This was bad. This was very bad. It had been so long since anyone had seen them, let alone seen them! They had thought that, with their new disguise, others would be safe. They thought the runes, painful as they were to etch into the armor, were the permanent solution to their problem. They had grown complacent; Forgotten to ensure they would not be found by a trueseer while outside the disguise.
They had failed.
Again.
The Absol must have been at home in the dark and the rain because despite its random meandering course, the trail never led through prickly bushes or over dangerous cervices. It was fortunate, because Hastur was effectively blind. The rain pounded against the metal shell of their disguise making a deafening racket. Their mask’s glass eyes had fogged over to such an extent that they may as well have been looking at a white wall, and the exposed viewing holes in the colander faced all the wrong directions whilst letting the water flow into the disguise and soaked the cloth and made his disguise heavy and awkward to carry. It was no matter; they need only ask themself where the Absol had run and follow the path intellectus told them shi took. They were too small to trip, and the waterlogged wool only occasionally caught on the undergrowth. As long as the Absol continued to follow safe-ish trails, they could proceed with blind confidence.
But they needed to hurry. The sight of his visage was anathema to flesh-minds, and even Darklings, strong as they were, would succumb if their will was not hardened by hardship. From what little they’d seen, from the nature of hir scream, this Absol was not hardened. Not enough, anyways.
They were not a murderer. They would prove it. They would save hir. It would be okay.
They really wished intellectus could tell them that.
It was well past midnight when Hastur found Omen sheltering beneath a half-fallen tree near the bottom of a small ravine. The tree had caught on the branches of its brothers and the roots beneath had been uplifted to create a natural, if muddy and uncomfortable shelter. The Absol’s beautiful fluffy fur was matted and knotted, the pristine white stained by the dark browns and blacks of the mud. Shi was sobbing, terrified, curled up into a ball with eyes and ears covered in an effort to block images that were burned into her mind. But shi was still cognizant, which meant they had time.
Shi noticed them, then, and started screaming. “Get Away!” Omen pushed hirself backwards further into the roots, away from the monster. Hastur ignored her please and reached out with a ribbon-arm. It was slapped away. “I-i-i-i-t is unnatural. You are unnatural. You are a thing beyond this universe and its rules they are not your rules. Why are you here what are you?!”
Hastur didn’t wait. They unceremoniously shoved the stone they had stolen back from Sugar into her chest fur, where the runes immediately began to light up. First dimly, then brighter and brighter until the whole of the ravine was awash in a sickly yellow glow.
For Hastur, it burned merely to stand near this light. Even as they held the stone to hir chest, his shadowclaw began to wither. It was toxic to them, like a magical antibiotic, and it would cleanse the Absol of his eldritch taint. It was why he insisted his friends wear such talismans at all times; so that even if the worst should happen, they might survive with their minds intact.
It was over in a matter of seconds, such that Omen didn’t even have time to scream. The rune’s magic clawed its way through her mind, burning away memories and cauterizing what remained. It was like a lobotomy, though far more invasive and precise than any physical operation. It was for her own good, but it made the experience no less terrifying. No less painful.
The light cut out, the thing in hir mind retreated. Hastur quickly generated extra arms to hold the stone to hir chest even as the first withered to nothing. Hastur produced a length of string from beneath their disguise and set about turning the stone to a necklace, and when it was done they finally stepped back and rubbed their lenses clear to look at the Absol.
At first it appeared nothing had changed. Shi was still cowering in the mud, soaked head-to-toe and whimpering. But when shi looked at them hir eyes had lost their piercing gaze. She rubbed her eyes and blinked uncomprehendingly at them, at the forest, as if seeing it in a new light for the first time, or more accurately seeing it in a new darkness. Hir eyes were wide and soft, and shi looked all the more vulnerable for it. Then she looked down at the talisman around hir neck.
“What...is this?” Shi took the talisman in one paw. The leaf-like rune still glowed, but produced no appreciable light.
“safety. no remove.” Hastur reached out and pressed the stone back to her chest, then withdrew the hand, hissing.
“You’ve...it’s taken my aurora sight!” She realized.
“yes. suppressed.” They tilted the disguise to look Omen in the face. “for safety.”
Omen said nothing. Just stared at the talisman in confusion. Then at Hastur, then at the forest which no doubt seemed so much darker and more foreboding without the lights and colors of souls and emotions to illuminate it. When shi looked at them again hir expression was a mixture of fear...and anger.
“What are you?”
Hastur started inching away, only to feel the back of their disguise catch on a bush.
“Why are you here!?”
They tried to answer. “am...Hastur.”
“Not who! What are you! Why are you here? What are you doing to my forest?!”
Too many questions! Too much anger! Too much! He wanted to run, but when he pushed forward he heard tearing above him. The branches were catching in the wool. He was stuck!
“am Hastur. want friends.”
Omen shook her head “No. affection is natural; a survival instinct. You are not natural! You are not from this or any reality but between where there are no rules or different rules and why are you here?!”
“is true. please” They could see shi didn’t believe them. Shi had seen them, and not just them but them. Not just what lay under the colander but what they truly were on a level beyond that of mere color and sight. And what they saw was something so alien and terrifying that to describe it in mere mortal terms would be facetious.
But it was true. They really did want companionship. They were different and born of a very different reality, but they weren’t that different. Not in that way. They may be alien, but they were the least alien. That’s why they left. Why all of them had left. To find a home with friends and acceptance and company.
How to tell hir, though? Even amongst their own, Hastur was different. Their mind was…broken? Sort of? They could sense it, and others could sense it even if none could explain it. A different among the different. It was so difficult to explain…when even they couldn’t understand.
Omen continued to stare at them, demanding an answer yet dreading what it would be. Hastur waited for the wind and rain to calm slightly before they spoke. “you…lonely.”
Omen flinched at his response. “What?”
“a question. you lonely.”
Shi looked away. “...No.”
“I am.”
“How? How does a creature not of our existence feel our emotions? We evolved to seek friends and family to support us, to love us and share with us. How could you come to feel such things, born of the void as you were?”
Hastur couldn’t answer that. Intellectus was as blind to emotions as they were to metaphors.
“just am. sorry.” Hastur took another moment to collect their thoughts. “not notice. creeping pain. then resentment. at first. when alone.” Hastur watched as Omen’s expression turned from fear to confusion. They hated trying to articulate themself like this. No matter how hard he tried to force the words out they were never quite right!
They pressed on, “others lucky. act normal. look normal. not dangerous. easy friendships. not us.”
Omen looked at the ground and spoke hesitantly, “…People look at you differently. They note your weird mannerisms and reclusiveness and assume that means you want to be left alone.”
“yes.”
“and sometimes you do, but then they start avoiding you so when you do want to talk, they act awkward and suspicious.”
“yes.“ Despite the lack of inflection or volume Hastur’s words somehow sounded more gratified. “see danger. avoid you.”
“Because even if they know you mean no harm they can’t see past the threat.”
“rumors form.”
“They make up stories and conjecture and assumptions...”
“crowd fear.”
“...so they tell each other their suspicions, and each new rumor confirms and magnifies the last...”
“never noticed.”
“...And without warning one day you look around and realize you’re a pariah!” Omen finished. “...So you do know.”
“long ago. now different. new friends. want more. never again.”
“I understand…” Omen shuffled around and settled into a more comfortable position. One less capable of carrying hir away from the creature should they attack. Hastur slumped, exhausted. They had gotten through, though! “but…exhausting.” They finished.
“Indeed.” Omen said.
There was a long pause as the two parties stared at each other. Not out of wariness, but curiosity. For once, Hastur didn’t feel the need to retreat into his shell.
“…You’ve been leaving a residue behind. It’s disrupting nature. Do you know that?” Omen finally asked. There was no judgement, though, and Hastur comfortably replied.
“travel lots. leave trail. small. dissipates.”
“But not anymore. Your team has loitered and the sludge has accumulated.”
“yes.”
“Especially wherever you used your…natural…abilities.”
“sorry…”
“What about the portal you made? Did you close it?”
“…no.” The word was barely audible.
“It’s alright. We can go close it together.”
“together.” Hastur said, then clarified, “is question.”
“Yes. If you would like, we can fix this together. All of it.”
“yes…please.”
Omen gave them a small smile and carefully stood up. Above them, the storm began to break.
* * *
Cinnamon wasn’t sure when or how he fell asleep that night on the barroom floor, but when he woke up, it was quiet. Super-early morning, most likely. Though his internal clock seemed to indicate actually a bit of a late start for him. Mary was an early riser by nature, and the habit had been passed on to her team over the course of their adventures. But then, they’d all had a long night of fruitless waiting.
He heard small feet padding away from him. “Sugar?” He called, curious.
The padding paused. “Sorry, C,” Sugar said, “Just woke up; wanted to use the bathroom real quick.”
That explained what woke him up: Sugar must have been using him as a bed again, and his shifting his weight around was what disturbed him. Cinnamon just nodded. “Go ahead, I’ll be here when you get back.” He looked up at where he assumed Pepper was keeping watch. “Any luck?” He asked.
“No.” Pepper answered.
“Still raining?”
“Yes.”
Cinnamon wordlessly rested his chin back on the floor, worried. It wasn’t that Honey couldn’t take care of itself: He was the second-strongest member of their team. But if Eclipse could survive a Mimikyu’s murderous visage, he’d have to have incredible will. And…wasn’t dark dangerous to ghost types? He honestly couldn’t remember, but it concerned him.
And what about Omen? Was shi strong enough? Would Honey be able to help hir if not? What would Honey do if he couldn’t? What would Mary do if she learned about it? Worrying scenarios started playing themselves out in his head. Thoughts of death, and estrangement, and panic, and most of all helplessness. It was making him jittery. He needed to move. Cinnamon picked himself up and gave a long, slow stretch.
Pepper noticed and spoke, “Just so you know, Pouncer stopped by a few minutes ago. He said we were excused from work until Honey and Omen are back.”
“Really? What about our chores?” Cinnamon asked, though he hadn’t even thought about work if he was honest with himself.
Pepper sighed, “He said we could make up the time later, and that this was more important.”
“Wow that’s…really nice of him.”
“I guess.” There was a brief pause as Pepper shifted in her seat. “Are you going somewhere?” She asked.
Cinnamon shook his head, “Just stretching my legs.”
“Don’t stray too far.” Pepper warned.
“Don’t worry. I’m a lot more familiar with this place now than last time, and I’ll be in earshot.” Cinnamon quickly left, before the nervous energy in his legs could torture him any longer.
The night shift bartender, some sort of fire-type feline from the smell of him, sat half-awake at his post. Out of customers to serve or bottles to clean, he no doubt was just happy to run out the clock and go to bed. All the chairs besides Pepper’s were upended, which made navigation for Cinnamon so much easier. Besides the ticking of the clock, all was silent.
Cinnamon weaved slowly back and forth between and against the tables; memorizing the positions of some legs and trying to guess the positions of others as he approached. A simple game of instinct: Pushing forward until you were absolutely sure you were about to collide with a leg, then reach out and swipe the air to see if you were right. Or else overestimate the distance bump your nose against it, experiencing a brief moment of shock as you reeled back. In that stifling silence, the loud and sudden scraping of the wooden legs against the floor that accompanied the blunder was a sort of punishment in itself.
There was a feeling, right before he reached each leg, where a sort of invisible, intangible wall would present itself. It was a barrier of certainty, past which the world became a terrifying series of educated guesses. Every day, during his runs, Cinnamon would throw himself through that barrier with reckless abandon; putting all his faith in Sugar to steer him. But now, with only his own instincts to guide him, Cinnamon became cautious, jittery, and slow. He could touch the wall, but he rarely pushed it and never broke it. Only the reassuring presence of a friend could make him pull stunts like that. But the adrenaline, the thrill of breaking his own instincts…it was something else. Exciting, yet terrifying. Something he could never bear to face alone but made his friends all the more special for helping him overcome it.
The clinking of glass bottles interrupted his thoughts. He had been tracing a spiraling path around the tavern, and had arrived at the furthest corner of the room, where a secluded booth offered some scant privacy.
And it was occupied.
By…Rain Flower?
“Hey.” Her voice was hoarse, and morose. But mostly just slurred. She’d been drinking.
“Uh…Hello?” Cinnamon offered. There was a pregnant pause as neither party knew what to say. “Uh, I think we need to talk.”
Rain Flower grunted in agreement and beat the side of the booth’s padded seat, inviting him up. Cinnamon hesitated. ‘Is this wise?’ Probably not. But he wanted to make amends, and this was good a time as any. “So…” He started, only to be immediately interrupted.
“Ya know what ur like?” Rain Flower hiccuped, “Ur like…like a car crash!”
“Huh?” Cinnamon gave her a confused look. Not the most auspicious start…
“-An I’m like…Ahm the teen!” She finished. Her proclamation was accompanied by a cacophony of clattering of glass, leaving Cinnamon to wonder just how much she’d drunk that night. “H…hold on…wait…”
There was a long series of gulps, then the sound of a Water Gun hitting the inside of a container, then more gulping. ‘Is she…drinking her own water attacks?’ Cinnamon speculated, ‘Does that actually work?’
Rain Flower finished her second drink and unceremoniously dropped the glass on the table. When she spoke, she was suddenly a lot more sober. “So, like, when you’re in school or...actually I think I heard it from orientation but I KNOW they do it in schools! Uh...they teach you about drinking responsibly. And there's all this bullshit about bodies and weights and livers and stuff and no one cares. And then they finally tell you your limit. They say ‘You can drink about four bottles and that’s it! Any more than that and you’ll get wasted and hurt yourself’ And you’re like, ‘Cool, four drinks it is!’.”
“Okay?” Cinnamon gave her a concerned look. “But what does that have to do with car crashes?”
“Shuddup! I’m getting there!” Another clattering of glass and more gulping. “So for a time you go drinkin’ four beers and then you think ‘but what if I had a fifth!’ and you do and nothing seems to happen…so now you start drinkin’ five beers and you think that maybe that’s your limit. And then you do maybe six but you start spacing them out and drinking water because you think you remember them saying that helps but whocareswhaddutheyknow? *Hic* Aaanyways, then one day you go and drink some beers and your friend’s like ‘Don’t drive a car you’re drunk!’ and you’re like ‘I know what I’m doing, it's just five drinks and then BANG!” Rain Flower shouted and pounded the table, sending bottles and glass cups everywhere.
Cinnamon reeled backwards and flinched as one, then two, then four glass somethings hit the floor and shattered. “So, you’re saying I’m like a drunk driver?”
“Yea-NO! No, you’re the crash. And I’m the driver and the drinks are like…consent…or something…I thought I knew people and their boundaries and I thought all the official stuff about warning signs and stuff and…stuff…I thought it was all super-safe and boring and overly cautious. So I thought it would be fine if I locked you in my room alone for a quick fuck…because I thought you wanted it. Because I figured deep down, all the boys here always want to get some. That all your stuttering was just nonsense to push past…” Rain Flower rested her head on the table as she spoke.
“Hole-y shit!” Chai’s voice approached the table, marking the official beginning of the Morning shift, “That might just be the deepest thing Rain Flower’s ever said!”
“Huh?” Rain Flower jerked upright next to Cinnamon.
“There was a whole metaphor there! Complete with nuances and everything!” Chai chuckled, “For a moment you almost sounded deep!”
“Oh, fuck you! I’m like, super deep! Remember that time I took a whole Sawsbuck?” Rain Flower’s attitude suddenly returned in force. “Remember how much I took? I’ll tell you how much: ALL OF IT! Balls-deep! That’s how deep I am!”
“Yep. That’s you alright. Suuuuper deep!” Chai sighed sarcastically. “So deep that I’m sure you’re ready to stop drinking and start cleaning your filthy fuckin’ mess!”
“Oh, fuck you!” She repeated.
“I’m gunna go get the dustpan. Don’t. MOVE! Cinnamon, make sure she doesn’t try to run.” And with that the Umbreon padded away.
Rain Flower’s mood instantly shifted the moment Chai was out of hearing range. “Thank you, for zapping me.” She said softly.
Cinnamon gaped at the Vaporeon, “W-What?!”
“You stopped me from making a HUGE mistake. If it wasn’t for you…I might’ve done the same thing to someone else. Someone who couldn’t stop me…I might not have realized what I was doing until it was too late.” Rain Flower choked up slightly, “I would’ve lost my job, my friends…I’m not sure I would be able to live with myself if I were to…you know.”
“Oh, uh…you’re welcome?” Cinnamon offered. Then the Vaporeon pulled him into an unexpected hug.
“Whoa!” Cinnamon yelled in surprise.
“Thankyouthankyouthankyoudon’tyouEVERmentionthistalktoANYONEEVERYOUHEARME?”
“…Sure?” Cinnamon said, confused.
“Good!” The Vaporeon released him almost as quickly as she’d embraced him. “And hey, if you ever are in the mood, Rain Flower is always looking for good dick!”
Cinnamon swayed slightly, trying to process all the sudden mood swings at once, “I’ll…okay, thank you. I guess?”
“Whatever!” Rain Flower took one final sip of her drink and continued, “Hey, if anyone asks, let them know I went to the bathroom.”
“Uh, sure? Wait! What abou-” The creaking of decompressing spring signaled Rainflower’s retreat.
Just as Chai returned with the dustpan.
‘Whoops.’
* * *
Sugar reentered the room, eyes flittering back and forth between Cinnamon working to help Chai clean some sort of apocalyptic beer spill in the corner of the room and Pepper staring out the sole window into the parking lot. She was muttering to herself, quietly, with eyes narrowed in concentration. Sugar got the feeling she was plotting something.
“twenty-nine…thirty…thirty-on-” The gentle rumble of thunder cut Pepper off. “Thirty one…” The Chikorita looked at the clock and did some mental math, “So six miles, and about…two miles in four…thirty an hour…Okay!” Pepper suddenly turned around and swung across the room to the pile of supplies she’d fetched from their room. She reached inside and quickly discarded several heavier objects -electronics, water bottles and the like- before dumping the remnants in a bag and slinging it Sugar’s way. The Emolga stumbled backwards as he caught it; the thing had some serious momentum!
“Suit up, Cinnamon! We’re going out!” Pepper called.
The Linoone dropped the dustpan in his mouth to look at her, confused. “What’s going on?” He asked.
Pepper simply grabbed him around the barrel and deposited him next to Sugar. “The storm’s letting up, so we’re gunna go find Honey before the trail goes cold.” She explained.
“Are you sure?” Sugar asked. He could hear the rain pounding against the window, and it certainly didn’t sound like it was letting up. “But…what about Eclipse?”
“Oh, we’ll keep an eye out. Could get lucky and bag both of them at once!”
‘That wasn’t what I meant...’ Sugar pondered pressing Pepper further, but she was already outlining her plan.
“See, we got this system where if one pokémon gets hurt, the other can suck them into a Pokéball and carry them back. I figure, you guys can act as my second, and since you’re so fast it’ll be a cinch outpacing a mere Mightyena!” Pepper pressed her pokéball into Sugar’s hands. “-And,” She added, “If you guys were hurt -which you won’t be because I’ll be there with you- I can just carry you into the treetops and take you home myself.”
Cinnamon hummed uncertainly, “But it’s been storming for hours. How is one team supposed to find Honey in all that forest if the water’s wiped away the scent?”
“I’ll show you in a minute. Now suit up! We’re going outside!”
Sugar looked at Cinnamon, who returned a doubtful expression. But Mary did put her in charge, and they both knew she’d keep them safe…
“But maybe you should go with someone more, you know, fight-y?” Sugar asked.
Pepper huffed, “I left you alone for two minutes yesterday and found Cinnamon locked alone in a room with a predatory Vaporeon. I’m not leaving you two alone again.”
“We could stay with Prometheus!” Cinnamon offered.
“If you can name someone who’s free and willing for a hike in the rain, I’m all-ears.” By her tone, Pepper knew they wouldn’t find one.
Cinnamon looked around anyways, then fixated on the sound of grumpy Umbreon and hollow bottles. “Hey Chai, where’s October?”
Chai spat the last of the drinks into a janitor’s trolly. “He’s in Florida. Went looking for Ellen and Errol.”
“Is that close by?”
“If you start walking, you might get there by the end of next month.” He replied, wryly.
Sugar frowned and thought through their options. “Maybe…Rock? Or one of the volunteers you met?”
“All asleep or home or working. That’s why the manhunts are scheduled after first shift.”
Cinnamon perked his head up, “How about the Elega-”
“No.”
“-Okay.” Cinnamon slouched back down. Sugar reluctantly laid out their supplies and began saddling up the Linoone.
“Take the normal potions, in case we need a quick boost.” Pepper advised.
“Right…” Sugar said. Pepper watched, impatiently, before turning and skittering on all-eights towards a door near the far corner of the bar; one that led outside to a designated smoking area.
By the time they were ready, Pepper had noted the trepidation on her friend’s faces. “You guys alright?”
“Just a bit nervous going out alone.” Cinnamon admitted.
“But you do trust me to protect you, right?” she asked.
Cinnamon replied without a moment’s hesitation, “Always.”
“Good!” Pepper nodded and smiled, then turned and opened the door-only to find a very unimpressed Mienshao staring her down with arms crossed.
“Pepper.”
Pepper jerked back slightly in surprise, but quickly recovered. “Elegance.” Pepper said, tone neutral, “What are you doing out here?”
“I volunteered to keep watch over the smoker’s exit.” Elegance replied calmly, “Since I was already up, and the professionals have been working overtime to keep this place safe, I thought I would take a shift and let someone else rest.”
“How generous.” Pepper mumbled.
“But what of you? Why are you here?” The accusatory tone in her voice indicated she already knew.
“The rain’s letting up, so I’m going to find Honey.” The Chikorita’s vines creaked softly as they extended to bring her face-to-face with the Meinshao.
“You’re going to find them. Alone. In the rain. By yourself?”
“I have friends.” Pepper indicated the Pokémon beneath her. “Now move.”
Elegance stood her ground. “You will wait for Petier to organize the search parties like everyone else. Remember what he said, Pepper: You can’t track them in the rain-”
“I have a plan for that!”
“-And its needlessly dangerous-”
“So am I!”
“And now you have the nerve to coax your friends to come with you?!” Elegance pointed at Cinnamon, “He’s blind! He’ll be nothing but a liability!”
“Don’t. Call. Them. That.” Pepper bristled.
“I-it’s alright. I’m not offended or anything!” Cinnamon’s placations fell on deaf ears. “…Guys?” Sugar winced and leaned back to look across the barroom, wondering if he should call Chai before things could escalate.
Pepper continued, “They’re gunna be my patrol partners, and I know they’re safer with me than alone in this place-”
“I beg to differ. Go back inside, Pepper.”
“You’re not my boss, and you’re not my trainer. Move.”
“No.”
Pepper and Elegance stared each other down with a very awkward Cinnamon and Sugar caught between them. Just beyond the threshold, rain continued to trickle. Sugar’s grip tightened on the reins. If this turned violent, and management heard about it… ‘Chai seems like the type to keep a secret. Maybe us three could pin them down before anyone got hurt?’ He looked back at the well-toned Mienshao, then at the floating ball of rage and green limbs. ‘Probably not.’
“…I’m never going to get through to you, am I?” Pepper murmured. Her voice was a mixture of anger, frustration and…resignation.
“I was about to say the same thing.” Elegance replied, the Meinshao’s voice considerably more cross. More determined.
The silence stretched on a little longer.
“…So be it.” Pepper hooked a vine under Cinnamon’s barrel and yanked him and Sugar yelping back inside. A moment later, the door slammed shut. In Elegance’s face, from the sound of it. Cinnamon could hear a muffled grunt of annoyance through the door.
“Whew!” Sugar slumped down onto Cinnamon’s neck in relief, “I thought for sure you were about to try fighting our way out!”
“Believe me, I thought about it. Bossy bitch, who does she think she’s fooling ordering us around? Calling us cripples, acting like she’s an authority on our own damn…” The vine tightened slightly. Not enough to hurt, but certainly enough to stop Cinnamon from moving away. “But then I had a better idea!”
Sugar a skeptical look. “…and?”
“Follow me!” She said simply and made her way towards the stairwell. Cinnamon and Sugar quickly followed, not that they had a choice with Pepper’s vine still wrapped around them.
Neither protested when she led them past the second floor.
Nor the third.
They were certainly looking uncertain by the time they opened the door onto the roof though. Especially when they saw how hard it was raining. The gale had died down, but water still hammered off the cracked and pitted asphalt and pooled around the AC units. Pepper wasn’t looking at them, though; she was too busy looking forward.
“If Elegance is guarding the front entrance, she’ll undoubtedly be tapped into the minds of the other guards watching the other doors through the psychics.” Pepper explained, voice straining to be heard over the storm. “But since nobody’s gunna work outside in the rain, we know the roof watchers will be off duty!”
“Okay, but how does that help us leave?!” Sugar was already seeing Pepper’s answer as she approached the eastern edge of the building with alarming speed. He tried to pull back on the reins, but Cinnamon’s blunted claws simply rattled over the asphalt as Pepper’s vines began to lift him in the air. Sugar peaked down and gasped. The roof didn’t seem nearly this high from ground level!
“If we can’t leave by the main entrances, then we’ll just have to take an alternate approach!”
“Pepper-”
“Relax! I got this! Just sit back, relax-”
“Pepper this i-!” A Vine wrapped itself around Sugar’s face.
“And try not to make too much noise!”
And then without further preamble, the Chikorita launched herself -and her friends- off the top roof of Café Plaisir.
He was really starting to question her judgement.
* * *
“here.”
“Here?”
“here.” Hastur confirmed, sliding off Omen’s back. The Absol was forced to suppress another shiver. The two of them had been traveling since midnight, moving briskly eastward deeper and deeper into the forest. Now it was nearly noon. Omen’s natural familiarity with the forest had afforded them a significant speed increase over any human hiker, but it had her wondering…
“How long did it take your trainer to find Plaisir?” Omen asked.
“four days.” Hastur replied. They pointed south, downhill into a valley. “first water. then food. then orientation...” They pointed at a nearby hill, which would have afforded those who climbed it an unobstructed view of the surrounding wilderness. “then road.” Hastur pointed back towards the main road running West from Oklahoma City, “then Plaisir.” They finished by pointing directly behind them towards the cafe.
Omen nodded. Their trainer, Mary, had good survival instincts, which had ironically prolonged her time in the forest; had she stuck to any single direction, she would’ve found a road or gas station within a day’s walk. Then Omen looked back down into the ravine: the origin of both their troubles, and Mary’s team.
It was almost invisible to those who were not actively looking for it. The ravine’s edges were obscured by brambles and its depths were shadowed by the trees above, and a thick coating of fallen leaves obscured the area still further giving it the appearance of nearly flat ground. The slopes were steep and treacherous, with sharp and unforgiving boulders holding back layers of loose dirt and old leaves that would slip under the slightest pressure. Some sun-bleached bones at the bottom, warped and weathered beyond all recognition, gave testimony to the deceptively mundane danger of the geography.
All in all, it was a rather fitting place for an eldritch wound in reality.
Omen carefully slid down the slope, crouched low on all-fours with legs spread and claws sunk in the soil. Even then, shi hit the bottom uncomfortably fast. A moment later, Hastur’s colander slid past and bounced off a half-buried stone before spinning to a halt. The Mimikyu’s limbs emerged and indicated a point near the center of the depression, ‘there.’
Omen didn’t need telling. The rift was obvious if you knew where to look: It was faint distortion in the air that lazily shifted and curled about itself, making no sound and emitting no light. A Pokémon could stumble right past it none the wiser, were it not for the cold fear the sludge forced on passersby. Though shi couldn’t see the thick sludgy eldritch aura, Omen could feel it. It ran between her toes and stuck to her coat and turned her blood to ice. Above, the trees and foliage were also affected; they swayed to a wind that wasn’t there, trunks withered on one side, and the weeds poking through the detritus turned steadily yellower the further one went into the ravine.
Instinctively, Omen reached for hir Aurasight...and then bit back a scream as the talisman around her neck started melting and her mind was instantly subjected to another overzealous purge.
Hastur quickly warped a ribbon over hir eyes. “no looking.” they said quickly, “unsafe.
A moment later it was over. Omen had collapsed back onto the grass at some point, exhausted and more than a little woozy. When shi came to, shi looked down at the talisman to find it warm to the touch, and changed. It was like an ice sculpture sitting in the sun: the sharpest edges smoothed over and the once perfectly circular shape elongated by gravity into an irregular oval shape. Whatever was through that portal, it had overloaded the runes in much the same way too much electricity could melt copper wire.
Omen took a moment to recover on the floor. “We need to...close this.” She huffed. “Get all the...sludge cleaned up!”
“am sorry. please rest. Hastur slowly trundled back and forth across the ravine, staring and noting seemingly random points in the air and waving his ribbons-arms about as if to collect the emotional tar. From the frustrated and erratic movements, it didn’t appear to be working. In fact, as Hastur’s arm approached the sludge...or where Omen believed the sludge to be at least, it grew distorted, enlarged and started jiggling erratically.
Omen suddenly remembered the ball of sludge hovering over the road. How the other emotional residue seemed to orbit and coalesce around it, and how it stuck to everything in turn. “Wait!” Omen called and rose to her feet. “I have an idea!” Hastur’s arm disappeared under the colander and turned to look at her.
Instead of explaining, the Absol slowly began to focus. Shi searched out and focused her negative emotions, balling them up into a concentrated mental sphere which soon manifested into her mouth. Shi was hardly lacking any ammunition, given the past twelve hours of fear and suspicion and hostility and regret and exhaustion, but shi nonetheless kept the energy compact and restrained. Shi opened her mouth, and a Shadowball no larger than a pea emerged...
It made it maybe a meter before the ball of negative energy was the size of a tennis ball, then a softball, then bigger than her own head. And as it gained in mass it also began to accelerate. By the time it reached the wound in reality, the Shadowball was moving at freeway speeds and was as large as a small car.
And then it was gone. Consumed by the rift without a trace.
“The sludge seems to attract -and is attracted to- emotional auras,” Omen explained, “So if we launch Shadow balls, which are made from aura, into the rift through the sludge, they’ll drag the Sludge in with them!”
Hastur absorbed the report for a moment before curiously producing another arm. The tip split into a trio of long, claw-like fingers between which a Shadowball of their own appeared.
-And exploded-
Hastur shrieked as the ball rapidly supercharged itself with eldritch glue and swelled to the size of a car before detonating, scattering leaves and dirt everywhere. Omen sneezed and blinked away the dust in her eyes.
Hastur’s disguise was now well and truly ruined: All of their wool and cotton had been disintegrated by the blast. All that remained was a rather sorry-looking dented colander, and the mask was torn along the top of the neck and sagged slightly. And yet...
And yet Omen couldn’t help but feel slightly more comfortable now that the ghost had proven themself so fallible. So...mortal.
‘...whoops.’
“Just generate a very small Shadowball, let the tar do the rest. -and throw it quickly!” Omen Instructed.
Hastur complied, and tried again, tossing an underpowered Shadowball into the rift. Still nowhere near as compact or controlled as Omens, it expanded and warped as it absorbed more and more energy. Then it disappeared, the portal consuming it without a trace.
“it works.” Hastur observed.
“Then let’s get to work!” Omen charged another Shadowball, mirrored by Hastur.
Then another.
Then another.
They quickly found a rhythm, working from opposite sides and tracing slowly expanding circles around the rip. As one charged a ball the other would release their own. First Omen, then Hastur. First a tight, carefully controlled attack, then an organic, almost ovaloid and often unstable manifestation. Battler’s uncompromising control contrasted with the ghost’s instinctive creation. You could tell a lot about a pokémon from how they manifest their attacks, and if shadow balls were manifestations of dark emotions, then what did that say about those uncontained, unpredictable attacks Hastur was throwing?
With such turbulence, it was only a matter of time before they made a mistake. Omen was almost unsurprised when, just as they were completing their final orbits at the edge of the gully, one of Hastur’s Shadowballs suddenly veered off course and bounced directly at her face. Shi didn’t even flinch; just caught the ball in one shadowclaw’d arm and held it there in front of hir, noting the way it pulsed and shifted every which way. “There’s a lot of different emotions in this.” Shi observed. “Guilt, fear, doubt, confusion, a little bit of anger…”
“sorry.”
“What is troubling you?”
“…”
“You can tell me.” Shi insisted. But there was no reply. Sighing, Omen hefted the ball back at Hastur. “Here, catch.”
Hastur reached out and took back control of the ball. Omen had nearly turned away when they suddenly spoke. “am failure.”
“Huh?”
“seen yesterday. tripped you. failed quippie. failed pepper. the storm. leaking portal.” Hastur held the Shadowball in one hand and slowly approached the portal. “am liability...should leave.”
“What?” Omen gave him a look of concern.
Hastur reached out and inserted the Shadowball into the portal, then continued moving forward into it. “try again. clean slate.”
“Now wait a moment,” Omen hurried forward and pushed Hastur’s colander into the ground with a paw, pinning them. “Running away is not going to help matters.”
“nor staying.” The Mimikyu’s flat tone made it sound less like a morose self-observation and more a matter-of-fact, which was almost depressing.
“Debatable,” Omen said. “You’re certainly helping me, right now - and how is me tripping over you your fault?”
“…should foreseen.”
“And Pepper’s fight? Those were her decisions, not yours.”
“could stop. my fault.” Without the old sweatshirt and cotton, Omen could see the Mimikyu’s eyes shift to watch her through the colander’s holes. But the rest of the creature’s form remained supernaturally shrouded…or maybe blocked by the talisman glowing beneath hir neck.
Omen shook her head, “You can’t blame yourself for other’s actions like that! If you blame yourself for everything bad that happens to your team then they will never be allowed to grow, and you will always be miserable.”
“have power. predict future. have duty.” They carefully began pushing back against Omen’s paw, “failed duty”.
“Your power. It cannot be perfect if you’ve made mistakes. Perhaps you should not rely on it so much?” Omen frowned, but when it was clear Hastur wasn’t making any moves for the portal shi let them go. Still, shi remained tense in case they tried anything foolish.
Hastur carefully turned their disguise around to “look” at hir. “intellectus perfect. not me. is complicated.” Ribbons spouted from beneath the colander to fiddle with the wet leaves. “done poorly. need better.”
“Of course, you could have done better. Everyone can do better; that’s mortality! What’s important is you did your best.”
“not enough.”
“Who told you what you have done for your friends isn’t enough?”
“…Prometheus.”
“Prometheus…” Omen mulled over the past weeks events, and what shi knew about the Arcanine. “Yes, I can see how he might find your efforts lacking. But!” Shi quickly interjected, “He doesn’t know how your powers work. None of us do! So perhaps you should explain it to me, and we can speak to him about what happened?”
Hastur sat stock-still for a long time, almost a full minute before answering, “…okay.”
Omen nodded approvingly and took a step back, trusting the Mimikyu not to run anymore. The whole area was starting to feel…normal, warmer, even with the rain still slowly trickling down. The sense of wrongness hadn’t completely dissipated, but it wasn’t nearly as oppressive as it had been an hour ago. “Now, how do we seal this portal for good?” Shi asked.
...
“...Hastur?”
‘am sorry. cannot.’
“What?” Omen asked, confused. “Why?”
‘know not.’
Omen stared at Hastur for a moment, then slapped a paw to her forehead. It was more a gesture of exhaustion than anger but the Mimikyu’s eyes disappeared regardless.
“am sorry.”
“It’s...fine...” Omen lay moved to lean against one of the great boulders that defined the gully’s shape. “We just need to think of something. We can’t just sit and wait for this to disappear on its own.”
“true.” Hastur’s voice echoed from inside their colander. “six weeks. if unaided.”
“...Maybe we could plug it with a boulder? Or find some way to tie it shut?” Omen shook her head at her own proposals. You couldn’t plug a hole in the fabric of the universe with a big rock: It’d fall in at best, and even if it stopped physical objects, the goop was intangible and would leak right through.
thread. ethereal thread... Hastur mused. Those red-dot eyes reappeared and looked at Omen...then continued looking...staring. Omen started to fidget.
“...yes.” Hastur started shuffling towards Omen, and the Absol had to momentarily fight the urge to back up at response. “your horn. need it.”
“My horn?” Omen’s eyes widened. Hir Horn? They wanted a piece of her horn? Omen wasn’t vain, but an Absol’s horn was precious, and never regrew. It was also very sensitive, like an extension of the brain, to the point where damage to the horn could give one literal headaches! Shi’d rather lose a limb!
“yes.” The Mimikyu paused before trying to explain further, “psychic medium”.
“Oh...” Omen fell back on hir haunches. “How much?”
“just some. little enough.”
“Can you show me?” Shi asked. Hastur responded by holding up a ribbon that split into three long, wicked-looking fingers. The length between them was…substantial. Most of the horn even! But it had only been a week, and the material spilling from rip was disrupting and exaggerating the weather. Who knew what would seep through if it was left open for another month.
Or even what creatures might stumble out from the void between.
“trust me. question.” Hastur said.
...
Omen grit hir teeth. Shi hated the idea losing hir horn. Shi desperately wanted to tell him no.
But…
If shi really was the forest guardian shi fancied hirself, then it wasn’t even a choice.
“Alright,” Omen leaned down and allowed the Mimikyu to approach. “Make it quick.”
“thank you.” Another ribbon slipped out from under the Colander, then another, then another. They wrapped around hir and pulled themselves tight, immobilizing hir head and pinning it down to the ground. Shi tried shifting to a more comfortable position, but as Hastur approached Omen’s shifting turned to instinctive struggle. But the shadowclaws were unyielding. Omen looked up to see a tri-clawed limb fold into itself; into a single, scythelike blade…
“W-wait!” Omen yelled suddenly.
Too late.
Pain erupted out of hir horn. Omen screamed in fear and agony and…blinked.
Omen looked up. Hastur was slowly backed away, that terrifying scythe once again a three-digit hand holding a single strand of keratin as thin and flexible as a hair. It was enough to make the Absol laugh. True enough, the strand was exactly as long as the Mimikyu had indicated; But it wasn’t the whole of that length of her horn they needed but just…some. As they said.
Meanwhile, Hastur had set about sewing the rift shut, like some sort of cosmic suture.
“Alright then…” Omen sighed in relief. Shi settled to the floor, suddenly exhausted. The pain in her horn felt similar to that of a papercut, but in her brain: Itchy and distracting. Suddenly shi had to resist the urge to find a place to rest. “How long will it take, with your repairs?”
“two weeks. two days.” Hastur replied.
“We should come back to check on it in a week, then. Will your friends be okay with that?”
There was a pause. “yes.” Then another pause. Omen felt her blood turning cold again. “very bad. very bad. VERYBAD.”
Omen grunted as Hastur’s panic manifested as a psychic pulse strong enough to sway the trees around the ravine. “Hastur, stop!”
“no. no. no. no…” Hastur was scrambling towards the slope at the end of the ravine, and paying hir no mind. Omen quickly moved to intercept, pinning them down against the leaves for the second time that day.
“Hastur, slow down! Please, tell me what’s wrong!” Shi said.
Hastur tried to pull themself out of the pin fruitlessly, “friends. trouble. injuries. peril. unforeseen. should forsee. did not. very bad. failure…”
“Hastur, tell me what’s going on. I want to help you!”
All of a sudden, the little ghost’s struggles ceased entirely. They didn’t speak for a long minute, and when they did speak, their voice cracked slightly with each syllable.
“friends. tracking us. mightyena attack. too late…my fault.”
Omen gaped in horror, then quickly scrambled to crouch next to him. “Get on!”
“too late. too far. hours away.” Hastur made no attempt to climb onto hir back. Instead, they were turning back towards the recently repaired portal.
“Hastur.”
Hastur started moving towards the rupture.
“Hastur!” Omen yelled, sharply. The Mimikyu turned around.
“These symbols,” shi asked, “What do they mean?”
The Mimikyu just watched her uncertainly.
“Humor me.”
“different things. mind protection. sight discretion. my name…” A ribbon pointed at each of the symbols in turn.
Omen hummed and nodded, “’sight discretion.’ That is why I did not see you before in the bar?”
“yes. sight discretion. beneath notice.”
“And so, when you took your disguise off to repair it in the lounge yesterday, you inadvertently exposed me to your…alien nature in all its totality.” Omen finished.
“am sorry.”
“But that’s just it! There was no way you could have known. There are not many who use aurasight as their primary sight, and there is a reason for that. I have become...cavalier...in my constant usage of the ability, and never once thought I would see something that was beyond my comprehension. And you had no reason to expect someone to randomly wander into the lounge with it on!”
Hastur stared unblinking, leading Omen to wonder if they even could blink.
“What I’m saying is,” Omen finished, “is that what happened back there was my fault as much as yours, and what Pepper did on Monday was her fault, and what happened to Quippie was Eclipse’s fault. Not everything, certainly not in the past few days, is your responsibility!”
Those red dots quivered slightly, “…could prevent.”
“Maybe. Hypothetically. But none of those events are on your conscience so long as you did your best to prevent them, or mitigate them.” Omen crouched down again and looked at Hastur invitingly. “We’ve done all we can here. Let’s go home, and you can tell me more about this ‘Intellectus’ of yours.”
The eyes blinked out, then reappeared. The creature inside considered their options in silence. They started to edge uncertainly towards Omen, like a Pachirisu approaching a man’s offered crumb. Omen waited patiently. Until eventually…
“honey.”
“What?”
please. called honey. by friends.
Omen smiled. “Glad to be of help, Honey.” The Mimikyu climbed aboard hir back, and Omen carefully began to claw her way up the slippery slope towards Plaisir.
“Now, tell me about this ‘intellectus’ of yours.”
* * *
“Honey!”
“Honey!?”
“Honey, you out there?”
Pepper’s “Plan”, and Sugar couldn’t emphasize the quotes hard enough, turned out to be forty percent guesswork and fifty percent yelling their throats raw. The remaining ten percent had started their journey out confident enough: Pepper had seen Honey flee into the undergrowth the previous night, and deduced that the Mimikyu’s half-repaired disguise would be leaving a trail of ripped cotton that would be easy to spot, assuming the storm didn’t wash it all away.
And that had born fruit for the first hour or so, but then the fake wool began to grow scarce, and those bits that were around were often soaked in brown mud and almost indistinguishable from the foliage. Their breadcrumbs spent, they had proceeded to follow the nearby game trails, and when those had ended, Pepper began feeling through the foliage for damaged branches. Their progress slowed to a crawl, and their movement grew more and more aimless.
Sugar idly plucked another leaf from the bushes and began folding and tearing it apart. He threw another few unenthusiastic calls while scanning the treeline, more out of boredom than anything else. ‘Maybe we should turn back, before we’re missed…’ He looked over at Pepper and she seemed to sense what he was about to say.
“Not until we find Honey or Eclipse or both.” She said.
‘Because you’re worried for Honey, or because you don’t want to return to get lectured empty-handed?’ Sugar sighed and looked away, unwilling to confront the Chikorita knowing she was on the warpath.
And then Pepper exploded.
Looking back, something pitch-black and incredibly quick had flitted across Sugar’s field of view, covering the length of the field and impacting the Chikorita behind him in an instant. But his mind hadn’t even processed what he’d seen when the shockwave hit and nearly sent him flying off his mount. Cinnamon rocked below him, briefly losing and regaining his balance. The Linoone’s head whipped back and forth and confusion. “What’s going on?!”
Sugar twisted about, first towards Pepper, who had been flung shrieking into a ditch by the impact, then back in the direction of their assailant.
…
‘Oh shit.’ Sugar had never seen a victim of Honey’s curse. At least not one who’d survived without Honey’s immediate treatment. Now that he had, he hoped to Arceus he never did again.
It was terrifying. The Mightyena’s sole remaining eye, once crimson and yellow like any other Mightyena, was now blood red with a pitch-black iris. The side of his face was soaked through with bloody tears that dripped from his chin, and when he opened his mouth, there drooled a small torrent of frothy pink bloody saliva. Huge chunks of that patchy, uneven coat had been lost, and the scrapes and cuts on the skin below suggested they had been torn out by the beast himself. The exposed flesh didn’t bleed, and was an unhealthy pale color, and if he’d had time, Sugar could’ve counted every rib even from across the glade. But the worst part was the expression on his face. Not fear, or horror, or nausea, like Honey’s previous would-be victims, but pure unbridled rage and purpose burned within that sole remaining eye.
And he was fast. By the time Sugar had taken in the details of their assailant he was already about to pounce.
“RUN!” Sugar screamed.
Cinnamon didn’t hesitate or ask questions. He followed orders and trusted his rider, regardless of the order; anything less could spell doom at extreme speeds. Cinnamon dug in his claws and accelerated forward. For a fraction of a second it appeared they were too late, Eclipse fell upon them, reached forward, and slammed his claws-
-onto nothing but dirt and the last few strands of hair from Cinnamon’s long, bushy tail.
Eclipse roared. Sugar screamed. Adrenaline took over and moments later they were sprinting into the forest with the Mightyena in hot pursuit. Sugar tore his view away and forced himself to focus on steering. If they fell, or if they stopped, they would both be dead. But if they could just lead Eclipse away from Pepper, maybe she could recover and fight back. Or at least, maybe he and Cinnamon could lead him far enough away that she could hide, and they escape onto the road or a clearing.
It was a fool’s hope, but it was all they had.
Behind them, Sugar could hear that juggernaut’s claws scrabbling against roots and his great mass bowling through the bushes behind them. The unfamiliar woods were filled with pitfalls, barriers and trees that hemmed them in and slowed them down. There were no straightaways or game trails to open up the distance, but plenty of dead ends. It was a testament to rider’s skill and steed’s trust that Cinnamon never questioned Sugar’s calls to turn or break stride, and that they never once tripped or stumbled. But these were the Mightyena’s woods, and he matched every jump and twist the Linoone made with practiced ease.
It was in the middle of dodging around a great oak that Eclipse finally caught up. Sugar didn’t even see it coming, focused as he was on the foliage ahead. He screamed in surprise and terror as the massive Mightyena tackle-charged him and Cinnamon, knocking the former clear into the next glade and sending the latter twisting and flailing blindly into a patch of long grass.
Sugar wasn’t given a moment to regain his senses. The instant he tumbled to a stop, a clawed limb yanked him back out of the bush and pinned him to the forest floor.
Eclipse roared, soaking Sugar with spit, “Where is it! Where did it go! Answer me!”
Sugar’s eyes widened in bewilderment, “W-what?!”
“The thing! It was with you! It must die! TELL ME!”
Sugar screamed, too desperate and too terrified to think.
“WORTHLESS PREY!” A bloody mouthful of teeth lunged towards Sugar’s face-
-Only for a beige-and-brown blur to ram Eclipse's head and send him stumbling sideways. Cinnamon may not have been able to see the Mightyena, but Eclipse’s roars were more than enough to dial in his location. Sort of. If he held still.
The monster retaliated immediately with a swipe of his claw, and Cinnamon was sent yelping and bleeding into the bushes. A massive shadow ball born of pure frustration followed him out, and the foliage erupted with smoke, splinters, and blood. The Linoone had only bought Sugar a moment.
But it was enough.
Sugar snatched his satchel from the ground and struggled to his feet. As the Mightyena lunged for him again, he brought the capacitor up between him and those massive bloody jaws like a shield and braced. Shadow-reinforced teeth sliced clean through the electronics, into the battery, and released nearly three months of accumulated power in an instant. The satchel explo-
…
Sugar woke up.
He wished he hadn’t.
Everything hurt, from aching limbs and burning wings to a terrible headache and a cold stinging sensation in the side of his gut. Sugar groaned and forced himself upright, hissing as the pain in his side intensified. He took stock of his injuries.
Arms and wings bleeding but functional.
Legs bruised and aching but good.
Tail unharmed
His back and neck were intact.
He looked down at his stomach. A jagged shard of metal the size of his hand had lodged itself in his side, explaining the terrible coldness there. He prodded it, winced, and left it where it was. He didn’t know if it had nicked an artery or not, and the last thing he needed was to lose more blood. Even if it made movement harder. Maybe if Cinnamon still had the potions, he...could...
‘Cinnamon?‘
The Emolga quickly looked around and found his friend lying motionless not a foot away. Sugar’s breath caught in his throat. There was so much...he was...
The Linoone gave a long, shuddering sigh.
“Cinnamon!” Sugar yelled and threw himself at the Linoone’s face, sobbing.
Cinnamon hissed in pain and jerked awake. His voice was soft and wavered with his ragged breaths. “Sugar? Where are we?”
Sugar couldn’t bring himself to articulate an answer at first. The wounds on his friend were...bad. Really bad. Bloody and burned and dirty and huge, stretching down the entirety of his flank. He could see exposed bone...
“Sugar? Sugar it’s alright.” Cinnamon whispered. “I-I can barely feel it! Really!”
‘That’s not a good thing, you idiot!’ Sugar snorted and hugged his friend harder. “W-we need to get out of here!”
“Can’t. My leg...”
Sugar looked over, deliberately avoiding looking at the terrible Shadowball wound and fixing his stare on Cinnamon’s exposed hind leg. Sure enough, it was twisted around at an unnatural angle, though whether it was broken or dislocated he couldn’t be sure. Either way, it was beyond his ability to fix. ‘What are we going to do?’
Cinnamon’s ears perked up. “He’s coming...” He warned. Sugar interposed himself between the wounded Linoone and the den’s entrance. Not sure what, precisely, he intended to do but determined not to let his friend die.
For a moment, everything went dark as the Mightyena framed himself at the den’s entrance. He was twitching erratically, murmuring nonsense under his breath. Something hung out of his mouth...
Sugar collapsed, retching. It was a corpse. The poor unfortunate, whatever it was, had been ripped apart beyond recognition, and now Eclipse had brought home the leftovers. Sugar forced himself to look again; to make sure it wasn’t Pepper between that monster’s jaws...no. It was too big, and whatever it was had had fur. Then he caught the Mightyena’s eye. Sugar fell back onto the floor eyes wide with fear.
“W-What do you want with us?!” Sugar asked.
The Mightyena considered his prey for a moment. He dropped the carcass on the ground. “It’s in my head!“ he rasped, his voice barely above a mutter, “It whispers to me constant talking constant threats gives me nightmares blood everywhere it won’t go away!”
“It?” Sugar’s eyes widened.
“IT! You have not seen it I have seen it I’ve seen its kind I’ve seen its face it is not natural it is not true flesh it is a herald, a vanguard, they are trying to KILL ME!” He spat.
Sugar flinched. Eclipse was clearly unhinged, even more so than before. ‘Honey, what did you do to him?’
The mightyena wheeled around and snapped at his own shadow, then growled in frustration. “Damn them! Damn it! When I find it I’m going to rip it apart!”
“M-maybe you can come back to Plaisir? I’m sure we could...help?” It was a half-lie. Sugar was sure Honey could do something to stop the curse, but he had no idea where they were or if they’d be willing or even if Honey’s ‘cures’ would be worse or better than the ailment.
The Mightyena didn’t seem to hear him, anyways. “Can’t sleep can’t think too much talking never stops I see it I. See. IT” The words came fast and breathless, but then Eclipse turned to his prisoners. “...But you. It likes you. It came for you. So it will come for you and I will kill it and the voices will stop!”
He loomed over the wounded pair, close enough to let his putrid breath flow over their faces. “...And then...then I will feast!”
“Eclipse...” Cinnamon finally spoke, his voice pleading and desperate, “Please, you don’t need Sugar for that. If you could let him go, maybe he could lead Honey to you?”
Eclipse cocked his head in confusion. Sugar just gaped at his friend. “Cinnamon don’t-“
“He’s not even a morsel to you! A-and he’s not a threat, either! There’s no reason for you to hurt him! Please, let him go ho-ome!” Cinnamon’s voice trailed off into a ragged wheeze.
There was a moment of silence as Eclipse studied the duo. Sugar held his breath, half-worried Cinnamon had just given Eclipse an excuse to kill one of them, half worried still that he might agree and force him to leave Cinnamon alone with a madmon.
Then the Mightyena asked quietly, “Why do you keep calling me that?”
“...Huh?” Sugar returned the hunter’s nonplussed look.
“Who’s ‘Eclipse’?”
* * *
Single-handedly keeping Cafe Plaisir afloat was at the best of times a monumental task. Not because they didn’t make any money; far from it! No, the real issues, in Clarice’s opinion, were her boss and the staff. The waiters of Plaisir had a nasty habit of being…cavalier with Plaisir property. Especially property of the expensive, fragile nature, and it was starting to show in their insurance payments.
And then there was Firenze. He was never content, never satisfied. He always found something in need of improvement and was never happy with ‘decent’ when he could have excellence instead. And it was Clarice’s job to remind him that money was, in fact, an object. One they often couldn’t afford to waste.
‘We need expensive silken sheets’, ‘We should invest in an RV’, ‘Let’s turn this simple repair job into a months-long renovation that could bankrupt the Cafe!’ It was always something! Especially given Firenze’s latest ambition, which should bear fruit would require a massive load...And that was at the best of times.
Now was not one of those times. Clarice’s inboxes sat flooded with leave requests. Enough requests to put the short-term income of the Cafe in jeopardy. Not a problem! Clarice could find plenty of reasons to deny short-notice requests, especially from the less profitable staff.
But then there were the resignations. Half a dozen buried at the bottom of the to-do list. Waiters and staff with enough money and morals to quit with the confidence that they could find work elsewhere. Those were the real problem, because Clarice had seen to it that Plaisir’s administration was as lean as possible. That meant losing even one admin could create a strain on the whole system, and training a replacement would only increase the strain, which would lead to backlogs, delays, reduced quality of service, shoddier services...
The creaking of hinges and an influx of hideous warmth alerted Clarice to a visitor. She quickly smoothed her features to present an impassive facade and looked up.
Wraith quickly shut the door behind her, almost as eager to escape the wretched heat as Clarice. In that sense, the Glaceon supposed, the two of them were kin.
“Wraith,” Clarice said, still typing away, “How can I...help you.” Not her usual greeting, but then Wraith wasn’t her usual petulant employee: She had done her job, offered no complaints, asked for nothing, made no messes, and intended to leave well before the law could demand any inconvenient benefits from the Cafe. She was, in Clarice’s opinion, the perfect employee. Clarice wasn’t even sure if she’d partaken in any of the Cafe’s ‘services’ which was a great bonus in her book.
...Did Froslass even have real genitals? Come to think of it, perhaps Coco ought to find more ghost-types for their support staff, rather than more raunchy, irresponsibly wasteful mammals and reptiles...
“Greetings, Clarice, Ma’am.” Wraith broke Clarice out of her stupor. She hovered in the center of the room, making no move towards the chairs. “I wished to discuss my future employment here with the cafe.”
That gave Clarice pause. “Continued Employment?” She asked, “I thought you intended to drift North before the weather warmed.”
Wraith folded her arms. “And I did, but Firenze approached me with an opportunity. He said he was impressed by my handling of recent crises and wanted to see about making me a permanent addition-“
“Oh re-“
“-In Hired Resources.”
Clarice paused. “We don’t have any openings in HR.”
“Firenze offered to extend the terms of my employment until June.” Wraith continued, “He said he wanted greater redundancy in the HR department, that he was concerned about reports of there being ‘no one to talk to’.”
“Interesting...” Clarice narrowed her eyes. ‘What are you up to now, Firenze? Is this another of your pet projects come to complicate my life?’
“So I wanted to speak with you about the new position requirements.”
Clarice wordlessly tabbed out of her work and brought out Wraith’s file. “You understand the nature of this ‘opportunity’, correct? That you would have to work here full-time, even in the heat, and that it would primarily involve desk work.”
“Yes, of course.” Wraith replied respectfully. “As you may remember, I am completing my business degree at the University of Anchorage this year...”
“Yes, yes.” Clarice found and pulled up the relevant file. “Though your resume emphasized you got in through a Battling Scholarship, as opposed to academic achievements.”
“It was the more relevant qualification at the time of application.” Wraith’s tone gained an edge. “But rest assured I am more than proficient in my chosen Major. I am no fool.”
A joke about boneheads briefly entered Clarice’s mind, but she wasn’t quite crass enough to voice it. “And why do you seek to continue your career here, in particular?
The Froslass considered the question. “Job security, mostly.” She admitted, “Firenze is offering a stable job in unstable times, and the first job is always the hardest for a graduate.”
“Is that all?”
“This place is also...interesting.” Wraith continued, “Interesting coworkers, interesting duties, very unusual assignments...it’s certainly a great learning experience.”
Clarice hummed thoughtfully. “Did Firenze clarify what he wanted you doing in HR?”
Wraith nodded. “He said I would be working primarily with existing staff. Reviewing employee performance, managing attendance, payroll, budgets...”
‘Those are my jobs!‘
“...Firenze was also adamant that I would be fielding complaints and resolving conflicts between staff and investigating and administering punishments.”
“I... see.” Clarice’s voice wavered. Her paws slipped off the table. “But what about the heat? Oklahoma is quite warm in the Summer, it could be dangerous for an Ice-Ghost like yourself.”
“Firenze said he already thought of that. He said he had a room available with an independent AC-“
“Get out.”
Wraith blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry?” She asked.
“We don’t have any vacancies at the moment. Please leave, we can continue this conversation when I’m less busy.” Clarice said slightly too hastily.
“Perhaps I could help you-”
“OUT!” Clarice roared, surprising even herself with the outburst.
Wraith stilled for a moment, before slowly drifting back towards the exit. “If you need me, I’ll be in the bar.”
Clarice glared at her as she left. Right up until the door slammed shut, leaving the room dead silent.
Clarice slouched back into her seat. Her very expensive, customized seat that she had saved for for months. All of a sudden it didn’t feel quite so comfortable. A replacement. Firenze was threatening to replace her. Her! The lynchpin of Plaisir’s finances! He wasn’t even being subtle about it either. She could practically hear his voice in her head.
‘Forget your financial accomplishments. Your first duty is to protect and assist the Employees. Do it, or I will find someone who will.’
Clarice shivered for the first time in thirty years.
* * *
Elegance shivered and did her best to ignore the cold drizzle soaking into her coat.
It had been...so long since she had done anything like this. Once, guarding a door for hours on end had been a part of her routine, and she had been praised on more than one occasion for her attentiveness, even in the face of long hours and very late nights. Now though, Elegance found her eyes drooping; her thoughts drifting. She wasn’t sure if it was her discipline slipping, or if Pepper in particular was pulling her mind away from the task at hand.
Then again, keeping that stubborn little paraplegic in check kind of was the task at hand. As if Eclipse would ever be foolish enough to approach a building this well guarded on his own! No, this was purely a show of force on Mr. Firenze’s part. A symbolic gesture of assurance for the panicked prostitutes working safely inside.
‘If only Pepper could be so sensibly cowed.’
“Anything?” Elegance looked over to see Wraith closing the door behind her. She shook her head.
“Alright. Thanks for filling in for me. I’ll take it from here.” Wraith moved to take Elegance’s place as she retreated into the dry warmth of the bar. She still had some time to rest before the next manhunt, and a warm cup of tea alone in her room was just the thing to soothe the nerves rubbed raw by recent conversations.
The back of her mind noted the lack of angry green tentacles by the room’s sole window. ‘She must have given up and gone to bed.’ She thought to herself.
‘You think someone as stubborn as her just gave up and went to bed with a friend missing?’
Elegance paused at the stairwell, then slowly turned and descended, away from her own room, towards the Morning shift bedrooms.
A minute of knocking later confirmed: They were not asleep.
‘Maybe they’re in the waiter’s lounge?’
They were not in the waiter’s lounge. And Elegance knew they weren’t entertaining guests. A quick look down into the courtyard confirmed they weren’t there and when Elegance checked with the Nurse’s office, she found only a couple awkward looking customers and Quippie. Which meant...
‘ZENO!’
There was a pause, then an alien presence -full of foreign feelings and thoughts of a wavelength different to her own- flooded the back of Elegance’s mind. ‘What is it?’ The Abra asked.
‘Where’s Pepper? And Cinnamon and Sugar?’
‘I don’t know. Why do you ask?’
Elegance fumed, her hands curling into fists. ‘You were supposed to keep an eye on them!’
‘No, You asked me to tell you if they tried another door. So I monitored the doormen.’
“Zeno...” Elegance muttered aloud.
‘-Because the doormon consented to my probes! Believe it or not, we psychics do care about consent, Elegance.’
‘You could have at least noted their location!’
‘That’s tantamount to stalking.’
‘You send messages to us all the time!’
‘There is a world of difference between sending a message to someone you sense in a room, and actively following someone’s consciousness around wherever they go. I can only read and watch the minds of those who allow it!’
Elegance took a moment to process this development. ‘…Then you know from reading my mind that you should leave!’
Zeno projected an image of himself sighing. ‘Elegance, you must have realized by now the more you tell her she can’t do something, the harder she tries to prove you wrong.’
‘Get out, Zeno.’
‘Maybe if you to stop casting doubt on her at every opportunity-’
‘Zeno!’
‘As you wish... ’ The presence left her mind as quickly as it had arrived.
She was shaking, though with worry or rage she wasn’t sure. A hundred different scenarios, products of her days as a bodyguard when imagining and preventing such things was her job, flashed through her brain all at once.
‘Pepper, you idiot!’
She started walking as quickly as politeness would allow, back down the stairs and into the security rooms, of which she approached the center.
“Petier! Mr. Petier, we have a problem!” Elegance knocked as loudly as she dared.
The door cracked open and a yawning Sylveon peeked through. “Elegance? What has you...Uh...in the tizzies?”
“Mr. Petier! Pepper has disobeyed your orders. She’s gone looking for her friend alone!”
Petier rubbed his eyes with his feelers sleepily. “Okay. Then we are to go looking for her when volunteers arrive.”
“What?! We need to go find her now! If Eclipse finds them they’ll be torn apart!”
Petier frowned and shook his head. “"If Eclipse is findings them, yes, is bad times. If he finds us, on our own, looking for them? Is that better? Who will be coming to looks for us afterwards? No, we cannot be of making same mistake they did. We wait, Okay? Okay. See you after lunch.”
Elegance shoved a leg between the door before Petier could close it. “But she coerced her friends into the forest with her! Her disabled friends! They are in danger, too!”
“I thought you were sayings that she was alone?” Petier’s voice grew annoyed.
“She is, effectively! None of them know how to fight. If they run into Eclipse-“
“Pepper is competent. She can be holding her own just fine.” Petier’s voice left no room for argument. “Coordinated search is best chance to find targets and be safe. We are to wait until three. No sooner. Then we tell everyone to be keeping an eye out for Hastur. And Pepper. And her friends now.”
More images of carnage were flashing through Elegance’s head. She suppressed a growl, then turned and bolted for the stairs. “Fine! Then I will find her myself!”
“What?! Elegance that is...” Petier shouted after her, but the Meinshao was already gone. “...Unbelievable! What is point to hire Petier if nobody is to listen to Petier? Am I joke to you people? Co to kurva? Sakra...!”
There was wisdom in Petier’s words, and she knew it. Maybe she was spending too much time with October, but Elegance wasn’t about to just stand by and let another overconfident fool go running into certain death.
‘And when exactly did that ungrateful little spud become your problem?‘
‘When I nearly whipped her into a coma now shut up!’ Elegance shoved that seditious little voice out of her mind for good and leapt up the final flight of stairs into the Foyer, making a beeline for the front entrance and dodging around a human girl making halting, awkward conversation with the receptionist.
“Look, I don’t need to go inside inside, I was just hoping maybe I could-Hey! Watch it!”
“My apologies! It’s an emergency!” Elegance shouted as she ran, only to feel the girl’s hand reach out and grab her own. Not with any real force, but just enough of a tug to slow the Mienshao down.
“Hey, hold on! You’re ‘Elegance’, right?” She asked.
Elegance turned and gave her an apologetic look, “I’m sorry, but now is not the time-“
“I wanted to apologize for my Chikorita’s behavior earlier.”
‘Chikorita’s?‘ Elegance’s eyes widened. “You’re Mary?!” She shouted.
Mary jerked back at the exclamation, momentarily worried she may have offended the fighting type. Then she spoke, “Err, I’m Mary, Pepper’s trainer. I just wanted to-“
“There’s no time for that!” Now it was Elegance pulling on Mary’s arm. “Your idiot Chikorita is-“
“Whoa! Hold on! I don’t-give me a moment!” Mary reached back and pulled a hearing aid off the counter. “I can’t understand what you’re saying. Speak into this.”
Elegance had far too much self control to groan and roll her eyes, but the situation sorely tempted her. Instead, she simply took the speech-to-text in her hand and did her best to explain, in as few words as possible, what was going on. Mary took the device back...and frowned.
“So they’re all out there. Alone. With a serial killer.” Mary summarized. She inhaled deeply, her hands began to shake, and for a brief moment Elegance was sure the girl was going to scream. But instead, she just gave a deep, slow sigh. “They’re...they’re probably fine.” She murmured. “Pepper’s a strong girl, she can take care of them...” Beleaguered eyes shut for a moment, and when they reopened they were filled with determination. “...but probably isn’t good enough. C’mon!”
Elegance watched as Mary turned around and strode purposely out the door.
“Let’s go find them.”
* * *
The Agony.
It was an old, familiar pain. One Pepper has dealt with since her earliest days with her first trainer. She was never quite able to articulate what it was like. It wasn’t like the aches of bruises or the stinging scratches that came out of a good battle. If anything, she enjoyed those: Marks of a match well-fought. Nor was it the throbbing heat of a burn or the cold sickness of a poison attack. Broken bones, deep stabs and long slashes, none of them compared. She could ignore those pains. Control them.
The Agony, what she faced now, was like a freight train hitting a car: A sudden, uncompromising thing that overpowered the mind and body, erased her conscious thoughts, and consumed her whole. There was no resisting it, any more than you can resist the movement of the earth beneath your feet.
And...it was more than that. The Agony was everything that had ever hurt her. It was the Steelix who broke her spine. The Meganium who replaced her. It was the trainer who left her to rot in a research lab for over a year. It was Mary when she deliberately avoided battles and encouraged her to forget her dreams and work as team cook. It was the doctors who dismissed her. It was the people who doubted her. It was her own doubts. Her own worries. Her own belief, for a time, that she was worthless. A lost cause...
But Pepper was clever. Pepper was resourceful. And above all, no matter who or what stood before her, Pepper was too damn stubborn to quit! She had spent years chipping away at Agony’s control over her life. Now she’d do it again.
Coherent thoughts were beyond her. She only had her own will and an almost instinctual desire to fight. She had the strength, she knew it! But she needed the means...
Her leaf, it’s tip long abused like a chewed fingernail, flittered in front of her face. She couldn’t see it, for here eyes were squeezed shut and blinded by tears, but she knew there was a bug crawling on it; Something small, like a tick or fly, that stopped for a moment to take a bite out of the corner of her leaf before leaping off for greener feeding elsewhere.
...wait...
It hurt. She had felt it. Even amongst the deluge of agony from her spine she had felt the sting of the bite on her leaf. She couldn’t feel her leaf, but she could feel its wounds...
There was no hesitation because doubts were beyond her. She lunged her head forward and crunched the leaf between her jaws. It wasn’t a nip at the edges or the tip: But a bite down to the sensitive center stem, crushing it, juicing it almost but not quite severing it. There was a very good chance she’d be without a head leaf for a while.
She didn’t care. She needed the pain: Where the Agony wiped away her thoughts, this pain gave her clarity. She focused on it, embraced it, smothered herself in it. The Agony did not subside, but so long as Pepper focused on this new pain she could -just barely- think. She would fight The Pain with pain! And she would beat this!
Or destroy herself.
Whichever came first.
Pepper ground her teeth, shredded her leaf, and with immense effort opened her eyes.
It took her a moment to realize where she was and how she’d got there. She was upside down, covered in mud in a depression filled with tall, uncomfortable weeds that poked her skin and made her itch. That was a good sign, at least: If she could feel the itches then that meant the Agony was finally starting to subside. Pepper slowly and steadily unsheathed her vines, and with a grunt of effort rolled herself upright. A vine snaked around and gently brushed against her ba-
‘THATwasamistake!’ Pepper hissed and resisted the urge to withdraw the vine immediately, instead bringing it forward to inspect the residue it had collected. As she suspected, it was a mixture of blood and mud, though unexpectedly little of the former which was a good sign. It probably wouldn’t need much more than a potion.
‘potions...’ Pepper’s eyes widened in horror. ‘SHIT!’
The Agony seemed hellbent on keeping her prone in that ditch, but Pepper crawled nonetheless; desperation pushing the pain away and giving her a terribly tardy second wind. Pepper scanned the glade, searching for any sign of her friends...or Arceus forbid, their bodies. But no. Nothing but tall grass and swaying trees.
Panic gave way to dread, and suddenly Pepper was fighting the urge to puke. What had she done!? How was she supposed to protect them...or even find them...or Honey...and it was all her fault! The Agony was gone now. It was replaced with something even worse: Guilt, and fear.
A hole in the underbrush caught her eye. ‘A trail?’ she could only hope. Pepper rose higher into the air and quickly began to stumble forward. The Agony continued to harry her, and her vines threatened to buckle beneath her with every step. But fear and willpower gradually put strength in her gait, and then her swings as she transitioned into the trees. She could clearly make out their trail, as neither Hunter nor Pray had any concern for stealth. She followed the scores in the ground and trees, tip-toed around bushes gutted by Shadowballs, and when the trail started looking cold Pepper would take whatever path was straightest and hope Sugar was as predictable as she was.
‘They aren’t dead. They aren’t dead. Cinnamon’s so fast, I’m sure they’ve just been keeping him busy! Or they fled back to the Cafe!’
Then she found the satchel, or what was left of it, and the red-covered leaves and the trail of blood that disappeared further into the undergrowth. Her breath hitched.
‘Calm down, Pepper! There’s no bodies. They might still be okay! After all, Eclipse wouldn’t bother dragging fresh corp-fresh bodies all the way back to his den to eat, right? So maybe they’re okaypleasebeokaypleasebeokaypleasepleaseplsease...’
The blood trail only extended for a few meters, forcing Pepper to rely on her nose. She lowered herself to the forest floor and inhaled the air around the last bloody leaf she could find, before proceeding eastward, sniffing at whatever contact points they’d likely passed. She.../thought/ they went this way? Or was that just the scent from earlier stuck in her nose? She tried going back and starting over, going Northeast. Then again going south...
“AAARGH!” Pepper rammed her head into a tree. ‘Stupid water blocking out the scent! Stupid nose can’t smell for shit! Stupid fucking Mightyena had to go and take her friends! What the hell was I thinking bringing them into this I’m such a fucking...stupid...stubborn…’
“Fuck!” Pepper screamed and collapsed into the dirt, punching herself in the side of the head with a knotted vine. Cinnamon…Sugar…they’d trusted her! Mary had trusted her! How was she going to tell her trainer about this? She’d be devastated…no, utterly destroyed. She’d be alone, with no way home, the quarterstones of her remaining sanity gone and with no one to comfort her but the one who’d failed her in the first place! And it was entirely her fault. The only people in the world who truly believed in her and she’d failed them because of her stupid, selfish ambitions!
She was crying. She didn’t care. Her friends were probably dead, and if the world had had any mercy, she’d be too.
…
No.
That was cowardice talking.
She’d find them, or what’s left of them. And she’d face her damnation then. But right now, there was still a chance and she was wasting it on self-pity. Pepper pushed herself back into the air and scanned her surroundings.
‘C’mon! Give me something! Anything!’
As if in response, the clouds above momentarily broke, bathing the forest in light. By sheer luck, a glint of light out of the corner of her eye drew her attention towards a small hollow just off the game trail she’d been following. Pepper approached, caution warring with hope warring with urgency, and what she found nearly had her whooping with joy.
It was an empty potion bottle, sitting broken and forgotten against a massive pile of boulders at the bottom of a steep slope. It looked...familiar? ‘Didn’t me and Elegance pass this place yesterday?’ Pepper couldn’t remember, and hardly cared. She picked up the half-crushed glass and sniffed it; Hyper-Potion, and fresh. This was one of Cinnamon’s potions!
“[sub]Thank you...[/sub]” Pepper wasn’t sure who or what she was talking to, but it didn’t matter. It was something.
The rock pile was massive: A great pile of granite consisting almost entirely of huge monolithic stones; the gaps between varying from the size of a Rattata to a single large opening big enough for a Ninetales. Perfect hiding spot for a lone hunter. Pepper leaned into the pile, “Hello? Sugar? Cinnamon?”
No answer.
Pepper quickly located a stone and picked it up with a rear vine before ducking further into the entrance. The smell of carrion hit her nose like a truck and she had to fight the urge to retch, not out of disgust, but fear of the implications.
“Cinnamon!? Sugar!?” Pepper called, again. Still nothing. She hesitated, scared of what she might find if she kept going. ‘The more you wait, the more danger they’re in.’ The thought cut through her trepidation and she crept inside.
It was cramped, even for her, and the stench of death only grew as she pushed in further. There were sporadic beams of sunlight peaking between the boulders, illuminating old bones. Rotten strips of fur and flesh had been stuffed into the corners and left to rot. Near the rear, a monolithic granite slab cross-crossed by claw marks divided the den roughly in two.
Pepper pushed forward, around the slab.
She bit back a scream.
Of relief.
“...Pepper?” Sugar croaked. He was clutching at a gash in the side of his stomach from which blood was freely flowing, and the wounds in his wings had been reopened in several places. His eyes were dull and unfocused, and he looked pale even in the darkness of the cave.
Cinnamon looked even worse. His hindleg stuck out at an unnatural-looking angle and his breathing was labored and shallow. But the worst part was the massive wound stretching between his fore and hind-left legs: A massive, furless burn that openly bled where portions of skin had sloughed away, and what remained was a necrotic black color. Strips of stark white stood stark against the blood, and muscle -most exposed sections of rib. It was a Shadowball wound; something the naive Linoone was particularly weak against. Pepper wasn’t sure if he was even conscious!
But he was breathing, and they were alive, and she was thankful.
“Pepper,” Sugar rasped, “T-trap!”
*Thwack*
Pepper turned and hefted the now bloody stone in her vine. Behind her, the shadowy form of Eclipse stumbled backwards, a nasty new cut over his eye. ‘As if I’d ever fall for that old trick!’
“You’re not it.” He growled, giving Pepper a hateful stare. “I wanted it. Where is it. Do you know?”
Pepper had no idea what he was talking about, and couldn’t care less. She rose, her vines expanded to fill the tiny cave. The Mightyena crouched low as he sensed what was coming. “Eclipse...” Pepper growled. Her voice rose into a scream. “I’M GUNNA KICK YOUR ASS!”
The Mightyena charged. His growl escalated and a Shadowball coalesced in his mouth. Pepper responded by lifting her bloodied stone in front of her and bracing as the attack impacted and detonated. The stone turned to dust, and through the dust came Eclipse. His claws were reinforced with dark energy and Pepper was forced to bob, weave, and retreat as swipe after swipe rained down on her.
Then Pepper felt one particularly aggressive attack rake across her forehead and took her chance. He had overextended, and now she had a shot at his face! And for a lack of a better weapon, she sprung forward atop her vines and head butted Eclipse right in the nose.
There was a mighty crack, and the Mightyena’s snarls were cut off as the more fragile cartilage around the nose collapsed.
They always did call her hard-headed!
Then she was above him, with vines converging, and it was Eclipse on the retreat. She made sure to come at him from all angles: a Vine for every limb, around his neck, his torso, even his tail. Eclipse responded with a flurry of inaccurate slashes and bites and a hastened backpedal towards the entrance.
Then he lunged, and for a moment it appeared Pepper had made the same mistake as her opponent: That she had overextended with her vines and left herself defenseless. But Pepper was small, and low mass granted her great agility. She jerked back from the first bite, slapped a follow-up swipe away with a retracting vine, and then, just as she felt her back come to rest against a wall, all but one of her vines wrapped around her and encased her in a rope cocoon of armor.
Eclipse was undeterred. The great beast leaned forward and clamped his jaws around her neck. The overlapping vines were too thick for his teeth to do more than scratch her skin, but then Pepper felt the sap in her vines turn to Ice, the armor withering and fraying loose. ‘Ice Fang!’ Pepper felt his jaws lock around her neck and begin to squeeze, seeking to choke her, or possibly break her neck.
He’d do neither. Before the force of the bite could overwhelm her, Pepper’s most wounded vine, still safe in its sheath, shot out from the front of her collar directly down the beast’s throat, twisting and coiling and forcing him to choke. Eclipse reflexively loosened his grip and gagged.
Pepper took the opportunity to unspool her armor and take the offensive, launching multiple semiaccurate strikes in rapid succession:
‘Vine to the throat; restrict his breathing.
Stone to the head; disorientate him.
Whip the eyes; blind him.
Bind the legs; immobilize him.
Wrap the ja-‘
Pepper’s eyes widened as she realized she’d left the jaws unattended a fraction of a second too late. The hacking, unbalanced Mightyena had already charged and overcharged a massive dark ball. All at once her Vines ceased their coordinated strikes and began shoving the Mightyena back.
Eclipse blindly released the Darkball into the floor between them, the cave erupting in dust and shattered stone and throwing both fighters backwards into opposite walls.
Neither party slowed their attacks in the slightest. The moment they hit the floor, both combatants were flinging themselves back into the fray, and what followed was thirty seconds of clawing and biting and cutting and choking and yanking and crushing and breaking and bleeding and screeching. Tactics were ignored, defense was abandoned. All that was left were two brawlers intent on doing as much damage to the other as possible.
The fight carried its way back towards the cave entrance, and Pepper took the opportunity to shove the Mightyena away, into the rain-soaked grass.
Eclipse was up in an instant, but it was an instant too late. Pepper plunged every functional vine into the ground and made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a growl. Every blade of grass, every stem, every weed, and every root beneath the earth simultaneously came to life and grasped at the Mightyena. He tried to jump away, but there was nowhere to land. He tried to cut them away but they were too numerous. Eclipse was forced to dance away on his toes in a manner that may have been humorous were Pepper not rapidly draining her energy reserves trying to manipulate so large an area.
‘Come on!’
A weed wrapped around Eclipse’s leg, only to be ripped from the ground like so many others. But this particular weed was just a bit tougher than those before, and the extra effort forced Eclipse to stumble into further traps. Mistakes compounded, more and larger roots began to spring from the ground, and slowly the Mightyena succumbed and collapsed to the forest floor. Eclipse’s fate was sealed when a massive Pine root finally ripped itself free of the ground and fell upon the Mightyena, pinning him down with its weight.
Pepper wasn’t done. She was too angry, too terrified for her friends to simply tie the bastard up. She launched herself at him yet again, and struck his face with a single knotted-up vine. Then she struck him again. Then again. She screamed at that snarling face with every strike. “Never! Touch! My! Friends! *Gasp* Again! You! *Huff* Filthy! *Huff* Fuckin’! *Gasp* CUNT!”
Pepper nearly choked in her exhaustion and sagged onto her belly. Her leaf, or what was left of it, had been torn from the stem, and the sap was oozing into dozens of tears across the sides and front of her face. Blood poured from a particularly nasty wound down her chest, and her nose had just barely escaped being torn off from a nasty bite attack. Of her eight vines, two had gone numb, and another pair had been shredded blocking a strike bound for her eyes. One strike down the side of her neck had caught on her collar, and one of her retracted vines hung half out of the broken sheath.
Eclipse wasn’t looking any better. The Mightyena’s sole remaining eye was blinded by the blood flowing from a nasty looking cut a stone had left along with a sizable dent in his skull. His breathing was little more than the wheeze as he forced precious air through an abused throat. The cuts in his skin visible through the gaps in his coat had been supplemented with scores of whipping wounds, and some of his visible ribs were now sitting at odd angles to each other.
Pepper frowned. ‘How am I supposed to get him back to the cafe?’ She didn’t have any Pokeballs, and was far too exhausted to bind him and drag him back. For a moment she entertained the brutal practicality of breaking a couple legs, but that just felt cruel.
‘Legs...Cinnamon! Sugar!’
Pepper turned and dragged herself back into the den. Cinnamon and Sugar were still inside, too injured to move, and their wounds were incredibly filthy, enough to worry her about the possibility of infection. Cinnamon would need to be carried. Sugar’s cheeks were sparking, and without his satchel they’d have to find a Pokecenter to stabilize him.
But if they left Eclipse under the tree, he’d surely dig himself out before a search party could come collect him...
Pepper growled and stamped her foot in frustration. Dammit! They were so close! They had him even! And now they’d have to leave him here because of her arrogance! All that effort and pain and terror and they had nothing to show for it! They hadn’t even found Hastur for crying out loud!
‘Still, it was almost a lot worse.’
A noise caught her ear... whining? Pepper twisted around in frustration to face the pinned Mightyena. “Ah shuddup you big...”
Oh.
He wasn’t whining.
“Where the hell did you learn hyper be-”
* * *
They had no scent, the foliage was unbroken, and prints they’d found so far had been sparse and meandering, but Mary was certain they were going the right way. She couldn’t rely on her nose like a Pokemon, nor her eyes nor any psychic powers. But if there was one thing Mary could rely on, it was Sugar getting bored quickly. She crouched down amongst the dirt and quickly scanned the ground. Sure enough, there in the dirt was another pair of leaves idly ripped from the bushes and torn into clean halves. A habit of the Emolga’s during long, uneventful walks between towns.
There were other clues as well: Branches overhead that hung unusually low after Pepper had swung a little too hard, the oddly-shaped holes Cinnamon & Sugar carved in the undergrowth, things that other predators may certainly notice, but without the context of a mother they were easily dismissed.
Of course, nobody needed context or skill to notice the eruption of heat and light some half a mile away. And even if they did, the thundering roar echoing through the hills would tip them off regardless. It was bright enough to throw the tree into stark shadow and burn the relief imagine into their exposed retinas; a display of raw power only a very powerful -or well-trained- pokémon could display. The kind one might see in a battle…
Trainer and Meinshao looked at each other, then started running.
There were more roars, coupled with the odd explosion that grew louder as the duo got closer. Mary began to fall behind as the more elegant Mienshao switched to all-fours and leaped ahead. She pulled her backpack off her shoulders as she ran, stuffing a hand inside the largest pocket and cursing as she fumbled around for something inside. She tripped, stumbled, then found what she was looking for: A collapsible aluminum walking stick. Not exactly the finest of weapons for the occasion, but any port in a storm. Mary quickly extended the walking aid to its full length, cursed at the lost time spent finding the damn thing, and ran to close the fifty-foot lead Elegance had gained on her.
It took them nearly an hour, or maybe just a couple minutes to find the source of the noise; A very tight, heavily vegetated clearing boarded on one side by a steep hill and the rickety remnants of a rockslide. Mary would have completely missed it were it not for the fact she was following a bright-white-and-purple pokémon through the brambles.
She scanned the area and immediately noticed the ugliest Mightyena she’d ever seen tearing itself free of the foliage. A trail of burned and smoking grass lead from where the beast was pinned to the rockpile a dozen meters away, where a shape, its surface burned almost as black as the stone around it, lay prone on the ground.
Mary’s breath caught in her throat.
Then the blackened shape pried itself off the ground and opened its eyes, revealing itself to be a burnt, bruised, bleeding and very angry Pepper. The singed Chikorita stumbled slightly before catching herself and throwing a few indignant chirps at the Mightyena.
“Pepper!” Mary called out, worried. Then she looked up and screamed as she saw the state of the rock pile. “PEPPER BEHIND YOU!”
Pepper cocked her head, then looked up to see the rockpile beginning to collapse. She hesitated, then shrieked and threw herself at the rock pile, before unsheathing a half-dozen frayed and shaky vines and throwing them between herself and the collapsing stone.
Mary lunged forward vainly, but Elegance had already seen the danger; running up and shouldering the weight of a massive boulder moments before it could land on the overwhelmed Chikorita. Mary watched as the two yelled something at each other before Pepper turned and dragged herself into the unstable structure. ‘What is she doing?!’
But before she could move to help, movement out of the corner of her eye sent her diving sideways by instinct. Eclipse had torn himself free, and now that freight train of fur and muscle narrowly missed ripping her throat out, and the instant he landed, he was circling back to try again.
Mary could hear Elegance calling something, but all her focus was on Eclipse. The massive Mightyena rapidly recovered from the botched attack and clawed into the dirt. Energy began to coalesce between his jaws as he prepared another attack. Mary countered by running forward and left, trying to use the quadruped’s anatomy against it by moving out of its arc of fire. It was close: Mary could feel the heat of the beam singing her hair, and suddenly her backpack was ten pounds lighter.
But then she was clear, and Eclipse was momentarily defenseless, recovering as he was from the hyperbeam. Mary swung back the walking stick and yelled at the top of her lungs. “GO-”
The makeshift club connected with his head with a meaty thunk.
“-AWAY!”
The Mightyena flinched, but only slightly, and when Mary attempted a follow up strike he deftly reached forward and bit down hard on the stick, twisting and yanking the lightweight metal out of her hands and biting it clean in two. Mary responded with a steel-toed boot to his jaws. Eclipse retaliated with a tackle that Mary narrowly avoided by twisting and tumbling away on one leg.
She hit the ground face-first, flipped around on her back and lashed out with a cleated boot, missing, but buying herself a second to reach down to her belt as Eclipse dodged back and circled to try and come at her from a flank. Her hand hovered over the masterball…then left it and grabbed for the survival knife sheathed at her side. A moment later he was on her; all gnashing teeth and ripping claws. Jaws sheathed in dark energy lunged for her throat-
-and found Mary’s forearm instead. Survival instinct sacrificing a limb for her life. He bit down. Bones cracked and shattered. Mary screamed in agony.
The knife flashed.
Eclipse’s growls turned to gurgles.
Mary twisted the knife, yanked it out, stabbed again.
And Again.
And Again.
Then the pain began to overwhelm her, and the knife fell free into the grass. Her eyes met the Mightyena’s, and she watched as its rage and desperation faded into a dull, glassy apathy. It was the second time she’d watched a Pokémon die like this…the memories only compounded the pain.
Then the Mightyena slumped over her and Mary was forced to bite back a scream. His death grip held firm on her arm and she could feel fragments of bone grinding against each other beneath her skin. She heard more yelling, and looked over to see Elegance dropping the massive boulder onto the floor. The rock pile collapsed behind her.
She could see Pepper, her skin peeling and blistered, holding the limp forms of Cinnamon and Sugar in shaky limbs. They were unconscious, and they were bleeding.
Just like her.
…and they were so far from safety…
Mary made a decision.
“Truffles…” Mary whispered, weakly. “Help!” She reached down and shakily tapped the release on the Masterball.
The last thing she saw was the towering form of a roaring Charizard silhouetted against a sun that had finally finished burning its way through clouds.
* * *
