Odette Cinq-Mars' eyes were locked on her news app. She leaned against the backstage wall, tapping her clipboard lightly against it, keeping with the orchestra's tempo. She was humming along to the actors' singing while her eyes roved hungrily over the words on her phone screen.
The victim, 25-year-old Gervais Morel, was found unconscious in his car. His Pokemon, a Simisear, attempted to take a firearm from one of the first responders and was subsequently gunned down. The Simisear was later found to have lethal amounts of sacrilege in his system. The Lumiose City PD declined to-
She began to shake her head when a tap on her shoulder caused her to jump. She pressed her phone to her chest and cut her gaze over, meeting a set of slyly narrowed hazel eyes.
"Shouldn't you be paying attention, Miss Stage Manager?" Noel whispered.
She scoffed. "Shouldn't you be listening for your cue, Mister Mistoffelees?"
Noel returned the scoff and crossed his arms. "To think, after years of acting classes, you don't have that faith in me? Purrloins is my favorite musical of all time, you think I don't know it like the back of my hand?"
With a roll of her eyes, she returned to her reading. "Implying you know the back of your hand."
There was no response from him. Instead, she felt his chin dig into her shoulder as he undoubtedly tried to sneak a peek at what she was reading.
"Oh, more Team Enigma news?" he said.
Odette impatiently scrolled through the rest of the article before clicking the phone off and shoving it into her pocket. "Just the recent OD case. Nothing new."
He sighed, then removed his chin. "Oh, that? Lame. I've been waiting for a new break."
"You and me both."
He leaned against the bunched-up curtain, crossing his arms over his chest. "Anything else to report on? Can you at least tell me what the weather's like today?"
As if the universe sought to answer for him, a groan of thunder rocked the building. It was quite loud, but it didn't stop the rehearsal on the stage.
"Why don't you ask one of the castform? I'm sure they'd be down to talk to you about it between their mating."
To that, Noel chuckled. "Why, dear castform, does your collective horniness cause us so many weather problems?"
"It's just another January, you should be used to it by now."
"Oh no, it's worse this year. The rainstorms have been nonstop, and the temperatures are changing so drastically, I don't know what wardrobe I should be fucking tapping into." He huffed loudly. "2020's got some shit in store for us, I swear."
They were silent for a moment, and Odette heard the sound of something being rolled behind her. She turned her head just in time to catch two of the stagehand machamps, dressed arms to toes in black, moving one of the light props to set on this side of the stage. She snapped twice, drawing their attention.
"Hey!" she whispered. "Stage right, not left. Other side."
They frowned at her. "Mach," one grumbled.
With that, they rolled it off to where it was supposed to go. Odette sighed deeply to herself. She brought her clipboard back to her face, flipping up the first page to double-check her prop placement notes. "I swear, they don't listen."
"You know, I found something interesting regarding this sacrilege stuff, I figured you'd be interested to know," Noel said wryly, disregarding her annoyance.
"You waited until now to tell me this?" she asked incredulously, shooting him a side-eyed glance.
"I was going to wait until lunch, but since you're on your phone on the job, I figured I'd humor you."
The actor playing Macavity the purrloin began to deliver his ending scene lines. Noel mouthed along to them, mimicking the actor's conviction mockingly. Odette joined in, though she performed with a little less gusto. It was more like she was reciting them because she knew them by heart. She knew the entire show by heart, actually.
The lights went out on the stage. Macavity's actor disappeared through a trap door on the floor as the actors left began to shout and squeal in their performance of confusion.
"I was doing some digging last night before bed, getting some dirt on all the released OD names so far," Noel continued their conversation. He ran his thumbs under the shoulder straps of his bodysuit as he spoke.
"As one does," Odette snickered.
"Lissssssteeeeen," Noel insisted, swatting at her. "I was putzing around, looking for some similarities. It's not much, but ninety percent of the cases have been among people in the wealthier demographic."
"What's new?" she said flatly. "The cops figured that one out ages ago."
Noel smirked. "Did I mention that the press conveniently leaves out that a decent majority of the Pokemon being affected by sacrilege are shiny?"
Odette knit her brows at him. "No way," she said.
Noel had his phone out before she'd even finished talking, growing smugger by the minute. "No, seriously," he said, swiping his finger across his screen. "Most of these case files are there for public viewing, but my in down at the LCPD managed to send me her admin password for their whole case-file system."
"Who's your in at the LCPD?" Odette asked, "and why don't I know about it?"
"I've got gals in different locales, baby, don't you worry," Noel snickered, heightening his voice for dramatic effect. "Good friend from coding class. We cheated off each other all the time."
Odette narrowed her eyes. "I'm going to pretend you didn't tell me that so this in of yours doesn't lose her job. Grandpa would have a coronary; he's well on his way there as it is."
Noel finally stopped scrolling and held his phone to his chest. "So, as I said," he started, ignoring the comment, "I was putzing around, examining some case files and whatever, and boom. She texts me the login. Asked her for it a couple days ago, said she'd get back to me, whatever," he explained. "I kind of went a little nuts in there; pulled up something on that most recent OD case, and sure enough...didn't match with the public record. Specifically denotes a shiny simisear, while the public record denotes an ordinary."
He handed his phone to her. "Scroll left."
She shot him a wary glance as she took it. She squinted at the screen, which showed a close-up photo of his computer monitor, displaying a website with a bunch of case information. She didn't bother reading all of it because her eyes immediately fell on the part that had been highlighted for her convenience.
Simisear (Standard)
She did as instructed and swiped left. Another photo of his screen displayed an interface she recognized: the LCPD's online case filing system. She'd caught sight of it multiple times, glancing at it over her grandpa's shoulder while he worked. This time, the same information was highlighted again.
Simisear (Shiny)
She blinked in surprise and cut her eyes back to Noel, who was already nodding toward her with a jokingly pensive expression. "What'd I fucking tell you? That's suspicious as hell."
He crossed his arms, pursing his lips in thought as his eyes traveled up to the ceiling. "Granted, not all of them were like that because some cases actually did just involve ordinary 'mon. But the ones that had shinies? All had discrepancies like that. And I'd say, of maybe the..." he trailed off to count his fingers, "twelve I looked through last night, nine of them were about shinies. I'd guarantee it's a majority. Can't say for sure, but I'm willing to bet."
"You got me," she said after a moment of stunned silence, returning the device to him. Her mind had become so aflutter with this new revelation she'd almost completely lost track of where they were in the song. She didn't care, though. She had to dwell on this.
"The wealthy, plus shinies..." she muttered. "Sounds like some shiny trade bullshit."
The trade-very loosely reminiscent of the stock market-was centered around the buying and selling of shiny Pokemon. Hunters searched day in and day out for the coveted shiny and would sell them to willing buyers for ridiculous amounts of money. When Odette had learned about it at face value, it didn't sound inherently awful. That is until she looked deeper into it.
Reports of mistreatment, unethical catching practices, and selling the Pokemon without their consent, among other despicable rumors, were constantly coming out. Last Odette had looked, there was overwhelming support for abolishing it. Despite that, it still stood, loud and proud.
Of course, big names in the trade always made huge efforts to debunk the rumors, but she wouldn't trust it. Money made people greedy, and greed could make people do some terrible things. Like, say, force-feeding a synthetic drug to a Pokemon.
"I don't understand why the 'mon don't fight back if it's to the point that they're drugging them," Odette said. "Why not protest it if it's so bad? That's always been my gripe."
"Maybe that's the point of the drugs," Noel suggested. "Or they like it. Or all the rumors are fake." He shrugged. "But these pics don't lie. So I don't even know what to fucking think at this point," Noel sighed.
It'd been quite a long time since the region had experienced a synthetic drug problem as bad as "the sacrilege crisis." It started as just a couple of unfortunate accidents, with hardcore partygoers overdosing on some new fad. That substance exploded on the party and battle scene within a few years. Soon, more and more people, and even Pokemon, were overdosing, but not all of them perished. Those who lived exhibited some very strange behaviors, which is what really caught everybody's attention.
In one police report she had read, a young woman had to be checked into hospice because she'd ingested so much sacrilege that she lost all of her memories, and her brain functions reverted to that of a newborn baby. Another case mentioned a trainer being arrested when they instructed their drugged-up coalossal to eat the opposing trainer's vaporeon during a battle tournament.
All the users started to call the drug "sacrilege." Soon, they were also starting to claim they were getting it from a group called Team Enigma. But, all attempts to uncover the group so far had been unsuccessful. So much so that it was hard to believe Team Enigma was even real. The whole ordeal was absolutely mind-boggling to her.
Now, seeing this new take on the issue was sending her into a faster tailspin. What was the reason for keeping that information from the public? Hell, why was the majority of affected Pokemon shiny?
She was starting to wonder if she should trust any of the reports she'd been reading at all. If they were willing to mess with that sort of observation, what other falsities could there be?
It planted a weird seed in the pit of her stomach. Why would her grandfather let that happen?
"How has Chief Cinq-Mars been lately?" Noel inquired.
Odette sighed again. "Like I said, closer to a coronary every day."
Noel clicked his tongue and began to shake his head. "Poor guy needs a break. Maybe next time he takes one, you can ask him why they're fudging info," he said jokingly.
Of course, being the chief of police at the Lumiose City PD would expose her grandfather to all the terrible things the otherwise beautiful city had to offer. But she'd seen firsthand how much of a toll this was taking on him. Coming up on drug death after drug death would do that to anybody.
She remembered how he'd responded to a call about five fatal OD cases in a residential flat. The bodies, three trainers and two Pokemon, sat there for about a week before the smell of their collective decomposition alerted the other residents. Of course, nothing on them indicated where they might have gotten the drug from. He had been so disturbed that he didn't talk to anybody for almost a week following the incident.
She immediately regretted allowing her brain to travel there and shook off the thought as quickly as possible. She knew damn well what it was like to bear witness to death like that. Probably even more so.
A shudder racked her small frame. Noel seemed to take notice because he placed his hand back on her shoulder.
"Ease up, you're good." He spoke tenderly as if he'd also known where her brain wandered.
"All good," she assured him, her words short. "Don't worry about me."
It was there that the sound of scurrying paws approached behind her. Something began to tug at her leg, and she looked down to find her blue-hued sylveon shooting a droopy-eyed stare at her. A folded piece of yellow legal pad paper dangled between her teeth.
She supposed that was another reason this weird little discrepancy was starting to bother her so much. As a trainer with a shiny partner, she didn't like to bear the thought of her friend falling victim to such a drug.
Odette frowned, both at the thought and at the sight of the paper. Noel gasped and placed his hands over his lips.
"Hello, Enora!" he greeted in a louder whisper.
Odette leaned down and took the note from Enora's mouth, and the fairy-type quickly looped around her to affectionately rub herself against Noel's leg. He leaned down to pet her, cooing softly as he did.
"Damn, Dee, I swear she likes me more than you sometimes."
"Why do you act like this shocks you every time?" Odette responded, opening the note. "She's liked you since she entered the ball. She just has a thing for pretty gay men."
"The 'gay' distinction is unnecessary. I just find him pleasant," Enora purred quietly, sitting politely next to Noel's feet.
Odette retrieved her phone from her pocket and flipped the screen back on, using it as a light to illuminate the note. She squinted through her thick-rimmed glasses to get a better look at it.
PAY ATTENTION!
If her frown could have gotten any deeper, it did. She shot her head up, her gaze zeroing in on the entrance to stage right, just across from her. She was entirely unsurprised to find Acadia, also decked out in her practice dance garb, standing in view with a stern glare plastered on her face.
Noel snatched the note, and Odette heard him laugh to himself.
"Gods, what a mum," he said. "She's just mad we're more interested in Team Enigma than she is." He tossed the note over his shoulder and proceeded to stretch his shoulders. Odette knew his cue was coming up shortly, so he needed to be ready. See, she was paying attention. Damn Acadia and her parental-grade micromanaging.
"I was thinking, Dee," Noel said, stretching his left leg. "You and I should team up and try to uncover this bullshit together. We can give the PD a break, and it'll be the last hurrah before you move to Alola."
She rolled her eyes. "That'd be something, wouldn't it?"
"I'm only half kidding. I don't know what I'm going to do without you, so I need something to hold me over," he whined. "Two clueless entertainment workers busting the case of the decade would do it."
"You can always fly to Alola whenever; it's only a ten-hour flight," Odette chided.
"Only a ten-hour flight," Noel repeated. "I can barely stomach flying to see my sister in Galar, and that's four hours away."
"Sounds like a personal problem."
Noel opened his mouth to retaliate, but the song began to pick up in tempo. He held up a finger.
"Hold that thought," he said. He then strode onto the stage and began what Odette considered the best dance solo in the show. She might have been a little biased because it was Noel. He'd always been a talented performer. Back when they used to dance competitively, he was a force to be reckoned with. She was too. Their duets were always flawless.
The memory made her frown. Her hold on her clipboard tightened.
There wasn't a world where she ever thought she'd be doing the crew work for a show. She'd grown up wanting to be the person in the spotlight. She sunk herself into her dancing and singing lessons and even picked up acting in high school with high hopes of being the next Broadway performer. Another Diantha—no, the next Diantha; talented performer and Pokemon trainer. That was all she had wanted for as long as she could remember.
The strings section of the orchestra began to groove as Noel took off into his 30 fouettes. Odette took that moment to lean out just slightly from behind the curtain, and she eyed the auditorium chairs. She could see the show's director, Martin Gagnon, and his assistant watching the rehearsal, probably nitpicking every little thing as he tended to do. Other than that, the thousand other chairs stood empty.
This run of Purrloins! The Musical was sold out for the opening night. Odette began to imagine how the house would look that day, filled to the brim with those eager patrons of the arts waiting to be entertained by some of the most talented performers in the region.
She started to imagine herself in, perhaps, Noel's position. A big name part, with a big name solo. All eyes on her as she did the thing she swore she knew best.
It all sounded dreamy until she was rudely reminded why it wasn't.
You'll never get anywhere unless you do things like this, Odette...
She recoiled back behind the curtain, anxiety gripping her chest. It caused her heartbeat to start ringing in her ears.
Stop, stop, stop, she told herself. Shut up. Shut up.
It'd been over a year since she last stepped out on stage as a performer. She thought picking up a crew worker job would help her get back into it; make her realize she missed it. But every time she thought about it, she thought about that thing that happened. She thought about those words and where his hands and his body went.
She thought too hard about him. She hated it.
She told herself that she'd at least attempt to eat lunch today when she left her apartment that morning. But, as it seemed, whenever she stepped foot into this building-the Lumiose Center for Performing Arts-something always happened that led her to lose her appetite. It'd become almost expected at this point. Probably not the healthiest thing in the world, but that was how exposure therapy worked, right?
She just wished it somehow...worked better.
"Dee, really?" Acadia asked incredulously. "Again?"
Odette opened her eyes from the half-nap she was taking. It was lunch hour, and she'd decided that if she wasn't going to eat, she could at least try to sleep through it. She was sprawled out on the stage, using her backpack as a pillow. Her fellow cast and crew, Pokemon and human alike, sat around her, talking amongst themselves about who knows what.
Her eyes immediately landed on the untouched bowl containing her nanab berry salad, sitting next to her legs. She stared at it for a long moment before looking at Acadia square in her face. She was quick to take in the peculiar way her brow furrowed and her top lip slightly pulled back to reveal her clenched teeth.
She's on Mum Mode, she thought. But what's new?
"What? I'm not going to force myself to eat if I'm not hungry," Odette said, knowing her words would be futile. Once Acadia made that look, there was no turning back.
Acadia crossed her arms over her chest. "Yeah, not hungry for the fourth time this week?"
More thunder shook the building, and Odette secretly wished it would keep rolling to prevent her from having to answer.
"My stomach shrunk," she muttered. She flung her arm over her eyes. "Lunch has never been my best meal anyway," she added tentatively.
"You should at least try to eat," Acadia returned without missing a beat.
"I haven't fainted yet, so don't be too concerned."
"Come on, 'Cadia, let her live her life," Noel huffed. He was sitting next to her head, with Enora curled up in his lap. "She stopped eating because she doesn't want to grow anymore. She's perfectly content being a cute little midget." He reached over and grabbed the bowl, and began to eat from it. "Which means more for me."
"You're going to hog it all?" Enora queried, perking her head up as Noel began to chew. He stared at her questioningly before his eyes widened in realization.
"Oh right, you like these things," he said. He picked a berry from the bed of lettuce and fed it to the sylveon, who purred in thanks. Noel started to pet her, but Odette smacked him on the shoulder. He flinched, thus causing Enora to flinch too.
"Owwwwwwwwww-uh," he whined, rubbing the contact site.
"Odette!" Enora chastised.
"He asked for it," Odette insisted. "Five foot zero doesn't equate to midget."
"It does for somebody who just turned twenty-two!"
"Tell that to my fucked up hormones; maybe they'll suddenly start working."
Acadia sighed deeply. "Well, excuse me for trying to make sure my friend is healthy. You've spent enough time in the hospital with your terrible immune system; gods know we don't need to add starvation to the list."
"Again, these all sound like issues that need to be taken up with my endocrines," Odette said flatly. She sat up and rolled her shoulders, releasing a yawn before speaking again.
"You'll be stoked to know I haven't had a hypotension episode in a very long time," she said. "And I survived flu season again. And since we're talking about it, I only got seven hours of sleep last night, so I'm trying to get the full eight right now. I'm the picture of health, immunocompromised, fucked eyesight and growth, and all."
Acadia was frowning deeply at that point. "Okay, but I'm pretty sure that's not how 'getting a full eight' works," she said.
"Well, not now. You woke me up."
Deciding that she no longer wanted to partake in that conversation, she zeroed in on the current conversation of the others sitting near her.
"Psychic types are ideal," said one of the dancers. "They can sense the audience's feelings, and therefore know when to play up their performances." For good measure, she stroked her hatterene partner on her chin, causing her to coo in glee. "Calliope has been in a bunch of performances with me; she's a natural."
"I get what you're saying, but you can't knock ice-types either," one of the stagehands responded. His freshly hatched swinub friend sat snugly in his lap, fast asleep. "They're absolutely glorious to look at onstage."
"Okay, but electric types can literally bring a house down. Luxray has a voice to end all other singers. He's something," another responded. Luxray was laid out next to her, enjoying his own lunch. He seemed bashful at his trainer boasting about him, so he hid his head behind a paw.
"What are we talking about?" Odette asked after a few timed blinks.
"Opinions on the best performance Pokemon," Acadia said. She'd been listening in.
"Depends on the performance," Odette said simply after thinking for a beat. Her hand instinctively traveled to Enora's head. "Solene is the best dancer I know, but I'd never put Enora in dance shoes," she said.
"It was not something I picked up on, unfortunately," Enora sighed in reluctant agreement.
"You wouldn't need to, people would flock to see a shiny Pokemon do anything. People love the novelty," another dancer said jokingly, prompting some agreeing chatter.
And apparently, people like giving them drugs, too, she thought bitterly.
"Yes, well..." Enora said in a low voice, ducking her head into Noel's thigh. Odette heard the apprehensive undertone, but knew better than to question too much. Enora wasn't one to discuss such things. Instead, she scratched behind the eveelution's ear.
"Hear that? You're a novelty," she said, pushing the thought away.
"A cute novelty," Noel interjected.
The conversation continued on, merely consisting of more arguing. Odette found she couldn't hold her focus on it for much longer.
"So what were you going to say before we were so rudely interrupted by your cue?" she asked Noel. She shot a playfully sassy look at Acadia. "That we were paying attention to, by the way."
"It looked to me like you two were just running your mouths, so I couldn't tell," Acadia said with a shrug. "Be lucky I didn't send Vigoroth over instead." She slyly patted her pocket, where the bulge of her trusty friend's ball was visible.
Odette pressed her lips together, deciding she had a point. Acadia had always been a stickler for the rules, even more so in a place of performance. She had an intense love for enforcing "theatre etiquette," and she did so using the rather persuasive Vigoroth. Odette's head began to ache, remembering the countless head smacks she'd endured for talking during an opposing team's dance performance.
"Instead, you dragged my own partner into it. Conniving," Odette said dully.
"Oh, I wasn't going to say much," Noel answered. "I was just going to bitch that all my friends are moving away." He sniffled and ran his finger under his eye as if wiping away tears. "First Claude, then Basile, then my sister, now you. Why'd your mum have to put in a transfer?"
"She's been trying to move her base of operations to Alola or Sinnoh for years, and the Professor's Org finally approved her for an Alola move," she explained with a shrug. "Now, she won't be out of town as often."
Noel stuck out his lower lip, his posture going slack. "Who will I hide behind when Acadia yells at me for drinking too much wine?"
"Nobody," Acadia groused. "You're going to learn to take it to your face."
"Besides, you have the group chat. Just complain there like you always do," Odette suggested, raising the sleeping RotomPhone for emphasis.
"It won't be the same, though," Noel groaned, waving a dismissive hand at Acadia.
Odette had to nod in agreement, it wouldn't be the same. While she was somewhat looking forward to the hefty change, something about leaving behind the place she grew up was only adding to her daily anxiety load. She didn't know what it would be like not being able to walk three floors down to Noel's flat when she needed to get out of her head. Or being unable to meet Acadia for lunch when she was bored and needed female interaction. Or, possibly worst, being unable to ride across the city to her grandparent's townhouse just because.
It would be a new house, a new town, and new people. Shit, even new Pokemon.
She felt like she'd come to terms with it, but it was still ringing...odd.
The move wasn't for another three months, but the household had collectively decided to get going on packing now. Normally her entire team should have been at work with her, but they'd taken leave to start working on boxing up the place. Now she was down to having one partner accompany her a day, which she supposed wasn't the worst thing in the world if it meant packing was indeed getting done. The focus today was all the glassware because they weren't planning on using it any time before the move.
However, she wouldn't be shocked if her thoughts of productivity were all wishful. Solene and Isaur might keep everything under control without breaking anything, but asking Ange and Loïc to do something productive and careful like that together was like asking an aggron to do jumping jacks: it wasn't going to happen.
Maybe I should have asked Ange to come with me today instead, she thought.
"As sad as I am that you're leaving," Acadia spoke solemnly, snapping her out of her thought, "I do think that's what you need. A change of scenery and a clean slate."
There were implications to that sentence that made Odette feel blessed to have a friend so concerned about her mental state and disgusted that anything even needed to be hinted at in the first place.
Why couldn't she just be okay?
"The Elite Family dance studio is in Alola! You could audition," Noel suggested suddenly. "Alolans are known for being great singers, too, so you could also find another coach!"
"I heard they're finally establishing a Pokemon League there in the next few years, too. That would be great to get in on as well since you've gone back to Pokemon training school," Acadia added.
Enora appeared to like that idea because her long ears stiffened at the sound of 'Pokemon League.'
"That might be something worth pursuing, yes?" she asked hopefully.
Odette couldn't help the dubious tilt that took over her lips. The idea of a clean slate was great, she didn't deny that. But all of those suggestions made her stomach perform aerials. She thought back to how she'd imagined herself center stage on opening night, and...no. The fear began to gnaw at her again.
"Those all sound like great ideas," she said, ensuring her voice didn't waver. They didn't need to know how badly her head was spinning. "I'll look into them."