Chapter 18- Recovery, letter, and organising.
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
"See anything, Swarm?" Shadow asked, sitting on the ground. Her team mate was standing next to her, head slightly cocked to the side as if she was listening for something, and glanced down when she spoke.
"Not yet." She replied. "I can see people coming out of the shelters now, but no sign of him yet."
"You know where he went, right?"
"I'm pretty sure. There's only so many shelters, and I think I know which one's closest to home, but I'm giving as many of them as I can a look over just in case." Swarm told her, going back to her search. "I think we'll need to move on, though. I can't see him anywhere at all."
"Moving on it is, then." Shadow nodded, letting Swarm pick her up again. "How many of these shelters are there, anyway?"
"There's… about four, I think?" She guessed. "I'm not completely certain. I think there was supposed to be a fifth built as well, but for some reason it never got finished."
"Not enough money, maybe?"
"Might be." Swarm sighed. "That's been a problem for this city for a long time, to be honest, and it's horrible. Would explain why no-one seems to know where it was, aside from 'somewhere Downtown', though I think the city probably still has access to the plans. We could look them up, if you cared enough."
"Eh, it's unfinished, so there's no point. No-one's going to be there, so it'll be completely useless to go there ourselves." Shadow looked up at her with a large grin. "Unless it's suddenly turned into a Mystery Dungeon, that is. Then it'd be worth looking into." Swarm laughed loudly.
"I somehow doubt that the abandoned, unfinished Endbringer shelter in the middle of the highly populated area is anything important, Shadow, let alone a Mystery Dungeon." Swarm said dryly. "I think we'd've noticed a ton of Pokemon pouring out of it if it was."
"Pokemon don't actually tend to leave the dungeons, y'know. For some reason. Some do, admittedly, but they don't normally go far if they do as well."
"Still would've noticed Pokemon leaving in that case." Swarm retorted. "After all, there's bound to be at least a few that would roam, right?"
"Odds… aren't against it, I guess." She agreed. "It'd depend on how big the dungeon inside was, and how many different types of Pokemon were appearing there, but there's always a chance that it could happen."
"Maybe I could poke about in there with my bugs, if we ever find the place."
"Some people think that dungeons are spatially… or dimensionally, or temporally, or something like that… unlinked." Shadow commented. "So if it was a Mystery Dungeon, it's possible that you wouldn't be able to sense your bugs in there unless you were also in there." The bug user paused.
"Have I mentioned that your world is weird?" Swarm said plaintively, making Shadow giggle.
"You have, yes." Sniffing at the air a few times, she suddenly sneezed, blinking. "Huh. I think I might've just smelled your dad."
"Seriously?" Swarm looked down sharply at her.
"Ye-es…?" She hummed back, sniffing again. "Gah, everything's still covered in water smells… but I think he's over that way." She pointed, making Swarm change direction and start searching with her bugs. "Hey, isn't that about the right way to be going to your home?" Swarm shrugged.
"Might be? I haven't found him yet."
"If he's going home, we could cloak and wait for him there instead." Shadow suggested.
"Can you hold a cloak on both of us for that long?"
"I… I think so, yeah." She nodded. "It'll be difficult, I think, because if I have where we are right then it'll be kinda a long distance, but I think it's possible. Actually, it's more than possible, I've done longer than this before I think."
"Then go ahead and cloak us both, and I'll be sure to get us back home quickly." Swarm promised, turning her head to glance around, while also checking out the area with her bugs. "I recognise this place, I think, so I can get back fast."
"Alright, get ready." The Vulpix closed her eyes, tails waving back and forth a few times, then said, "We're cloaked. Go ahead, just try and stay quiet. It's harder to cloak more sound."
"On it." Swarm whispered, immediately making her way through the empty streets towards her house. Despite the practise she'd had at silencing her steps- something the Cape had decided to learn almost the second she found out just how hard it was for her team mates to cloak louder noises, and had gotten very good during the intervening time- every movement sounded unnaturally loud in the dead silence that made up the city. There should've been people there, shopping, playing, living, but instead there's nothing.
Shadow didn't like that, she decided to herself, still focused on holding the cloak.
Luckily, it didn't take long at all for them to reach the house, easily slipping inside with the spare key that had been hidden outside for situations similar to this one, and drop the cloak.
"Are you alright, Shadow?" Taylor asked, pulling off her mask and shaking her head.
"I'm fine." She yawned back, blinking herself back into wakefulness. Taylor quickly put her back on the floor, and she tottered a bit before finding her balance again. "Bit stressful, but no more than usual, at least."
"That's good. Will you be alright to do it again going to the Den?"
"Should be. Might need a bit of a rest, but I can probably manage to take you both back there."
"You rest, then. I'll check the water first, see if it's any good, then we'll decide whether or not we need to go back to the Den." Taylor decided, leaving Shadow standing on the dining room floor and walking around going into the kitchen area, where she immediately turned on the tap. "Oh."
"Oh?" Shadow padded around the corner and looked up, then spotted the black water coming from the tap in splutters. "Oh."
"Yeah, that's not a great sign, really." Taylor sighed, turning off the tap, then started towards the staircase. Shadow followed part of the way, then stretched out in the doorway of the front room instead, listening to what was going on upstairs. She heard Taylor turn on a few more taps, followed by a few soft curses that Shadow took to mean that the water upstairs was just as blackened as it was down. "I think we'll need to be coming to the Den, maybe."
"If it's just the water, does it matter too much?" Shadow called back. "You'd have to remember not to put anything in the washer or under the sink, but you'd be fine otherwise, right?"
"The shower's also gonna be out." Taylor reminded, making her way back down the stairs. "Though that's probably going to end up being a thing in most of the city for the next few days, at least until they get round to fixing things."
"Maybe we should wait for your dad to get back first, so we can ask him what to do."
"Makes sense." She nodded, heading into the kitchen and sitting down, making Shadow get up to follow her. "What do you think we should do?"
"I'd think… stay." Shadow hummed. "Of course, we wouldn't have a lot of the problems you guys would, with showers not working and stuff, we'd just use the river or pond, or even the rain if we had to… heck, even Water moves. And there'd probably be a Suicune around to fix the water if something happened. But Eon and I would probably stay in the Den."
"Don't suppose you know any Water moves, then, do you?" Taylor tried. Shadow opened her mouth to reply, then paused, head cocked.
"I… don't think so. There's a Vaporeon in my family tree, I think… Pa's side of the tree, going back… four generations, maybe?" She mused. "So I suppose it's always possible that there's a Water Move in there somewhere, but even then I wouldn't be able to use it. You kinda need to be taught to use them, even if the Move's in your lineage, and I've never been taught."
"Well damn." Taylor sighed. "I guess we'll just wait for Dad, then."
"Probably the best idea anyway. Even if he does end up saying to move to the Den, he's your dad, and should have input on things to do with your safety."
"I know, Shadow." Both girls settled into silence, listening out with their different senses for Danny to arrive at the house.
Lung looked carefully over the missive, checking it over for anything that could possibly be construed as an insult or a challenge, before finally nodding slowly. It had taken some time to get it right- or at least reasonable- and the pile of paper in the basket at his side attested to that. Then again, given that he was dealing with kitsune, it was quite possible that he'd never manage to get the message right enough. In a way, any request could be taken as a challenge, with some very creative interpretation… but that was what kitsune did best.
Deciding he just needed to bite the figurative bullet and hope for the best, Lung sealed the missive in an envelope, melted a little wax over the fold, and pressed a seal onto it.
He was dealing with kitsune, so formal would be the way to go.
Now, to wait for Lee to return from his inventory of the warehouses, or give it to the next grunt he saw with instructions to go to the neutral camp and search for Eon or Shadow?
Wait for Lee, he decided. It would look better if his nominal second-in-command went with the request, rather than sending a random grunt to do it. That could be taken as an insult to them, like he was claiming that they weren't important enough in his mind to bother sending someone powerful to meet them. Preferably, Lee would also find Shadow, rather than going to Eon, since it would be two seconds meeting as equals, not putting one of their sides on a back foot by being less important.
Leaving the sealed envelope on one side of the desk, Lung rested his head in his hands and groaned. Now he remembered why he'd always hated the formality lessons he'd taken as a child. All it ever ended up in was headaches and paranoia from second-guessing your own decisions in an attempt not to offend…
Amy walked alongside the PRT officer, her sister hovering just behind her, as the trooper walked her into the main medical tent.
"Eon's still in there." The trooper told her, holding the door of the tent open for the two girls. "Swarm and Shadow were seen leaving about an hour ago, talking, and Shadow didn't have her little bag with her. Presumably she left it in here with Eon. No idea if they've come back yet, though."
"That's ok, I just want to check on him." Amy assured. "Shadow would've done her own check on him, I'm sure, but she doesn't have the sort of in depth read I can get."
"Plus Shadow likes you, so she won't get mad." Vicky added. Amy rolled her eyes, and the trooper chuckled.
"Be quiet, Vicky." The healer retorted, before knocking softly on the door. When no-one responded, she pushed open the door and headed in, her sister floating close behind while the trooper peeled off to go and do something else.
"Looks like they're still out." Vicky observed obviously, lifting slightly to see over her head. She immediately had to duck to avoid the edge of the door, making Amy roll her eyes again and head straight for the silvery-grey vulpine on the bed.
"Good afternoon, Panacea." He said lowly, making her jump. "What brings you here?"
"I- I was just planning on checking on you, making sure you were healing ok." She replied, nervous. "Sorry, I thought you were asleep."
"I was, a little." Eon yawned widely, lifting his head from his paws. "Shadow insisted I rest more. It's best to listen to her when she says that; she has the horrible tendency to use Hypnosis on you if you refuse to rest and heal."
Vicky laughed. "That sounds like experience talking." Eon chuckled as well.
"Only the once. We normally learn our lesson after that, waking from Hypnosis is rather more disorientating than waking up on your own." He grinned at her, flexing his neck and shifting his tails. "I feel alright though, Panacea. I believe you did the healing, yes?"
"Yeah, it was my work." She nodded. "Shadow probably could've done it too, but her ability seems to sometimes work poorly when there's too much to do, and she was a little too worried for me to want to trust her with something tricky."
"That's fair enough." He agreed. He pushed himself up properly and offered a paw to her, which Amy took.
"You're definitely recovering alright." Amy nodded, after a moment examining the vulpine. "Everything looks fine, at least."
"And I feel fine, like I said." Eon chuckled. "There's still a bit of a headache, which'll go away pretty quickly. It's just the result of overboosting, my brain needs time to cool down."
"Sounds like a Thinker power." Vicky commented, from the side of the room, leaning half-way up the wall.
"In a way, I guess they are." He nodded. "Boosting adds to my powers; better ranged and melee abilities, more defences, better accuracy with my ranged attacks, things like that. Might be more of a Trump, put that way, but from what I've heard, the headaches are a Thinker staple."
"Normally, yeah." Amy said, taking her hand from Eon's paw. "But you look like you're doing ok, so I don't really think you need to be here anymore, aside from waiting for Swarm and Shadow to get back."
"I don't actually expect them to be coming back, at least not today. I sent them off on a task, so she might drop by to get her bag, but I can take that back to the Den alright and leave you the room again." Eon replied.
"You're probably good to stay a little while longer, the PRT won't need these taken down for a little while yet, and given what you and Shadow did in the fight they're probably willing to make an exception for the two of you if you need it." The healer told him. "But if you want to go you can, and I can see about finding someone to tell Swarm and Shadow where you are."
"I can go out and find them in the city for you." Vicky volunteered. Eon shook his head.
"Thanks, Glory Girl, but no need. They'll be in one of two places, so I can check one and go to the other." He promised. "Besides, I'm sure you have better things to do than search around the city for a pair of Capes."
"Eh, not really." She shrugged. "Most of everything's done now, for Capes; no more search-and-rescue, moving debris around can be done by normal people with machines, and to be honest I think the city is gonna want to leave rebuilding for a little while, while everything else gets sorted."
Eon tilted his head slightly, seeming confused, so Amy stepped in, "Normally the cities like to make sure that all the Capes from other cities are back where they should be and the emergency shelters are all set up, then they start calling in companies which help with rebuilding. Normally I think priorities are fresh water, fixing the water supplies and that, and making sure anyone affected has temporary housing before they rebuild- that way they don't miss things." She explained, then shrugged. "Though given how little damage happened this attack compared to most, things are gonna end up getting kicked up a bit, I think."
"I see." Eon nodded. "I'll have to see if there's any way Shadow and I can help with rebuilding. Swarm might not be able to do much, but the two of us can lift things around."
"The city's most likely to use companies from inside the city where they can, just for the sake of saving a bit of money." Amy said. "But you'll probably find a few people that're willing to get some help from Capes."
"It's after an Endbringer attack, after all. People always want stuff sorted before the next one happens." Vicky added. Eon pursed his lips slightly, a few tails curling around each other.
"I see. I'll have to see what we can do, then."
"You could probably get requests to help if you just posted about it on PHO." She told him. "It can be a surprise to see how much stuff comes from there. Basically everyone uses it, after all."
"I might just do that." Eon smiled. "Thank you, Panacea."
"Always happy to help." She stepped away, while Vicky pushed off the wall to come float next to her. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to do. You can probably leave if you want, I don't really see a reason for you to need to stay and recover. If it's just sleep you can do that well enough in your base, I guess."
"Most likely." Eon carefully jumped down from the bed, shaking himself out once he hit the floor, and a moment later his eyes shimmered blue. Shadow's bag drifted between the two girls, making them blink, and settled next to him. "The Den isn't close to the attack site at all, so it should be fine. I think I will head out, then go find Swarm and Shadow."
"Good luck with that, then." Amy offered her hand to shake, which he did, then shook Vicky's as well. "Hopefully we'll see you around sometime soon. Probably when Aunt Sarah's able to get to the PRT about Shadow's possible anti-Master effect."
"We'll be certain to come along to that meeting with her." Eon told her. "A team should stay together, after all, no matter what." The grey fox wrapped a tail around the bag, lifting it- and making Amy raise an eyebrow, because she didn't think the tails were that flexible- and all three of them went towards the door. "I hope everything else you do goes well." He said, before trotting off. A few seconds later he went around a corner and out of sight, and Amy let Vicky pick her up to carry her back to the rest of the family.
And thought about the fact that that final sentence seemed to carry a lot more weight than a simple farewell…
Humming slightly to himself as he wandered through the deserted streets, Eon sniffed curiously at the air, looking for the scent of his two team mates. While he didn't need to find them just yet, it would be a helpful starting point in looking for them if he had to. Until then, though, he would be heading for the Den, then to Taylor's house.
Twisting down an alleyway with the plan to cloak himself and leave, he heard a vaguely familiar sound- the slight pop of a teleport- and perked an ear, dropping into the shadows.
He was fairly sure that no-one would be stupid enough to try attacking him in the aftermath of an Endbringer attack, while the truce was in effect, but there were always a lot of stupid people in the world- in either world, for that matter. So he'd be on guard.
The tallish form of Oni Lee made his way into the alley, the demon mask glancing around, and Eon half relaxed. With Lung having given the order to leave Team Inari the hell alone, apparently on the pain of pain, it wasn't likely that this was an attack.
Still…
"Greetings, Oni Lee." Eon rumbled, throwing his voice slightly. While he still hadn't properly learned Shadow's trick to throw her voice, he had it down well enough that he could put it on the other side of the alleyway and slightly up, where some sodden boxes were sitting. "What brings you here?"
"I was looking for you, Kyuubi Eon." He responded, freezing in place. The Parahuman moved one hand towards his pocket, making Eon prepare a flicker of flame in the back of his throat, only to let it fade when he took out a letter, holding it out towards the air with his other hand held up. "Lung-sama commanded me to pass this letter on, either to you or to your second. I saw you coming this way, and followed."
"I see." Eon nodded, forming an illusion to walk out of the shadows on that side. It strolled over to Oni Lee and, with slightly glowing eyes to mask where it was coming from, took the letter in an Extrasensory. "Thank you, then."
The illusion took a half step back, giving Eon the chance to cloak himself and step out of the shadows, breaking the seal on the missive and scanning over it.
With raised eyebrows, the real Eon stepped out of the way again, allowing the illusion to handle the appearance of conversation. "That's a very interesting idea, Oni Lee." It mused. "Tell your leader that I accept." Oni Lee nodded, then turned around, teleporting. His clone faded into ash a few seconds later, and only a few seconds after that, once Eon was vaguely sure that the scent of the Parahuman was far enough away, that he let the illusion vanish away.
He left the shadows with the letter still in his psychic grasp, then brought his tail around to let him put it in Shadow's bag.
"Interesting." He murmured to himself. "Very interesting indeed…"
Quickly making his way down the rest of the alley, then cloaking and ignoring the headache once again forming, Eon started running towards the Den, wanting to get back there as soon as possible so he could talk to Shadow and Swarm about the contents of the letter- whether they were there or at Taylor's house.
"Here's Dad." Taylor said, spotting him approaching the door with her bugs.
"No-one's with him, right?" Shadow checked, standing and shaking her fur out.
"He's on his own." She confirmed. "No need to cloak anything."
"Good."
Both females heard the front door open, and Taylor quickly called, "Hi dad!"
"Taylor?" He replied, sounding surprised, suddenly appearing in the kitchen. "I'm glad you're alright… what happened to your costume?"
"I got into a bit of trouble during the tsunami." She told him. "Things got a bit wrecked, so I'm gonna need to fix my costume, but I've got some spiders working on it at the minute, I took some of the ones working on my second costume to do it. I got healed fine, though. Panacea made sure of that, after Shadow and her friend found me." Danny nodded, looking away from where he was examining Taylor's costume and down at Shadow, still standing on the floor.
"I see. Thank you, Shadow." He smiled at her, then looked around. "Where's Eon?"
"He should still be in the medical bay, resting." Shadow sighed, scowling lightly. "But I doubt he is. Probably woke up about ten minutes after we left, decided he's rested enough, picked up my bag, and gone for a walk. Most likely to the Den, to see if we went there, and he'll probably leave my bag there too, then he'll come here. If he doesn't find us here, he'll go wandering."
Danny and Taylor both stared at her, and she shrugged. "Eon's done it before, though without too much of the wandering. He basically left the little medical area, went and made food, then went for a short walk while eating the food. One of our other team mates, Gallade, found him and dragged him back." Taylor giggled.
"That does kind of sound like Eon." She snickered. "He doesn't seem like someone who'd want to sit around too much."
"Oh, he does not." Shadow laughed. "Not even close. To be fair, I think the main reason is because we have a tendency to do things when he's not around, so he needs to play catch-up on it all the time. Like Trikani Meadow... I kinda feel bad about that one, to be fair."
"Trikani Meadow?" Danny asked, taking a seat and putting an arm around Taylor.
"One of the Mystery Dungeons that we went to, about... a year ago, I think. Man, been a while." Shadow pulled out a chair with Extrasensory and jumped up to the seat, bringing herself more up to level with her team mate and her father. "See, we went there on a request mission to find a lost Pokemon, a Bulbasaur- their mother was worried about them, and wanted a Rescue Team to help out. Eon got knocked down near the end of the Dungeon, though I managed to heal him a little, then we got attack by a Monster House-"
"A Monster House?"
"It's a room type in a Dungeon. It... basically send an alarm through the entire Dungeon that calls all the Dungeon Pokemon over there to attack."
"Sounds like a video game." Danny noted. "Or a D&D game."
"I guess?" Shadow said, sounding confused. "I'll have to check what that is, but that's Dungeon rules where we come from. They're pretty weird. But anyway, we were nearly at the end of the Dungeon- we hadn't managed to find the Bulbasaur, and we were getting close to the end of the Dungeon, which was making Eon a bit nervous..."
Eon sneezed slightly, then sighed. Shadow's telling stories again, isn't she. For Arceus's sake, can't she stop for more than a few days? Then again, her family are all Talekeepers. Guess it's expected that she keeps talking. Flicking his tails, he pawed around the edge of the forest for a moment, then caught himself on the loose end he'd left in the illusion late the night before and folded himself into it.
All of the vague feelings from the defensive illusions vanished completely, and Eon spared a moment to smirk proudly before starting to run to the Den.
The idea of using the Zoroark style illusion keystones- that's a mouthful and a half, he mused, should think of a better name for that.- as a way to support his own invisibility had been something Shadow had come up with, in the hopes of her being able to use it to make her own invisibility illusions more accurate while on the move. Unfortunately for her, the stones didn't work well when being moved around, but it did allow both of them to 'fold' themselves into the illusion, hiding in the already set up fields to give the impression of cloaking when they didn't have to.
Maybe someday we'll manage to figure out a way to make them mobile. Eon hummed to himself. When we get back, we'll have to collaborate with Zoroark from Team Darkrun about trying to make that work.
Reaching the Den, Eon unfolded himself from the illusion, ignoring the minor feeling of the illusions coming back into focus before fading again, then started searching around.
"Nope, not here." He noted easily. "Swarm's house, then. Might as well head there, then." Taking a moment to pick up a few things- mainly the Wonder Map, sitting in the Treasure Bag inside the Den- and checking on Shadow's garden near the stream, he left her bag inside and began loping towards Taylor's.
"So what do you plan to do?"
Danny tilted his head slightly, drumming his fingers against the table. At his side was Taylor, still partly in the Cape costume and making flies dance about on the table. Thankfully she'd cleared the bugs out of her hair, sending the spiders upstairs to their boxes. Shadow and Eon were on the other side of the table, Shadow straining slightly to look over the top.
After a few moments of thought, he replied to the larger Pokemon, "I have to admit, I'm not sure. Given the lack of damage to everything over here- compared to what the city and PRT were probably expecting, that is- there's not really much of a need to try finding somewhere else to stay over, but with the water…"
"Yeah, not having access to clean water is a problem." Eon agreed. "If we had the ability to reach back home, we might be able to get a Suicune or something to come and help out- given that Hoopa sent us here, he might be willing to help us contact them for this. But since we're on our own, we need to wait for the locals to get everything together and fix it."
"Do we know how long that'll be?" Shadow asked.
"Whenever there's a Leviathan attack that leaves a lot of water pollution, it's the first priority to get that sorted out." Taylor said. "Because temporary housing is a lot easier to handle dealing with; importing bottled water from other places can get expensive and troubling to distribute around people, especially for the ones that don't manage to get into emergency shelters." All three of them looked at her, and she blushed. "We talked about it in World Issues for a few lessons once. It's one of the one's I remember pretty well."
"Helpful." Eon smiled. "So, we know that one of the first priorities is getting water back, which is good. It's likely that some of the areas of the city are going to get water back sooner, same with power in the places where that was knocked out, but we can at least hope that you'll get it back sooner rather than later. If you don't, there's always the option of moving in to the Den for a few days-"
"I'd rather that was kept as an emergency option, Eon." Danny interrupted. "It'll make it harder for me to get into work, for a start. And while I'm not opposed to camping, it's probably a better idea to stay at the house in case someone decides to come calling around to check on things. Wouldn't be very good if they found us missing."
"True, true." Eon nodded, and Danny could imagine he was thinking of what sort of reaction he would have in that sort of situation.
The PRT or police would probably take it as a reason to arrange for a pair of places on the memorial stone, for a start.
"Right, we'll leave the extended Hebert family camping trip for another day, then. You guys can stay here, obviously. Shadow and I will stay at the Den, but we'll be out all the hours we can manage and offering our help with whatever's going on." The Ninetales flicked his head a little towards the Vulpix. "Taylor, I think you should stay home for a few days. Focus on fixing your costume, and take a break. I don't see anyone needing to patrol for criminals for the next few days anyway, with the Endbringer Truce still in effect." Suddenly Eon's eyes glowed blue, and a letter floated out of the bag on the floor and placed itself on the table. Danny peered over at it, noting the envelope was already opened, and had been sealed with a deep red wax, while Eon continued, "And then there's this."
"What is it, Eon?" Shadow asked, as Taylor took the letter and unfolded it.
Danny read it over her shoulder, both eyes widening.
"Well." The sole Cape in the room mused, as she handed the letter off to her second-in-command. "That does look interesting."
"Not yet." She replied. "I can see people coming out of the shelters now, but no sign of him yet."
"You know where he went, right?"
"I'm pretty sure. There's only so many shelters, and I think I know which one's closest to home, but I'm giving as many of them as I can a look over just in case." Swarm told her, going back to her search. "I think we'll need to move on, though. I can't see him anywhere at all."
"Moving on it is, then." Shadow nodded, letting Swarm pick her up again. "How many of these shelters are there, anyway?"
"There's… about four, I think?" She guessed. "I'm not completely certain. I think there was supposed to be a fifth built as well, but for some reason it never got finished."
"Not enough money, maybe?"
"Might be." Swarm sighed. "That's been a problem for this city for a long time, to be honest, and it's horrible. Would explain why no-one seems to know where it was, aside from 'somewhere Downtown', though I think the city probably still has access to the plans. We could look them up, if you cared enough."
"Eh, it's unfinished, so there's no point. No-one's going to be there, so it'll be completely useless to go there ourselves." Shadow looked up at her with a large grin. "Unless it's suddenly turned into a Mystery Dungeon, that is. Then it'd be worth looking into." Swarm laughed loudly.
"I somehow doubt that the abandoned, unfinished Endbringer shelter in the middle of the highly populated area is anything important, Shadow, let alone a Mystery Dungeon." Swarm said dryly. "I think we'd've noticed a ton of Pokemon pouring out of it if it was."
"Pokemon don't actually tend to leave the dungeons, y'know. For some reason. Some do, admittedly, but they don't normally go far if they do as well."
"Still would've noticed Pokemon leaving in that case." Swarm retorted. "After all, there's bound to be at least a few that would roam, right?"
"Odds… aren't against it, I guess." She agreed. "It'd depend on how big the dungeon inside was, and how many different types of Pokemon were appearing there, but there's always a chance that it could happen."
"Maybe I could poke about in there with my bugs, if we ever find the place."
"Some people think that dungeons are spatially… or dimensionally, or temporally, or something like that… unlinked." Shadow commented. "So if it was a Mystery Dungeon, it's possible that you wouldn't be able to sense your bugs in there unless you were also in there." The bug user paused.
"Have I mentioned that your world is weird?" Swarm said plaintively, making Shadow giggle.
"You have, yes." Sniffing at the air a few times, she suddenly sneezed, blinking. "Huh. I think I might've just smelled your dad."
"Seriously?" Swarm looked down sharply at her.
"Ye-es…?" She hummed back, sniffing again. "Gah, everything's still covered in water smells… but I think he's over that way." She pointed, making Swarm change direction and start searching with her bugs. "Hey, isn't that about the right way to be going to your home?" Swarm shrugged.
"Might be? I haven't found him yet."
"If he's going home, we could cloak and wait for him there instead." Shadow suggested.
"Can you hold a cloak on both of us for that long?"
"I… I think so, yeah." She nodded. "It'll be difficult, I think, because if I have where we are right then it'll be kinda a long distance, but I think it's possible. Actually, it's more than possible, I've done longer than this before I think."
"Then go ahead and cloak us both, and I'll be sure to get us back home quickly." Swarm promised, turning her head to glance around, while also checking out the area with her bugs. "I recognise this place, I think, so I can get back fast."
"Alright, get ready." The Vulpix closed her eyes, tails waving back and forth a few times, then said, "We're cloaked. Go ahead, just try and stay quiet. It's harder to cloak more sound."
"On it." Swarm whispered, immediately making her way through the empty streets towards her house. Despite the practise she'd had at silencing her steps- something the Cape had decided to learn almost the second she found out just how hard it was for her team mates to cloak louder noises, and had gotten very good during the intervening time- every movement sounded unnaturally loud in the dead silence that made up the city. There should've been people there, shopping, playing, living, but instead there's nothing.
Shadow didn't like that, she decided to herself, still focused on holding the cloak.
Luckily, it didn't take long at all for them to reach the house, easily slipping inside with the spare key that had been hidden outside for situations similar to this one, and drop the cloak.
"Are you alright, Shadow?" Taylor asked, pulling off her mask and shaking her head.
"I'm fine." She yawned back, blinking herself back into wakefulness. Taylor quickly put her back on the floor, and she tottered a bit before finding her balance again. "Bit stressful, but no more than usual, at least."
"That's good. Will you be alright to do it again going to the Den?"
"Should be. Might need a bit of a rest, but I can probably manage to take you both back there."
"You rest, then. I'll check the water first, see if it's any good, then we'll decide whether or not we need to go back to the Den." Taylor decided, leaving Shadow standing on the dining room floor and walking around going into the kitchen area, where she immediately turned on the tap. "Oh."
"Oh?" Shadow padded around the corner and looked up, then spotted the black water coming from the tap in splutters. "Oh."
"Yeah, that's not a great sign, really." Taylor sighed, turning off the tap, then started towards the staircase. Shadow followed part of the way, then stretched out in the doorway of the front room instead, listening to what was going on upstairs. She heard Taylor turn on a few more taps, followed by a few soft curses that Shadow took to mean that the water upstairs was just as blackened as it was down. "I think we'll need to be coming to the Den, maybe."
"If it's just the water, does it matter too much?" Shadow called back. "You'd have to remember not to put anything in the washer or under the sink, but you'd be fine otherwise, right?"
"The shower's also gonna be out." Taylor reminded, making her way back down the stairs. "Though that's probably going to end up being a thing in most of the city for the next few days, at least until they get round to fixing things."
"Maybe we should wait for your dad to get back first, so we can ask him what to do."
"Makes sense." She nodded, heading into the kitchen and sitting down, making Shadow get up to follow her. "What do you think we should do?"
"I'd think… stay." Shadow hummed. "Of course, we wouldn't have a lot of the problems you guys would, with showers not working and stuff, we'd just use the river or pond, or even the rain if we had to… heck, even Water moves. And there'd probably be a Suicune around to fix the water if something happened. But Eon and I would probably stay in the Den."
"Don't suppose you know any Water moves, then, do you?" Taylor tried. Shadow opened her mouth to reply, then paused, head cocked.
"I… don't think so. There's a Vaporeon in my family tree, I think… Pa's side of the tree, going back… four generations, maybe?" She mused. "So I suppose it's always possible that there's a Water Move in there somewhere, but even then I wouldn't be able to use it. You kinda need to be taught to use them, even if the Move's in your lineage, and I've never been taught."
"Well damn." Taylor sighed. "I guess we'll just wait for Dad, then."
"Probably the best idea anyway. Even if he does end up saying to move to the Den, he's your dad, and should have input on things to do with your safety."
"I know, Shadow." Both girls settled into silence, listening out with their different senses for Danny to arrive at the house.
Lung looked carefully over the missive, checking it over for anything that could possibly be construed as an insult or a challenge, before finally nodding slowly. It had taken some time to get it right- or at least reasonable- and the pile of paper in the basket at his side attested to that. Then again, given that he was dealing with kitsune, it was quite possible that he'd never manage to get the message right enough. In a way, any request could be taken as a challenge, with some very creative interpretation… but that was what kitsune did best.
Deciding he just needed to bite the figurative bullet and hope for the best, Lung sealed the missive in an envelope, melted a little wax over the fold, and pressed a seal onto it.
He was dealing with kitsune, so formal would be the way to go.
Now, to wait for Lee to return from his inventory of the warehouses, or give it to the next grunt he saw with instructions to go to the neutral camp and search for Eon or Shadow?
Wait for Lee, he decided. It would look better if his nominal second-in-command went with the request, rather than sending a random grunt to do it. That could be taken as an insult to them, like he was claiming that they weren't important enough in his mind to bother sending someone powerful to meet them. Preferably, Lee would also find Shadow, rather than going to Eon, since it would be two seconds meeting as equals, not putting one of their sides on a back foot by being less important.
Leaving the sealed envelope on one side of the desk, Lung rested his head in his hands and groaned. Now he remembered why he'd always hated the formality lessons he'd taken as a child. All it ever ended up in was headaches and paranoia from second-guessing your own decisions in an attempt not to offend…
Amy walked alongside the PRT officer, her sister hovering just behind her, as the trooper walked her into the main medical tent.
"Eon's still in there." The trooper told her, holding the door of the tent open for the two girls. "Swarm and Shadow were seen leaving about an hour ago, talking, and Shadow didn't have her little bag with her. Presumably she left it in here with Eon. No idea if they've come back yet, though."
"That's ok, I just want to check on him." Amy assured. "Shadow would've done her own check on him, I'm sure, but she doesn't have the sort of in depth read I can get."
"Plus Shadow likes you, so she won't get mad." Vicky added. Amy rolled her eyes, and the trooper chuckled.
"Be quiet, Vicky." The healer retorted, before knocking softly on the door. When no-one responded, she pushed open the door and headed in, her sister floating close behind while the trooper peeled off to go and do something else.
"Looks like they're still out." Vicky observed obviously, lifting slightly to see over her head. She immediately had to duck to avoid the edge of the door, making Amy roll her eyes again and head straight for the silvery-grey vulpine on the bed.
"Good afternoon, Panacea." He said lowly, making her jump. "What brings you here?"
"I- I was just planning on checking on you, making sure you were healing ok." She replied, nervous. "Sorry, I thought you were asleep."
"I was, a little." Eon yawned widely, lifting his head from his paws. "Shadow insisted I rest more. It's best to listen to her when she says that; she has the horrible tendency to use Hypnosis on you if you refuse to rest and heal."
Vicky laughed. "That sounds like experience talking." Eon chuckled as well.
"Only the once. We normally learn our lesson after that, waking from Hypnosis is rather more disorientating than waking up on your own." He grinned at her, flexing his neck and shifting his tails. "I feel alright though, Panacea. I believe you did the healing, yes?"
"Yeah, it was my work." She nodded. "Shadow probably could've done it too, but her ability seems to sometimes work poorly when there's too much to do, and she was a little too worried for me to want to trust her with something tricky."
"That's fair enough." He agreed. He pushed himself up properly and offered a paw to her, which Amy took.
"You're definitely recovering alright." Amy nodded, after a moment examining the vulpine. "Everything looks fine, at least."
"And I feel fine, like I said." Eon chuckled. "There's still a bit of a headache, which'll go away pretty quickly. It's just the result of overboosting, my brain needs time to cool down."
"Sounds like a Thinker power." Vicky commented, from the side of the room, leaning half-way up the wall.
"In a way, I guess they are." He nodded. "Boosting adds to my powers; better ranged and melee abilities, more defences, better accuracy with my ranged attacks, things like that. Might be more of a Trump, put that way, but from what I've heard, the headaches are a Thinker staple."
"Normally, yeah." Amy said, taking her hand from Eon's paw. "But you look like you're doing ok, so I don't really think you need to be here anymore, aside from waiting for Swarm and Shadow to get back."
"I don't actually expect them to be coming back, at least not today. I sent them off on a task, so she might drop by to get her bag, but I can take that back to the Den alright and leave you the room again." Eon replied.
"You're probably good to stay a little while longer, the PRT won't need these taken down for a little while yet, and given what you and Shadow did in the fight they're probably willing to make an exception for the two of you if you need it." The healer told him. "But if you want to go you can, and I can see about finding someone to tell Swarm and Shadow where you are."
"I can go out and find them in the city for you." Vicky volunteered. Eon shook his head.
"Thanks, Glory Girl, but no need. They'll be in one of two places, so I can check one and go to the other." He promised. "Besides, I'm sure you have better things to do than search around the city for a pair of Capes."
"Eh, not really." She shrugged. "Most of everything's done now, for Capes; no more search-and-rescue, moving debris around can be done by normal people with machines, and to be honest I think the city is gonna want to leave rebuilding for a little while, while everything else gets sorted."
Eon tilted his head slightly, seeming confused, so Amy stepped in, "Normally the cities like to make sure that all the Capes from other cities are back where they should be and the emergency shelters are all set up, then they start calling in companies which help with rebuilding. Normally I think priorities are fresh water, fixing the water supplies and that, and making sure anyone affected has temporary housing before they rebuild- that way they don't miss things." She explained, then shrugged. "Though given how little damage happened this attack compared to most, things are gonna end up getting kicked up a bit, I think."
"I see." Eon nodded. "I'll have to see if there's any way Shadow and I can help with rebuilding. Swarm might not be able to do much, but the two of us can lift things around."
"The city's most likely to use companies from inside the city where they can, just for the sake of saving a bit of money." Amy said. "But you'll probably find a few people that're willing to get some help from Capes."
"It's after an Endbringer attack, after all. People always want stuff sorted before the next one happens." Vicky added. Eon pursed his lips slightly, a few tails curling around each other.
"I see. I'll have to see what we can do, then."
"You could probably get requests to help if you just posted about it on PHO." She told him. "It can be a surprise to see how much stuff comes from there. Basically everyone uses it, after all."
"I might just do that." Eon smiled. "Thank you, Panacea."
"Always happy to help." She stepped away, while Vicky pushed off the wall to come float next to her. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to do. You can probably leave if you want, I don't really see a reason for you to need to stay and recover. If it's just sleep you can do that well enough in your base, I guess."
"Most likely." Eon carefully jumped down from the bed, shaking himself out once he hit the floor, and a moment later his eyes shimmered blue. Shadow's bag drifted between the two girls, making them blink, and settled next to him. "The Den isn't close to the attack site at all, so it should be fine. I think I will head out, then go find Swarm and Shadow."
"Good luck with that, then." Amy offered her hand to shake, which he did, then shook Vicky's as well. "Hopefully we'll see you around sometime soon. Probably when Aunt Sarah's able to get to the PRT about Shadow's possible anti-Master effect."
"We'll be certain to come along to that meeting with her." Eon told her. "A team should stay together, after all, no matter what." The grey fox wrapped a tail around the bag, lifting it- and making Amy raise an eyebrow, because she didn't think the tails were that flexible- and all three of them went towards the door. "I hope everything else you do goes well." He said, before trotting off. A few seconds later he went around a corner and out of sight, and Amy let Vicky pick her up to carry her back to the rest of the family.
And thought about the fact that that final sentence seemed to carry a lot more weight than a simple farewell…
Humming slightly to himself as he wandered through the deserted streets, Eon sniffed curiously at the air, looking for the scent of his two team mates. While he didn't need to find them just yet, it would be a helpful starting point in looking for them if he had to. Until then, though, he would be heading for the Den, then to Taylor's house.
Twisting down an alleyway with the plan to cloak himself and leave, he heard a vaguely familiar sound- the slight pop of a teleport- and perked an ear, dropping into the shadows.
He was fairly sure that no-one would be stupid enough to try attacking him in the aftermath of an Endbringer attack, while the truce was in effect, but there were always a lot of stupid people in the world- in either world, for that matter. So he'd be on guard.
The tallish form of Oni Lee made his way into the alley, the demon mask glancing around, and Eon half relaxed. With Lung having given the order to leave Team Inari the hell alone, apparently on the pain of pain, it wasn't likely that this was an attack.
Still…
"Greetings, Oni Lee." Eon rumbled, throwing his voice slightly. While he still hadn't properly learned Shadow's trick to throw her voice, he had it down well enough that he could put it on the other side of the alleyway and slightly up, where some sodden boxes were sitting. "What brings you here?"
"I was looking for you, Kyuubi Eon." He responded, freezing in place. The Parahuman moved one hand towards his pocket, making Eon prepare a flicker of flame in the back of his throat, only to let it fade when he took out a letter, holding it out towards the air with his other hand held up. "Lung-sama commanded me to pass this letter on, either to you or to your second. I saw you coming this way, and followed."
"I see." Eon nodded, forming an illusion to walk out of the shadows on that side. It strolled over to Oni Lee and, with slightly glowing eyes to mask where it was coming from, took the letter in an Extrasensory. "Thank you, then."
The illusion took a half step back, giving Eon the chance to cloak himself and step out of the shadows, breaking the seal on the missive and scanning over it.
With raised eyebrows, the real Eon stepped out of the way again, allowing the illusion to handle the appearance of conversation. "That's a very interesting idea, Oni Lee." It mused. "Tell your leader that I accept." Oni Lee nodded, then turned around, teleporting. His clone faded into ash a few seconds later, and only a few seconds after that, once Eon was vaguely sure that the scent of the Parahuman was far enough away, that he let the illusion vanish away.
He left the shadows with the letter still in his psychic grasp, then brought his tail around to let him put it in Shadow's bag.
"Interesting." He murmured to himself. "Very interesting indeed…"
Quickly making his way down the rest of the alley, then cloaking and ignoring the headache once again forming, Eon started running towards the Den, wanting to get back there as soon as possible so he could talk to Shadow and Swarm about the contents of the letter- whether they were there or at Taylor's house.
"Here's Dad." Taylor said, spotting him approaching the door with her bugs.
"No-one's with him, right?" Shadow checked, standing and shaking her fur out.
"He's on his own." She confirmed. "No need to cloak anything."
"Good."
Both females heard the front door open, and Taylor quickly called, "Hi dad!"
"Taylor?" He replied, sounding surprised, suddenly appearing in the kitchen. "I'm glad you're alright… what happened to your costume?"
"I got into a bit of trouble during the tsunami." She told him. "Things got a bit wrecked, so I'm gonna need to fix my costume, but I've got some spiders working on it at the minute, I took some of the ones working on my second costume to do it. I got healed fine, though. Panacea made sure of that, after Shadow and her friend found me." Danny nodded, looking away from where he was examining Taylor's costume and down at Shadow, still standing on the floor.
"I see. Thank you, Shadow." He smiled at her, then looked around. "Where's Eon?"
"He should still be in the medical bay, resting." Shadow sighed, scowling lightly. "But I doubt he is. Probably woke up about ten minutes after we left, decided he's rested enough, picked up my bag, and gone for a walk. Most likely to the Den, to see if we went there, and he'll probably leave my bag there too, then he'll come here. If he doesn't find us here, he'll go wandering."
Danny and Taylor both stared at her, and she shrugged. "Eon's done it before, though without too much of the wandering. He basically left the little medical area, went and made food, then went for a short walk while eating the food. One of our other team mates, Gallade, found him and dragged him back." Taylor giggled.
"That does kind of sound like Eon." She snickered. "He doesn't seem like someone who'd want to sit around too much."
"Oh, he does not." Shadow laughed. "Not even close. To be fair, I think the main reason is because we have a tendency to do things when he's not around, so he needs to play catch-up on it all the time. Like Trikani Meadow... I kinda feel bad about that one, to be fair."
"Trikani Meadow?" Danny asked, taking a seat and putting an arm around Taylor.
"One of the Mystery Dungeons that we went to, about... a year ago, I think. Man, been a while." Shadow pulled out a chair with Extrasensory and jumped up to the seat, bringing herself more up to level with her team mate and her father. "See, we went there on a request mission to find a lost Pokemon, a Bulbasaur- their mother was worried about them, and wanted a Rescue Team to help out. Eon got knocked down near the end of the Dungeon, though I managed to heal him a little, then we got attack by a Monster House-"
"A Monster House?"
"It's a room type in a Dungeon. It... basically send an alarm through the entire Dungeon that calls all the Dungeon Pokemon over there to attack."
"Sounds like a video game." Danny noted. "Or a D&D game."
"I guess?" Shadow said, sounding confused. "I'll have to check what that is, but that's Dungeon rules where we come from. They're pretty weird. But anyway, we were nearly at the end of the Dungeon- we hadn't managed to find the Bulbasaur, and we were getting close to the end of the Dungeon, which was making Eon a bit nervous..."
Eon sneezed slightly, then sighed. Shadow's telling stories again, isn't she. For Arceus's sake, can't she stop for more than a few days? Then again, her family are all Talekeepers. Guess it's expected that she keeps talking. Flicking his tails, he pawed around the edge of the forest for a moment, then caught himself on the loose end he'd left in the illusion late the night before and folded himself into it.
All of the vague feelings from the defensive illusions vanished completely, and Eon spared a moment to smirk proudly before starting to run to the Den.
The idea of using the Zoroark style illusion keystones- that's a mouthful and a half, he mused, should think of a better name for that.- as a way to support his own invisibility had been something Shadow had come up with, in the hopes of her being able to use it to make her own invisibility illusions more accurate while on the move. Unfortunately for her, the stones didn't work well when being moved around, but it did allow both of them to 'fold' themselves into the illusion, hiding in the already set up fields to give the impression of cloaking when they didn't have to.
Maybe someday we'll manage to figure out a way to make them mobile. Eon hummed to himself. When we get back, we'll have to collaborate with Zoroark from Team Darkrun about trying to make that work.
Reaching the Den, Eon unfolded himself from the illusion, ignoring the minor feeling of the illusions coming back into focus before fading again, then started searching around.
"Nope, not here." He noted easily. "Swarm's house, then. Might as well head there, then." Taking a moment to pick up a few things- mainly the Wonder Map, sitting in the Treasure Bag inside the Den- and checking on Shadow's garden near the stream, he left her bag inside and began loping towards Taylor's.
"So what do you plan to do?"
Danny tilted his head slightly, drumming his fingers against the table. At his side was Taylor, still partly in the Cape costume and making flies dance about on the table. Thankfully she'd cleared the bugs out of her hair, sending the spiders upstairs to their boxes. Shadow and Eon were on the other side of the table, Shadow straining slightly to look over the top.
After a few moments of thought, he replied to the larger Pokemon, "I have to admit, I'm not sure. Given the lack of damage to everything over here- compared to what the city and PRT were probably expecting, that is- there's not really much of a need to try finding somewhere else to stay over, but with the water…"
"Yeah, not having access to clean water is a problem." Eon agreed. "If we had the ability to reach back home, we might be able to get a Suicune or something to come and help out- given that Hoopa sent us here, he might be willing to help us contact them for this. But since we're on our own, we need to wait for the locals to get everything together and fix it."
"Do we know how long that'll be?" Shadow asked.
"Whenever there's a Leviathan attack that leaves a lot of water pollution, it's the first priority to get that sorted out." Taylor said. "Because temporary housing is a lot easier to handle dealing with; importing bottled water from other places can get expensive and troubling to distribute around people, especially for the ones that don't manage to get into emergency shelters." All three of them looked at her, and she blushed. "We talked about it in World Issues for a few lessons once. It's one of the one's I remember pretty well."
"Helpful." Eon smiled. "So, we know that one of the first priorities is getting water back, which is good. It's likely that some of the areas of the city are going to get water back sooner, same with power in the places where that was knocked out, but we can at least hope that you'll get it back sooner rather than later. If you don't, there's always the option of moving in to the Den for a few days-"
"I'd rather that was kept as an emergency option, Eon." Danny interrupted. "It'll make it harder for me to get into work, for a start. And while I'm not opposed to camping, it's probably a better idea to stay at the house in case someone decides to come calling around to check on things. Wouldn't be very good if they found us missing."
"True, true." Eon nodded, and Danny could imagine he was thinking of what sort of reaction he would have in that sort of situation.
The PRT or police would probably take it as a reason to arrange for a pair of places on the memorial stone, for a start.
"Right, we'll leave the extended Hebert family camping trip for another day, then. You guys can stay here, obviously. Shadow and I will stay at the Den, but we'll be out all the hours we can manage and offering our help with whatever's going on." The Ninetales flicked his head a little towards the Vulpix. "Taylor, I think you should stay home for a few days. Focus on fixing your costume, and take a break. I don't see anyone needing to patrol for criminals for the next few days anyway, with the Endbringer Truce still in effect." Suddenly Eon's eyes glowed blue, and a letter floated out of the bag on the floor and placed itself on the table. Danny peered over at it, noting the envelope was already opened, and had been sealed with a deep red wax, while Eon continued, "And then there's this."
"What is it, Eon?" Shadow asked, as Taylor took the letter and unfolded it.
Danny read it over her shoulder, both eyes widening.
"Well." The sole Cape in the room mused, as she handed the letter off to her second-in-command. "That does look interesting."
