulfill it.
Is she supposed to let this happen? Why are they doing this? Mienshao's hand twitches for a split second and Halcion lunges, seizing her arm.
Mienshao's fur is ice cold, and Halcion's gaze is just as glacial.
"What are you doing?" Halcion speaks. "I thought we were hunting a criminal! Why are we after the town elder? Who put you to this? Why haven't you told me anything?"
Halcion's grasp tightens around her wrist. Nevermind the bird, she was about to draw her partner's blood.
"I need you to be here." The panic returns to Mienshao's voice "I couldn't trust anyone else, Hal! Please, listen…we're not safe-"
"Safe from what? You've been vague this entire time! A man's about to die because of you and you're complaining about you being the scared one? Are you out of your mind?!"
Tighter, and tighter, her claws constrict around the cold piece of flesh in her hand. She cannot even hear whatever is leaving her partner's mouth, the beating in her chest drowns out all sound and reason. Her partner's hand is becoming colder, colder, and three knife-like claws protrude from her hands. She's never had claws - what's wrong with her?
Halcion can't entertain the thought. She's losing her own mind. How dare she be made part of this? How dare-
As if answering her screams, three figures burst from out of the hallway. One levitates high above the others, the glow of the second one's tail illuminates the glacial surroundings with a sun like beacon, while the third figure - all too familiar to her - looks across the chasm in pure horror. Prinn! What is Prinn doing here?
"Hal! What are you doing?" Prinn shouts.
"Teacher?" The floating one gasps.
The Smeargle takes one look at the situation and raises his glowing tail. His focus, solely, is on the one who did the deed.
"Give yourself in! Nobody-"
Prinn's already running towards Halcion
Something snaps within her partner. She slips right out of Halcion's iron-clad grasp like butter, dashing towards the Prinplup like a fiend, her claws raised and ready to tear. Halcion sees the boy spit out an ineffective bubble in fear and Halcion averts her eyes.
She then hears a sound. Xatu's beak begins to move, and she leans down next to him, drowning out the sounds of a brutal fight with his warm voice.
"My time here is at its end, knightess." Cryptic as ever, Xatu whispers to her with a smile. "I must ask, do you remember our fateful meeting?"
Halcion closes her eyes. Something about a bridge, and a mark. Her foggy recollections flood back to her as he reveals his own badge - the elusive diamond-shape.
"The interlopers bear this mark. Your partner, and I are both of this ilk." He heaves. "Although we are of the same cloth, I hold no ill will towards her. I have grown too old to run. She will tire of it too, even if I must pass for her to see it."
Prinn's shouting momentarily wrests her gaze from Xatu. Prinn narrowly avoids her partner's claws, sliding backwards, spewing out a string of bubbles from his beak as she chops through each of the soapy masses. The brilliant light on the smeargle's tail turns an intimidating purple.
Watching the chaos unfold, she reaches into her cape and is interrupted.
"Please," Xatu says. "I choose this."
Her claws are already around a Reviver Seed. If she pulls this out, forces it down into his beak…
"Please."
The sounds of a battle continue. Prinn dodges, rolling off the bridge for one psychic force from the floating one catches his hand. The Smeargle shoots off a Shadow Ball only for it to travel straight through Mienshao like a breeze.
Halcion swings her eyes back to the other thing in the room: the Time Gear. Still here. No one has been bold enough to take it.
With the last of his strength, Xatu lays his wing upon her arm. She lets go of the Reviver Seed.
She has always wanted to be the last person a criminal sees, but a criminal Xatu is not. What is she supposed to say? How does she comfort someone? She thinks about their only meeting. He warned her of someone terrible, someone which could drive a psychic to accept a fate like this.
She grips his wing firmly, looking him into his widened eyes.
"I'll send that dark thing back. I'll make her know your name."
With his final breath, he laughs.
"I've known."
His wing becomes limp. She lets go. Xatu is gone.
She relinquishes Xatu of his badge, taking the Interlopers' Mark into her own and makes a break for the Dungeon's treasure. Across the bridge, Mienshao - whoever she is - has caught up to the Smeargle. Purple flames and slashes lash out in a frenzy, yet he somehow keeps her at bay through a combination of barriers as well as quick thinking, allowing himself to be cornered while the floating one uses all his power to lift the boy back onto the bridge. No one here is focusing on the real prize.
Halcion races onto the altar below the gear's shimmering wings. Without hesitation, she wraps both her hands around the metal, and rips out the temporal thing from its socket.
CRACK!
The floating lights shatter into a shower of red glass. An echo rings out from behind. She ducks just in time for a water bullet to graze her chest's scales.
CRACK!
A second shot puts an end to Mienshao's assault, knocking her off of the Smeargle as she was inches away from his neck. Before Mienshao recovers, a familiar pink foe locks her down - keeping his finger trained between her eyes.
"Thanks." The Smeargle speaks.
"Do keep an eye on her" He says, leaving Leon to keep his foot on her partner's back. He proceeds across the bridge.
The second Prinn is brought onto his feet by the distant, psychic hands of the floating one, he decides to throw himself in front of the beanpole, blocking his path.. He is not quivering the slightest..
"You remember what I did to your hand!" Prinn squawks. "You step any closer, I'm gonna do it again, I swear!"
"Hoo boy, thinking of yourself as some kind of hero now?" Louisa halts his approach, if only to humor him. "Settle down, Prinn. My quarrel is neither with you nor Halcion."
Prinn, with nowhere to go, folds underneath Louisa's glare, letting him through the penguin-shaped checkpoint. He gives the body of Xatu a mournful look as he approaches Halcion, getting as close as she'll let him, stopping at the foot of the icy shrine.
"Hal."
"Louisa."
"You're still in my debt." He looks at the gear, then nods in the direction of Xatu. "My condolences for your friend here."
"I didn't know him much." She says, trying her best not to look the way of Xatu's lifeless body. The now crying psychic on the other side of the bridge is not much better of a sight. "Save your apologies for someone else. You owe me answers."
"I'm aware. We'd best not talk of it here because this dungeon is not going to last for much longer without its gear." He raises his voice, making sure the stragglers behind him hear him well. "Hand me what you're owed, and we will depart."
"The dungeon is going to vanish?" The quivering psychic musters their voice together. "What about my teacher? I can't leave-"
"His body will be unharmed." Louisa says, his eyes stay locked on Halcion. "Take him with you or wait for this dungeon to fade, his body will show regardless. There is no time to dawdle."
She sees the psychic try to pass the ridge, but Prinn stops them, saying something to them which causes them to reluctantly turn. He leads them out of the passage, Leon follows, while Halcion's so-called partner lies as a defeated lump on the floor. Louisa motions at the gear. This is what he wants, its just lucky he came in the nick of time to stop Mienshao-whoever she is.
He reaches out, and she lets him relinquish the Time Gear from her possession
He leads her across the bridge with his finger lording over Mienshao. Halcion grabs the culprit by her arm; ice cold, as always. Mienshao drags her feet in shame as they depart, leaving the dungeon to become Xatu's tomb.
The wind has picked up during their absence. She can smell the clouds approaching. Snowfall is coming.
As they leave the mouth of the dungeon, none of these three strangers are to be seen. Maybe they parted ways, are hiding somewhere else or the dungeon had spit them out at another exit - none of it concerns her. Prinn is in good company. The boy will keep his friends safe.
Mienshao has not said anything since Halcion grabbed hold of her. When Halcion releases Mienshao she crawls across the snowy earth to the nearest tree, hiding herself in its shadow, shivering not from the chill.
She has a lot to say to her, too much. Once she is done here she will have all the time in the world to pick out whatever was going through Mienshao's head at the time when she gutted the poor man. Who knows what will come of her after this? Whether she is stripped from her rank is up to the guild, not her. Halcion's focus is on water-type standing before her, tying his newly acquired time gear to a thin chain around his neck. He has two of them. The cravat barely hides his second one.
Halcion circles around him such that he can keep both pokemon in her sight. Mienshao still looks strange. Her claws are too big, her snout is pronounced and fanged, and her eyes are a sickly yellow. She looks too big for her skin.
"You have your gear now, you've got what you wanted." She sighs, trying not to stare at the thing. "This is not the first time you've shot at me."
"The boy was not going to give up his friend's badge." He pats his clothes down, turning to her. "You remember me now, do you?"
"It's hard to forget your smug face."
"Forgive me for our last encounter." He ignores the last comment. "I had thought your memories were thoroughly wiped by whatever that infernal thing had done to you."
The burn on her shoulder's scales have mostly healed, but the paint is still chipped off. What sort of wound induces nightmares? Is she cursed? She can still feel its sting.
"Do you know what that thing is? Xatu, the old coot we left in there, he warned me about 'interlopers' who had this." She shows the late bird's badge. "My partner here had a badge just like this, and you tried shooting at the boy just to get one of these. That thing wore one of these, its badge was blue. They have to be important."
He gives it a glance, then nods.
"They are important. These badges are from an unknown guild, they possess the ability to track others of the same make. These interlopers - invaders - use these badges to find each other. I had wanted Braviary's badge to locate and defeat the thing which harmed you, or at least be aware of its position."
Halcion looks at the metal thing, its green diamond glistens in the dead of night. Her partner is from that guild. Why would any explorer want one of their own gone? Was Mienshao pressured into action? It matters not to Halcion. Mienshao still has hers. Louisa, no matter their differences, is a man to be trusted."
"Take it." Halcion offers it to him. "Xatu was tired of running. If you want to take the shadow out, he'd want you to have it."
He contemplates for a split moment, then takes the badge into his possession, clipping it to his mantle. Louisa glances at her, then at her partner. Mienshao still has it on her.
"And your partner?"
"It's up to my guild what they wanna do with her, provided I didn't happen to forget everything that happened here on the way back." Halcion flashes Mienshao a look. She has not moved, nor returned to normal. "I want both your help in getting rid of that thing."
The Black Knight has an adage: protect his kingdom from those not of this realm. Armies and kingdoms not of the Dusk Continent fall into such banners, so too do things not of her world. Her loyalty to his order stands over all.
"My goal is to acquire the gears, Hal-"
"I just gave you one, what more do you want? You want me to start finding them for you? I'm not going to risk my life for a treasure that's worthless to me."
His eyes narrow.
"Are you calling these Time Gears worthless?"
"I don't care for them, Louisa. Spare me the history lesson. Are you going to help me, or waste my time?"
He looks on in silence, glancing between the fallen Mienshao and the Dragon-type. As he weighs his options, so does she. Halcion was thinking of leaving Mienshao - this interloper to rot in the cold to take after her target, she was replaying what she remembers of the quarrel with this shadow over and over again, trying to think of convoluted plans to eventually destroy it in combat. Being alone in her fight against it would be far from ideal.
But they weren't the only fellows caught in contemplation.
Like watching snow fall out of a tree, the image of a Meinshao peels away as a thin mist. There sits a pokemon with flowing white mane. She grips a small wound the water bolt has left on her. Old wounds and scars mark her body. Purple highlights in her mane twist and churn like ghostly worms. Her sickly, yellow eyes refuse to look her way.
That's not Mienshao, she never was Mienshao.
Suppose this is this stranger's way of lowering her guard, or revealing her hand. Halcion has shown her nonexistent desires for the gear, and Louisa has been the most truthful out of all of them. A silent understanding comes across the trio.
Louisa glances at Halcion.
"The first gear you found, tell me about the Lucario."