Unknown Month, Unknown Year
Burr arrived just in time for the briefing, checking in with the Investigation Center Chief's secretary before taking a seat in the lobby. Her boss had said to just check in and wait and to make herself comfortable. The other rangers would arrive shortly and then they would decide who got what case if priority had been tossed out the window.
A warm nose pressed into her hands, big glossy eyes staring expectantly at her with an air of impatience. Lilith huffed at the lack of attention and laid its big, warm head across her lap, taking up the entire couch. Burr laid her hand atop the great dog's head. Is it just me or are my pockets a bit lighter than they were when I stepped in here? She shot the secretary an apologetic glance as Lilith's wagging tail accidentally knocked over a stack of magazines. "Sorry. Lilith here forgets she's not all that small anymore like she used to be." She gave the fluffy Arcanine a loving scratch behind the ears, smirking as it shut its eyes and leaned into her hand. "You're no lapdog anymore, you big oaf." Her companion huffed again and moved to rest its head and its torso across her lap. Burr laughed. "Good puppy."
Soon, the rest of her fellow rangers began coming in, each with tired but hopeful eyes as they took up the seats around her. Some had coffee. Others were carrying packs full of snacks and various trinkets. Burr supposed she had brought enough. She'd had the forethought to pack an extra tarp, a poncho, rope, a compass, and a stupid amount of potions for her team. After all, she'd be going in alone.
The order had come just two days prior: all available pokémon rangers in the Unova Region were to report to Nimbasa City for an ongoing missing person's report involving three missing trainers asap; it was a good thing she had been taking a break from challenging the gyms. Her group was soon moved into another, more private room where they all recalled their pokémon and sat around a long table, manilla folders set precisely before each chair.
Burr's eyes widened and her fingers shook as she glimpsed the title to her own given case: Subway Master Ingo. She had been recovering from a disaster at The Riakan League when she'd first heard about the occurrences of Ultra Wormholes radiating away from the Alola Region. She had been thankful that Riako was on the other side of the world from Alola, the epicenter. Then came the news that people were going missing around places that Ultra Wormholes were popping up. The predecessor of the increasing cases just so happened to be Subway Master Ingo, one of the most prominent battle frontier heads in all of Unova.
She'd been the only one who had taken a sniff at it as of recent months. Seeing as how the case was then a year old and not a single trace of the former Subway Master had been filed, everybody thought it was a waste of time looking afterwards.
Those who'd gone investigating before her all stated that the trail dropped abruptly in the subway tunnels beneath Lacunosa Town. Both the Subway Master and the three pokémon he had been carrying at the time had all seemingly vanished into thin air. The remaining Subway Master, Emmet, had sent the investigation agency every piece of documented footage that Gear Station had in its library collected from both weeks before and weeks after his twin brother's disappearance. Emmet had truly gone above and beyond, ruthlessly scouring any and all sources that may have assisted in tracking down his sibling such as entry logs to Gear Station, CCTV footage of the traffic cameras directly outside of the station as well as from the cameras at each and every platform, and especially the recordings taken from the facing cameras within the train that Ingo had disappeared on. The file before her was thick was notations, photos, and even records from the Pokemon Center upon attempting to find any recollections from the pokémon that Ingo had had in his possession before he had entered the shutdown tunnel.
She already knew of one of the tapes recovered from the train cameras. Some informant in the station had leaked the tape to the public upon the information of Ultra Wormholes becoming known to the public. The first time she had glimpsed it, she had been disturbed to say the least; she had a feeling as though the tape itself hadn't been recorded correctly or that it had been faked in some aspect. The video captured Ingo riding the Super Singles Train on the way back from inspecting a tunnel after some kind of disturbance had occurred.
The train would pull up to an emergency exit where a station employee would motion Ingo into entering the leading train car. Subway Master Ingo would then enter the car and use the overcom to talk to his fellow depot agent. The train would reverse on the tracks and slowly begin to ride back to the main station. There would be no hints of anything unusual occurring in the film until the lights in the center cabin power off. The train would jolt to a sudden halt. From that point, only footage of the depot agent would appear. The man, clearly in distress, attempts to page his boss over and over again but with no response. The train would rattle back and forth on the tracks despite being stationary, almost as if something was deliberately pushing at the sides of the train. It would be at that point that the depot agent would flee his cabin and make his way over to Ingo's cabin only to stop halfway; the footage would show the depot agent forcing open the connecting door only to stare at the empty tracks outside the door. According to the depot agent, four entire cabins went missing alongside Ingo that day.
Burr hadn't been all that intrigued when the guy had gone missing before. Sure, she had visited Gear Station while she was challenging the gyms, and maybe she had gone on a loop fn the single's train for funsies after a long four days of grinding to train her pokémon. Maybe she even got to the twenty-first car and engaged the aforementioned Subway Master only to lose by a margin. But since she was a ranger and she was doing some research in Unova during her spare time, she figured she would assist and lone-wolf the mission; after all, nobody else even wanted to attempt it. Not when all those rumors about Subway Master Emmet were spreading.
The man had apparently become obsessed with his brother's disappearance. So much so that moderators on online threads discussing Ingo's disappearance were sure to be viciously harassed by the remaining twin. It seemed like Subway Master Emmet both wanted to keep Ingo's disappearance a secret and wanted people to look for him. The man had kept showing up at his job and outperforming his challengers. Apparently, he had been setting groundbreaking records in battle finishing times, challenger-to-opponent pokémon ratio sizes on the scales of two versus six, and even speedrunning through his own facility on a no-heal basis. Some were labeling it as the younger brother attempting to accommodate or as Emmet losing himself in his work.
A gym-leader-in-training and apparently a train-fanatic, Cilan, had volunteered to step in for the missing battle facility head and by the photos that the paparazzi had stolen of him, the poor kid had bitten off more than he could chew. The poor man looked as though he hadn't slept in years in all of the photos he'd been captured in.
Others were drawing attention to the fact that Emmet had been showing up in numerous places all across the world. The man had been seen at Mount Lanakila in the Alola Region, at The Weather Institute in Hoenn, in Ilex Forest in the Johto Region, and even at The Spear Pillars in the Sinnoh Region. Nobody knew what it was he was doing in those places; not even close friends or family of the Subway Boss knew what he was doing in those regions. Regardless, Jaku was aware that the vast bulk of the file before her had been assembled by Emmet; she could only hope that she would be able to pick up where he had left off.
"Ranger Burr, are you paying attention?"
"Yes, Chief Byrne." Burr met the gaze of her superior, hands folded behind her back as the boss of the conference strode over to her.
"Sure you were." His eyes were glazed with pity and doubt as he stared at the shiny label on her folder. "You wanted the case for the missing battle facility head, yes?"
"That's correct."
"Well… your wish has been granted. This folder contains all the information pertaining to the disappearance of Subway Master Ingo. Any new data entries or recordings have been documented within the folder but the footage tapes are kept securely in our records branch. Ask the secretary at the front desk in case you need to view them or listen to the audio submitted by the police or investigators."
"Of course. I'll get right to it. Thank you sir."
March 9th, First Year
Jaku stumbled out of the brush, pausing once more to check the sun's position in the sky. Egel kept his position behind her, his walking stick sinking into the snow as they trudged northward. She had passed out after her fight with the Luxray, her beloved partners keeping the party safe until she awoke that morning surrounded by sleeping Bidoofs and Wurmples in the hollowed-out roots of a tree. She had never seen Egel so scared albeit not counting the incident they had just found themselves in.
They had originally planned to go south down the river to follow it to Sandgem but they paused at the familiar divot in the river. Egel was the one who had remembered it; that was Lesser Lord Snorlax's territory, and that glutton was ruthless. Egel had sighted the beast lounging by the river, its stomach and mouth stained with blood. A tattered carcass lay caught up against a rock, most likely the same John Doe that they had walked right into the night before.
A school of Buizel were now breaking it down as the body bobbed against the rocks, the pack taking breaks to float lazily down the river before swimming back for seconds. Lesser Lord Snorlax made no move to interfere. Egel had sent her a look and the two turned back the way they came. So it hadn't been the Luxray, then.
She hoped that neither of her charges had run into this thing and that Soto had managed to corral them to Sandgem. Their only objective was to make it to the encampment atop Aspiration Hill and get somebody out there to find them and prematurely halt their expedition. She would worry about her own injuries later when she was warm and safe.
Eventually, as the sun began to slip down the horizon for the second time, the two Diamond Clan members struggled up Aspiration Hill. Jaku grimaced and noted with a grim smile that every time she was on that specific hill, she was either injured, cold, or soaking wet. It was the former that time around.
"Hello?" she groaned, leaning harder on her blunted saber. "Anybody there? We need help."
There was a quick pause. Footsteps echoed in the bushes. "Who's there?" called the familiar voice of Hideyoshi.
"It's us, the Diamond Clan members," Egel replied back. "Egel and Jaku. We need medical help- we've both been attacked by a wild Luxray."
Hideyoshi ducked out from the cover of an overlapping tree, his saber brandished. One look at the two of them and her pokémon and he quietly resheathed it. He carefully escorted them into the encampment toward the medical tent where the medic on duty was waiting.
As the medic began treating their wounds, Egel gave descriptions of the night's happenings to Hideyoshi and a second guard. He seemed much worse for wear than she'd originally thought with his pale complexion and glassy eyes. The medic hadn't allowed her to look at what lay beneath his bandages.
Hideyoshi grimaced. "We received a message via Starly from Scout Yuki and the Sandgem Encampment. They all made it. Thankfully, no injuries. The Diamond Clan took them in for the time being."
Egel breathed a sigh of relief. "Did they mention anything about Lesser Lord Snorlax?"
"No." Hideyoshi's brows twitched. "I didn't know lesser lords even existed." He shook his head, and then stood, moving toward the opening in the tent. "I will send word back to Sandgem that you two have been accounted for and that this expedition was a failure. Rest."
Most of the encampment had been buzzing about the Luxray attack near the river the night before when Egel and Jaku had arrived but by the time the medic finished tending to their wounds as best as they could, the long tents were quiet and a new guard had replaced Hideyoshi. Only Jaku had been allowed to go; her injuries were not nearly as dire as Egel's.
On the strict recommendation from the gate guard, Jaku was given a spare bedroll in one of the long tents and slowly slipped inside, careful to avoid disturbing her bandages. She would have to remind herself to eat the cheri berries in her bag later to help deal with the lingering stiffness in her arms and neck. Dusk nosed its way between her arms and dozed off, Peanut making itself comfortable behind her head with a purring noise. She felt something fuzzy at the bottom near her feet, a gentle nibbling on her pant legs. Dusk popped her head up and turned her flames on, bringing light to a small pink body at the bottom of the roll; just a Wurmple.
Jaku didn't dare sleep, only making herself comfortable so that she could watch over her pokémon as they got their well-earned nap. Eventually, she rose to refill her waterskin with both of her pokémon tagging along sleepily. Might as well do something productive before the new commands come in tomorrow. As she headed toward the back of the camp, she caught a glimpse of something red and yellow just beyond the tree line. She dropped her waterskin. A pair of glowing scarlet eyes stared at her. Jaku took a step back; the Luxray had followed her home.
She'd been expecting it to try attacking her again while her and Egel were coming back but it didn't. As it approached her, its head cocked as it slowly made its way down from the tree line. Its ragged fur was still mottled with burns, bites, and lacerations that looked even more egregious with its emaciated body.
Dusk and Peanut moved to bar the way again; the Luxray didn't so much as glance at them. It padded closer until Jaku could see the individual flecks of blood on its coat. It didn't hiss or snarl or even unsheathe its claws. It simply approached and then sat, its thin tail waving back-and-forth as though pleased to see her. And then the creature dropped something into the grass: a pokéball. It was small and dinged-up, covered with dirt and the Luxray's saliva. The Luxray nosed the ball over toward her, staring at her as though it expected her to do something.
Jaku hesitantly picked up the offering and recoiled as a cold chill spread up her arm. A sudden weariness settled into her bones and her vision blurred. It wasn't the same kind of pokéball that Rei had taught her how to make- no, it was metallic, shiny, and unnaturally smooth like a river-washed stone. It felt… good in her hands. Familiar. Comforting. But the seal in the middle had been dented and the button release mechanism had been utterly destroyed. Something within the ball twitched and it rocked once in her hand, a dull heat spreading into her chilled fingers. There's a pokémon inside this thing!
Against her better judgement, she set down the ball and brought it toward a sturdy-looking rock, using one hand to hold it down and the other to try and pry a branch into the dented opening. She pried as hard as she could and with a loud snap, the cap to the pokéball flew off into the grass. A flash of violet light washed over the clearing and Jaku felt it even more strongly now: that strange chill in the air and the newfound tiredness that found her vision blurring even more. Then came the ghostly heat.