- Location
- England, Smugsville.
Yeah... just appeared.
We have a friend who sent them here, remember?
And they're a bit of a troll with little else to do.
A Shadow, an Eon, and a Worm (Worm/Pokemon)
- Thread starter ShadowPixelle
- Start date
- Crossover
We have a friend who sent them here, remember?
And they're a bit of a troll with little else to do.
Balrog
not Durin's Bane
- Location
- The Mines of Moria
Balrog: *Takes a gentle stroll through the web*
Internet: *Sneaks up and brains Balrog with a clue-by-four*
Balrog: *rubs back of head* What do you want Internet?
Internet: *Points at A Shadow, an Eon, and a Worm*
Balrog: Yeah so? I've already been reading it. It's quite nice and the author is funny.
Internet: *Points at A Shadow, an Eon, and a Worm on Sufficient Velocity*
Balrog: *FACE PALM**Clicks Thread Watch*
Internet: *Sneaks up and brains Balrog with a clue-by-four*
Balrog: *rubs back of head* What do you want Internet?
Internet: *Points at A Shadow, an Eon, and a Worm*
Balrog: Yeah so? I've already been reading it. It's quite nice and the author is funny.
Internet: *Points at A Shadow, an Eon, and a Worm on Sufficient Velocity*
Balrog: *FACE PALM**Clicks Thread Watch*
Chapter 7- Burgers, babbling, and banking
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
Taylor carefully slipped out of Fugly Bobs carrying three take-away bags full of burgers and fries, joining the pair waiting outside for her.
"All done?" The man asked. He looked to be about nineteen, just over six feet tall with wiry muscles, dyed light blue hair and grey eyes. He looked slightly down at her, a tiny smile on his face, making her grin in return.
"Yeah. Three burgers and a lot of fries." She nodded, holding up the bags.
"C'mon, let's go find a place to eat, yeah?" The other girl of the trio bounced, arms folded under her chest and a wide, beaming grin on her face. She was more tanned than her male friend, looked to be around seventeen, and was much shorter than both her friends, only a little above five feet. Her hair was a vibrant red that looked almost bloody, and sparkling blue eyes darted about with excitement.
"We can go back to my place." Taylor offered, nodding to her. "It's not far, and I could do with putting my bag away anyway."
"Lead the way." The man told her, grasping the bouncing girl's shoulder to make her stand still. Taylor smiled at the display and nodded, turning on the spot and walking back past the burger store down the Boardwalk, planning on dropping into a few alleyways to make the trip shorter. Both of her friends followed, carefully slipping through the large crowds with a fluid ease, the crowds shifting unconsciously to avoid knocking into them, which she noticed with a slight smile.
Dropping into an alleyway, she went about half way through before stopping and turning to her friends, looking around with her bugs as she did so.
"It's empty." She told them, holding out two of the three bags. Both of them sagged in relief, before flickering and vanishing, Eon and Shadow flickering out of invisibility a second after.
"Thank Arceus for that." Eon huffed, shaking himself and examining the floor, before picking a spot that was marginally less dirty than the rest of the area to sit down on. "That was far more stressful than I was expecting it to be."
"Are you alright?" Taylor checked.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." Eon flicked his tails, waving her off. "I could do with a bit of rest, and maybe a reminder next time I recommend trying to hold two Pokemon invisible and mostly inaudible while projecting two humans at the same time, but I'll be fine to patrol, if that's what you're asking."
"Well, I was more worried about you, but that's good too." Taylor admitted, as the Ninetales lifted the bags out of her grip and handed Shadow one of them. "Are you just going to go invisible for the rest of the trip back to mine, then?"
"That would probably be best." He nodded, as Shadow opened her bad and sniffed at it. "Way less strain than trying to hold all six of them at once." He sighed, lifting the burger from the bag. "Way less."
"I need to practise cloaking more." Shadow decided, through a mouthful of fries. "Pretty sure that'd make it easier, right?"
"It'd help, sure." Eon agreed, taking a cautious bite from his burger. "That's really nice, actually."
"I wouldn't recommend eating them too often," Taylor cautioned, through her own bite, "The stuff's known as 'heart attack in a bun' for a reason. Especially some of the bigger stuff. There's so much fat and grease that it's ridiculous."
"Nice on occasion, though." The three sat silently for a little while, just eating their way through the take-out, before Taylor hummed.
"Y'know, I've always been ok at cooking." She said slowly. "So maybe on some afternoons when dad's not around you guys could spend some time at mine. We'd have to listen out a bit, I guess, so that you don't get caught, but it'd be kinda fun, I think."
"Have you still not said anything to your father yet?" Eon asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I got in late last night and the night before, and I didn't have the time this morning or yesterday." She shrugged. "Plus, well, I've been a Cape for a pretty long time now- four months- and I haven't said anything to him before now. It makes me feel… a little awkward, I guess, about bringing it up."
"But if you do tell your father, he might be able to help cover for you in things. Like if you need the day of school for Cape business, he'd be able to phone you in as sick instead of you just skipping like you did today. And we'd be able to come over your house more easily that way. Show up under an illusion, and we could drop it as soon as we get into your house, without needing to worry about listening out for your father showing up." Eon told her. Taylor frowned, biting her lip for a few moments, then nodding and taking the final bite of her burger and working her way through some of the fries.
"I'll… have to find a good time to talk about it." She finally said slowly. "Maybe a weekend, or a Friday afternoon where there's plenty of time for him to get used to it." Eon gave a nod, leaving it at that.
"So, are we gonna start moving?" Shadow's voice made both of them look down, where the smaller Vulpix was balancing the balled up paper bag on the end of her nose, sitting perfectly still. She'd barely moved even asking her question, though the ball wobbled for a moment before she stilled again.
"Are you finished already?" Eon blinked, a few fries hovering in midair. "Where did it all go?"
"I finished because I wasn't talking." She muttered, the ball wobbling again before she reached up to put a paw on it, moving to a better position at the same time. "And it went in my stomach, silly."
"Fair enough, I suppose." Eon chuckled. "We'll be done soon, so just wait a bit."
"Ok." Shadow almost huffed out a sigh, but seemed to remember her balancing act and the last moment and just settled for tapping her paw and sweeping her tails around a little. Taylor and Eon exchanged amused looks, quickly finishing the rest of their food and balling up their own bags as well.
"Alright, now we can go to mine." Taylor smiled.
"Good." Shadow did huff this time, blowing the ball off her nose, which Taylor snatched out of the air with a quick movement. Shadow looked impressed. "Nice reflexes. That was really fast." Taylor blushed.
"Thanks." The teen muttered, turning and leading the way out of the alleyway. "Come on, my house is a bit far from here, so we should probably try and get there soon so I can hide my stuff there. Then we can go patrolling in daylight for the first time."
"Are you looking forward to it?" Shadow asked, trotting after her. Eon took a moment to brush the dirt off his tails before he followed with a slight huff of irritation, planning on cleaning it up properly once they were in Taylor's hopefully empty house.
"A bit, yeah." Taylor nodded. "I mean, I'm nervous too, it's kinda strange and I know people'll stare, but I'm used to that."
"Oh, I'm not asking that. I mean if you're actually excited for it. A proper step into being a famous rescue team is always done with a high profile mission from someone, normally capturing a big name outlaw, or a Guild expedition where you find lost treasures or areas long forgotten." Taylor looked around and down, seeing a glitter of excitement in her eyes. "I guess it's not likely we'll encounter some big name, but we'll be properly in public and doing lots of work helping people. That's just as good."
"I would almost say it's better, Shadow." Eon put in, taking up Taylor's other side as they turned a corner into another empty alley. "After all, if your team is just known for being famous, you'll be respected for that alone, but people will likely be wary of you. They might not see you as just another Pokemon- or person, in this case- because they don't know about the ordinary stuff you do. If you were known for being quite normal before you were famous, on the other hand…"
"People would be more likely to approach you." Taylor finished, understanding where his speech was going. "Which makes sense for someone like you guys, doing missions, but less for something like a Cape team?"
"It's possible it'd be easier to find informants in groups." Eon elaborated. "You're known to be powerful and famous, but also approachable and keep your word, perhaps even pushing towards noble. That'll make it more likely that other people would be willing to approach with information- hold on." Eon paused, wrapping both himself and Shadow in a cloak again as they started getting near to the streets. "-Information that could help with capturing criminals or finding missing Pokemon that no-one knows exactly where they are."
"Interesting…" Taylor mused quietly, before the three of them walked out into a less crowded but still populated street and they had to fall silent again.
"Come in, dad's not here, I checked with my bugs." Taylor said softly, holding open the back door for them both. Eon huffed slightly at the idea of bringing the dirt in with them, while Shadow just carefully walked in, trying not to disturb anything. "Don't worry about dirt, Eon, I'll fix it afterwards, before we leave."
"Fine." He grumbled. "I didn't want to get you in trouble."
"It'll be alright. Will you be ok getting it off on your own? I'm going to my room to put my things away and put my costume on."
"Sure, we can manage. It's not the first time we've had situations with dirt, after all." Eon laughed, tails flicking in amusement. "We'll see you in a moment." Taylor nodded acceptingly and trooped up the stairs. Eon listened for the creak of the doors, then looked at Shadow, who was brushing at the base of her tails with her paws. "Be careful, Shadow." Eon said lowly, making her look up at him and pause her ministrations.
"What about?"
"We're hunting in daylight, in a crowded area. You can't hold invisibility very well, so you're relying on your colour change, and that's not necessarily gonna be good enough for this." He told her firmly. "Be careful with how you work today."
"I will, Eon." She nodded. "Don't worry. You and Taylor stay invisible, I'll just drop in and out of things." She pawed gently at the end of his tail. "You be safe too, ok?"
"We both will be." The grey Ninetales placed his paw on Shadow's head. "This world is a lot more dangerous than ours in many ways. No risks, ok?"
"Ok." The two of them turned to getting the dirt off their tails for the next minute or so, then curled up on the floor and waited for Taylor to make a reappearance, listening to the sounds of her moving around upstairs. Shadow pawed slightly at the end of her scarf, the badge above it shifting as she did, and chewed at her lip. "I'm a little scared."
"What of?" Eon blinked, cocking his head.
"Dunno." She shrugged. "Just, something. Something feels off, and I don't like it."
"I thought I was the one with the future sight." Eon chuckled. "But I'll take your word for it. Instinct's have gotten us through this stuff before."
"Like the expedition in Murky Oceans the Guild went on." Shadow recalled with a smile. "That was fun, but a little scary."
"True." Eon shuddered. "The fact that you picked up on the attack before it happened was really lucky. Especially given that damned Scream that came right before it. Thanks again, by the way."
"You've been thanking me about that every other week for the last eleven months." Shadow giggled. "You can let it go now."
"Let what go?" Taylor, now fully costumed up as Swarm, asked, entering the room.
"Oh, just a story from an expedition." Eon waved off, pushing himself up in the same movement. "I'll tell it to you some other time. Maybe this evening after our patrol's over?"
"Could be fun, sure." Swarm nodded, standing next to Shadow. Both vulpines cocked their heads.
"Your voice sounds different." Shadow noted.
"I was messing with insects when I had some spare time, trying to make voices with them." She told them. "I can't use them to talk or anything, and I'm not sure I ever really will, but I can make my voice sound really different like this. I don't know why I didn't think of this before, to be honest, it could've been really helpful for dealing with villains."
"And heroes. Sometimes the so-called 'good guys' can be just as bad." Eon said darkly, glaring at the wall.
"Another story for later," Shadow whispered, before saying louder, "I think you might've been too close to the problem? Sometimes me and Eon don't spot things we could do for ages, then when someone points it out it's all 'Oh, duh. Why didn't we think of that?'"
"Probably." Swarm hummed, a noise that sounded very odd with the dull hum of insects behind it. "Anyway, ready to leave?"
"One last thing." Eon said, looking between the two girls. "Be careful, both of you. Things in this city are dangerous, and we're going to be out in the public eye for the first time today. Neither of you can get hurt during this, please. Especially not you, Taylor. Shadow doesn't have to explain away random injuries to people. You will. Do your best not to get hurt, and stay near me. I'm keeping the both of us invisible, so you should be safe unless we get into a fight about something. Shadow, I'm trusting you to know your limits. Cloak when you have to, hide when you can, and by Arceus keep an eye out for trouble. Don't go running into something on accident that might get you hurt. This isn't back home, in a Dungeon. If you get seriously injured, you won't be teleported out back to a safe spot outside the dungeon, you'll be injured in front of a hostile enemy. Watch out."
"I will, Eon." Shadow promised. "I know things are different here. I'm not going to try something stupid and get hurt. I grew out of that phase pretty quickly as part of a Rescue Team." Eon studied her for a moment, then nodded, looking up at Swarm.
"I'll be careful too, Eon." She agreed. "I'm not as experienced as you are in exploring and rescuing, and I know that."
"Coulda fooled me, jumping in front of a dragon."
"I'll be careful, and listen to what you guys recommend." Swarm finished, ignoring Shadow's comment with the unfortunate ease of practise. "Just show me where to go, and I'll follow."
"Unless we get into a big fight, then I hope you can manage yourself without the team leader yelling instructions at you." Eon grinned.
"I think I can do that, yeah."
"Then come on. Let's get out of here to make sure we don't run into your father or something, we'll cloak outside and get moving. Would you like to make your way to the Boardwalk while in costume, and see what we can do?" He asked, letting Taylor lead the way out of her house and waiting for her to lock up. "Or should we just sulk in the alleys again and pick people off in the dark and dirt?"
"Why don't we do that, but move along towards the Boardwalk as we go?" Shadow suggested. "We can do a bit of both then, right?"
"Sounds fine to me." Swarm nodded her acceptance.
"Then we cloak up and start moving. We'll stick mostly to the alleys this time, so Shadow has an easier time avoiding being spotted." Eon told them, waving his tails. An illusion formed around the two larger members of the team, while the smallest changed her colours to something somewhat darker as they all padded out quietly, dipping into an alleyway at the first chance they got.
Nearly three quarters of an hour, and one attempted mugging later, the group of three huddled together under a much larger illusion near the Boardwalk.
"So, we're pretty near the Boardwalk. Swarm, you're our native. How do things normally look about here?"
"I don't normally spend too much time here, to be honest." She said uncomfortably. "Don't really have the money to spend on a lot of the shops here, and when I'd normally have the time to even look everyone else is out of school and wandering about, so I can't even get away from those people here." Eon nodded.
"Well, anything you can say, from your bugs or yourself?"
"There's a lot of back alleys and passages, so plenty of potential for a mugging or five. Lots of pretty expensive shops, so it's likely that there'd be some idiot willing to try a robbery." Swarm said.
"That's more likely to be teenage gang members, I'd think." Shadow guessed. "I know back home that robbing low profile high profile stuff is kinda a kiddy move, basically."
"Sorry, what?"
"Um, things that are low profile targets, like shops, but high profile because they're really popular or in really obvious areas with lots of people?" She explained, sounding a little confused herself. "It's a bit of a weird way to class something, but that's what we call it. It's a bit low level, too, mostly newish outlaws who've done enough stuff to think that they're really good, but aren't really that good at all."
"Alright, moving the lessons to later, anything with your bugs, Swarm?" Eon interrupted.
"Things mostly look ok, to be honest. I still don't have the best grasp on insect senses, but I can't hear or see anything nearby." She reported. "It's possible that since most of the teenagers in the gangs are still in school- assuming they aren't skipping, or just mega high in the Merchant's cases- things are gonna be a bit quiet for a while, since they aren't around."
"Perhaps, I suppose." Eon frowned. "And here I was hoping there'd be some way we could have a decent debut for the three of us."
About three blocks over, something exploded.
"Oh, nice one, Eon." Shadow groaned. "Of course you had to speak up, oh so great and brilliant leader."
"Quit your yapping, pix!" The Ninetales snapped, turning to Swarm. "What's happening over there?"
"Hold on, I'm getting bugs into the area so I can see." They waited a moment, where Eon's tails flicked impatiently, then Swarm continued, "Bank robbery. There's a lot of black smoke at the main entrance, and… I think I see most of the Wards there too, plus a white figure? There's a few dogs running about too… Pretty sure it's the Undersiders." Shadow frowned.
"Do we go after them?" She asked awkwardly. "I mean, we helped them the other day…"
"They're villains, and remember what Tattletale said about reputation." Eon returned. "This could be an easy chance for a debut."
"The Wards do seem to be struggling a bit. I think… Clockblocker and Aegis are in the wrong costumes, they're showing the others powers and the dog's going after Clockblocker, who hasn't been seriously hurt yet, so I'm pretty sure they've swapped costumes. Probably to try and fool the Undersiders, I don't think they know that Tattletale's a Thinker." Swarm reported. Eon nodded, grinning.
"Let's go offer a helping hand, shall we?"
Dennis cursed quietly as he stepped forwards, trying to get close enough to the fight between the giant dog and his team mate to freeze the huge thing and try to buy them a few moments of breathing space. Vicky and Missy were trying to fight a second one, with slightly better results, and Dean and Chris were fighting with Grue and Regent respectively. Bitch was on the side, calling commands to her dogs, and the final member, Tattletale, was nowhere to be seen. Dennis assumed she was inside with however many hostages they'd kept in the bank, but for now he just was trying to even the odds a bit against the Undersiders and their giant dogs.
They were really too smart for dogs, he grumbled mentally, taking another step closer and trying to find some sort of way to touch the dog. A moment later, he jumped and made a small, startled yelp that he hastily muffled.
"Hey there!" A cheery female voice said from his left. "Need some help?" Dennis looked around for a second, trying to spot the owner of the voice, before a flash of red-orange made him look down towards the ground.
And blink, since a two foot tall fox with six tails and a cuteness factor of around twenty-six was not what he expected to find.
"Only, you guys seem to be getting a bit beaten up." She continued, apparently ignoring his confusion. "So I was thinking that it looked like you needed some help."
"We, ah, yeah." He tried, trying to get his brain working again. "Yeah, we could do with some help. Only, um, what could you do?"
"A lot of things, really." She replied, not seeming offended- which Dennis was glad for, since he'd realised about a second after he said it that it could have been taken very badly. "And Eon can do a lot more, if he remembers to tone it down a bit." Her part- or interest- in the conversation apparently over, she took a few steps closer to the dog and ignored him in favour of looking at it.
A sigh made him twitch, then look over at his left again, finding a three foot tall fox with nine tales and an almost six foot tall human had appeared from nowhere.
"Well, she'll be doing that, I suppose." The fox sighed. "Swarm, can you handle the humans, please? I believe I'll be dealing with the other dog, since Shadow seems to have picked this one."
"No problem, Eon." The woman- Swarm- nodded, running her hand through her hair. Dennis mentally recoiled when it came away with some dozen spiders attached to it. "No-one's getting shot at inside the bank, at least."
"I know, I can hear it." Eon told her. "Come on, we might as well get moving." Nodding to Dennis on her way past, Swarm started making her way closer to the ongoing fights between Dean, Grue, Regent, and Chris, before throwing the spiders into the mix in a careful fashion, seemingly waiting for some unknown signal before she did. The fox, Eon, nodded at him as well, walking over to the dog Vicky and Missy were fighting. Dennis just watched, slightly dumbfounded and very confused, as he looked between the girl and the larger fox, before turning to look at the smaller one, Shadow.
"Hey!" She shouted, her voice lost over the growls of the dog. For a moment, her slowly wagging tails stilled, before the rightmost one flicked angrily. "HEY!" The dog froze, as did Carlos, before looking across and down at the fox, whose voice had suddenly become about four times louder and a lot more intimidating. "Thank you. Mr Superhero, you might want to look away…" Bemused, Dennis watched his friend stare at her, before doing a double take and looking away from her as fast as possible, finding one of the nearby buildings many times more interesting than whatever the fox was doing. "Thank you…" The dog continued staring at her, its eyes slowly getting more and more droopy, and it opened a heavily fanged mouth in a yawn.
"Bitch, get them out of here!" A new female voice made all of them jump, including Shadow, who lost her focus on the dog. Said animal began blinking slowly, seeming confused, before a shrill whistle from its owner caused it to jump to attention and run over, the dog that had been fighting Vicky and Missy, as well as Eon, doing the same. A blonde in a skin-tight purple-and-black costume came running out of the front of the bank, another of the huge animals following her. "Grue, Regent, time to go!" Both of them disengaged from their fights with some difficulty, having to also deal with the pile of bugs that had joined them courtesy of Swarm, and made their way over to the dogs, both girls already climbing onto one each.
"Swarm, stop them!" Eon barked, tails wavering in the air. A swarm of bugs rose up at the command, chasing towards the dogs in a terrifying fashion, while an ethereal purple aura blasted from the blue tail-tips of the fox, following after the bugs. Tattletale seemed to pale behind her mask, eyes wide, and Bitch whistled sharply. The dogs jerked off, making a running jump at the nearest building and scrambling up. The purple creation froze and dispelled, now lacking a target, while the bug cloud buzzed dangerously before Swarm twitched, clearly calling them back. Shadow growled, the sound making both Carlos and Dennis jump and Eon turn.
"Damn it." She scowled. "They got away."
"Do we go after them, Eon?" Swarm asked, the cloud of bugs forming at her back. Eon watched after them for a moment, frowning, then shook his head.
"No point. The dogs move far faster than you could, Swarm, and even Shadow and myself would be pushing it a bit." He replied. "They're probably already well enough away, and I reckon those dogs would hear if we gave chase." Shadow huffed, making Eon glance at her. "Oh, get over it, pix."
"Alright. It's been a while since that's happened, though." She grumbled, making her way over to the larger fox. "Normally bad guys fight to the bitter end, or just give up straight away. I miss our reputation already."
"It'll come back, Shadow." Eon grinned, patting her head for a moment. "At least this time we're familiar with the climb."
"True." She smiled, as Swarm coughed.
"Maybe instead of chattering on about your awesomeness, we should actually introduce ourselves to people?" She asked awkwardly, the swarm of bugs now dispersing completely.
"Ah, yes. Thanks, Swarm." Eon nodded, shaking his head. A plume of white-grey fur on his head waved with the motion, making Dennis blink and wonder how he'd missed noticing that before the movement, and how Eon had avoided it getting in the way in the fight, before the giant fox turned towards the group. "Apologies for ignoring you all, and for just jumping into your fights like we did. We felt you all could use some help." The Wards traded glances, then Carlos, as the leader, stepped forwards to respond.
"Thank you for joining in. You're right, we did need a bit of help. The Undersiders aren't really known for frontal assaults, so we weren't prepared for it. I wonder what changed this time."
"Who knows?" Eon shrugged, the motion rippling down his tails. "Maybe we'll find out someday, most likely we won't. No reason to dwell on it either way." He stepped forwards slightly, leaving his two team mates flanking him, and offered a paw. "Now, introductions. My name's Eon, the team leader, Shadow there is my second in command and Swarm's the newbie." Shadow gave a cheery wave to them all, sitting down as she did to wait out the conversation, while Swarm coolly nodded. Seeming slightly more confused, Carlos stepped closer and shook the offered paw.
"I'm Aegis, the Ward's leader, that's Clockblocker, Gallant, Kid Win, and Vista." He introduced them all in turn, Dennis and Missy giving polite waves while Gallant and Kid Win nodded. "Glory Girl was here, but she seems to have gone right now."
"She went inside the bank." Swarm told him. "Something about her sister?"
"Ah, yes. Panacea was in the bank at the time, so she's probably gone to go and make sure she's ok." Carlos winced. "Gallant, can you…?"
"Sure thing, Aegis." Dean nodded, walking past them and into the bank. Eon smiled slightly.
"Her worry is understandable. Family is important, after all." He said, taking his paw back. "So, what's the procedure for this now? I assume it'll be somewhat different to back home, or when we were dealing with muggers over the last few days."
"The police will be here any minute, console says, so we'll need to give statements to them. They'll take witness statements as well, so we'll probably be here a while."
"Understandable." The fox nodded. "Back home, the authorities have a tendency to take extremely detailed statements from every member of the team- or teams, as the case may be- and I was slightly surprised to see that didn't happen with those muggings."
"The police are a little stretched thin in this city." Carlos agreed. "They stick around for longer with the bigger crimes, of course."
"That certainly makes sense." Eon glanced over his shoulder at his two team mates. "Relax, you two. We've got some time before we need to be all formal and giving information." Shadow immediately slumped down slightly, her tails wrapping around her paws, while Swarm just shifted a little on the spot, folding her arms. Dennis took the opportunity to properly examine the three of them.
Eon was clearly the leader of the group, and not just because he'd introduced himself as such. Even being nearly two feet shorter than him and sitting down, the nine-tailed vulpine gave a sense of being completely aware of everything around him, almost unnervingly so. His red eyes were constantly scanning the area, even after telling his two partners to relax- an order that sounded oddly like a slightly rephrased 'stand down' to him- and two of the nine tails were twitching, like he was expecting to have to jump into action in a moment.
Dennis wondered what sort of hell the animal had came from to act like that. And why he'd never heard of a pair of foxes causing trouble and heroics, since they were apparently famous, from Shadow's earlier words.
Said smaller fox was now lying on the stomach, six tails curling around her right side to lie along her body, looking completely relaxed and at ease, in contrast to her leader. She was looking around at the building and people in the area, just like he was, but her attitude appeared to be more idly curiosity than waiting for a sudden attack from somewhere. She was looking at him and the rest of the Wards curiously as well, like they were an interesting puzzle she wanted to figure out, but she didn't seem at all hostile, which was nice.
Dennis was especially glad of that, since she'd managed to yell down that dog of Bitch's and probably would've taken it down if Tattletale hadn't intervened.
Swarm was probably the least interesting of the three, in his opinion. She didn't bother looking around, aside from shifting her head slightly, alternating her likely view between Eon, Shadow and the Wards, but for the most part remained basically still. She didn't seem to have any sort of emotions towards the situation at all, which Dennis found unnerving.
Taking a closer look at the brown-black hair, he could see varyingly sized spots of mainly black running up and down it, occasionally meeting each other before moving on. Dennis wondering what they were for a moment, then was reminded of the woman pulling a number of spiders from her hair when she went to join the fight and shivered slightly.
That was one Cape he wasn't going to enjoy having to be around, he felt.
Dennis' attention was drawn back to Shadow when he spotted Missy making her way over to her, the smaller fox looking up with her head cocked in interest.
"Hello there." Shadow smiled, pushing herself upwards into a seated position and offering her paw. "You're Vista, right?"
"That's me." Missy grinned in reply, gently shaking the paw. "It's nice to meet you. We could always do with more heroes, and you're… well, you're really cute." Shadow laughed.
"Thank you. I'm happy to see that people, no matter where they are, find me cute." She smirked. "And Eon and I've always been heroes. Sure, we did it differently to how you guys apparently do things here; rescues mostly, and finding lost items, but we've done our own fair share of criminal hunting deals as well." She looked back at the damaged bank, placing her paw on the floor again and looking a little disappointed. "Although it was always rare that something like this happened."
"How so?" Missy asked, sounding curious. "Did people not rob banks where you came from?"
"Not normally, no." Shadow was smirking again, looking up at Missy's face. "The people that run the banks are really capable of defending themselves, so most people wouldn't take the risk. Plus with the banks being in the middle of towns, and pretty much anyone in the town would help out against a thief, so it's really stupid to try robbing a bank in our place."
"That's interesting." Missy mused. "What about shops?"
"Same sort of thing, really. Marketplaces tend to have a lot of people in them, so it's a bit stupid to try and rob them. Most people have single items stolen, then they put out a request to have a team like ours go and find the item for them, since the dungeons where thieves normally run to can be really dangerous for someone unprepared."
"Dungeons?"
"They're strange places, the layout of them changes for every person or team that enters, so you're never in the same place twice- or rarely, at least. So teams like us get hired to go into those dungeons and get back the stolen items or arrest criminals." Shadow grinned. "They're pretty fun, though some of them can be a real pain to fight through. Some of the targets we've had to hunt down have been really difficult to deal with, assuming they didn't just quit."
"Why would they just quit?" Dennis butted in, suddenly curious. Shadow looked up at him with a raised eyebrow, and for a moment he worried that he'd offended her, but she just grinned harshly after a moment.
"Between my crazy family tree and the skills Eon's learned, from me and other teams, we're absolutely terrifying together. We can manage to fight off pretty much anything working with each other. Burns and Hexes, for example, are really good." She snickered, looking up and back at Swarm. "I wonder what sort of terror we'd make if you came along, Swarm."
"It could be fun, certainly." She buzzed, looking slightly down at her team mate. Shadow nodded, grinning.
"Vespiquen and Ariados would probably be glad to meet you, and you'll probably like them as well. They're really powerful, and really good at trap laying. They work well together."
"Police are here." Carlos interrupted, making the Wards straighten. Swarm stiffened slightly, while Shadow stood up and shook herself out, fur rippling everywhere as she did. Eon remained seated, looking across at the cars rolling up, before turning away and looking at the bank front instead. Dennis followed his gaze, spotting Dean walking out with Vicky and Amy, who spotted the police and hurried over. Dean joined the rest of the Wards in their group, Vicky stayed hovering next to her sister, who froze and stared at the two foxes. Eon and Shadow both ignored them, the female fox moving back to flank her leader again while Swarm stayed in the back.
Chris nudged Dennis, dragging his attention off of the unusual team and back to the police that were heading over to them, and threw a smile on his face.
Time to act serious and give a report.
A good half an hour later, with all of the statements now collected and the police driving away, the ones who'd spoken to the foxes looking somewhat confused, the group of heroes- and apparent heroes- were ready to depart. Most of the civilians who'd been in the bank, or nearby, had already left, getting bored waiting about with nothing interesting happening with the Capes. Which amused Dennis, given how quick they normally were to stop and watch Capes doing absolutely nothing.
Eon yawned, standing and shaking himself, making the group back away slightly to avoid being hit by one of his tails, and smiled.
"Well, I suppose we ought to be off." He announced, as Shadow and Swarm stepped up behind him. "I'm certain you all have other things to be doing, as do we."
"Ah, a question before you go?" Carlos asked, a little awkward.
"That was one." Eon smirked. "I assume you have a second?"
"Are either of you two Case 53's?"
"Pardon?"
"Case 53's. They're sometimes referred to as monster Capes, all of them are really different from humans, and they have a specific tattoo on them somewhere." Carlos explained, fumbling for a moment before holding out his phone with an image of the tattoo on its screen. "They all have complete memory loss too."
"Well, I can certainly say that isn't what we are. No tattoos, for one." Eon disagreed, closely examining the picture even so. "And no amnesia either."
"Ah. Alright, then." Carlos nodded, putting the phone away. "Sorry for asking, it's just procedure."
"Not a problem." Eon smiled. "A pleasure to meet you all."
"Thank you for helping my sister out." Amy suddenly said, sticking her hand out to the nine-tailed fox. Eon blinked, surprised, then gently placed his paw on it and shook.
"It's our job, madam." He replied. "We're happy to do it." Taking his paw back, he looked over his shoulder at his second-in-command and nodded to her. Shadow nodded back, running away from the group and slipping out of sight into an alley a moment later. "Now, good luck with the debrief I assume you'll all be going through when you return to your base, and farewell." He looked up at Swarm, who gave a nod to whatever question his eyes asked, and the pair vanished from sight. Vicky made a startled choking sound, apparently having been about to ask a question, while Amy just kept staring at where they had been. Dean looked around, confused.
"That's… weird." He mumbled. "I can still kind of feel them, but it feels more like they just teleported a really long way away. They just went all blurry."
"Huh." Chris said.
"Yeah." They all stood about for a minute, confused, before Carlos shook his head.
"Come on, back to base. That Eon was right about one thing, we need to go debrief now."
"Joy." Dennis deadpanned. "See you around, Vicky, Amy."
"Bye, Clock." Vicky waved. Amy muttered some kind of agreement, still looking about with confusion. The group started off, Missy bending space to get them on top of a nearby building before they began roof-hopping.
"They were kind of cute, though." The sole girl said absently, crunching space again and letting them all step through. "And Eon's fur looked really pretty, all shiny and glittery." The four boys blinked, meeting each other's eyes behind their respective masks, and rolled their eyes.
"Priorities, Vista." Dennis chuckled.
"How come you didn't ask us about the Case 53 thing?" Eon asked, once the group was suitably far enough away, under a unified cloak, and able to relax.
"I didn't think of it, and to be honest something told me you weren't one." Swarm shrugged. "The stuff you were saying against Lung made me think you really were from elsewhere. Or possibly a Master projection that're playing practical jokes on people."
"I see…" Eon mused, then looked at Shadow, who was sniffing about and looking bored. "Do you want to end the patrol and drop back at your home? Or should we go and find another safe house to try robbing?"
"Safe house!" Shadow perked up, cheering. Swarm chuckled.
"Sure, we can do that. I'll keep some bugs out looking for muggings and stuff, too."
"Attagirl, Swarm." He praised. "Alright. Team Inari, form up and we're off." Shadow's colours quickly faded to something more muted as she slipped away, and Eon tightened his grip on the cloak before he and Swarm followed her, walking through the alleyways of the city towards some of the warehouses, which they all thought were likely to have something hidden in them- if you knew where to look.
In his bag, out of sight, the Wonder Map began to glow slightly.
"Keep your phone on you tonight, Taylor." Eon recommended, several hours later. The girl in question was behind a screen made from her bugs, changing into a civilian outfit from the supply she'd brought with her to the base, while Eon and Shadow worked on emptying out the Treasure Bag, Eon removing things while Shadow moved them into the den. "I'll keep ours turned on too, but keep yours with you even if you take the battery out or turn it off."
"Why?" She asked, over the rustling of folding clothes.
"It's probably a good idea that we always have a way to contact each other, in case of an emergency." He told her, lifting the rolled up Map from the bottom of the bag, before shrugging and putting it back. "If something happens while you're in school, you're more likely to be able to find out more about it than us, so you can send us information. These things do more than just call, I think?"
"Yeah, they can text as well." Taylor agreed. "And I see what you mean. I'll just have to keep it hidden from dad; he doesn't like phones."
"Alright, then." The bug wall came down, revealing Taylor adjusting her glasses and shirt, and the grey Ninetales looked upwards at the sky, then over at the girl again. "We'll walk you back, like before. Shadow, come on."
"Holb om." She mumbled, dragging the bag into the den with the strap in her mouth. The Vulpix returned a moment later. "Right. Where're we going?"
"Taking Taylor back to her house." He repeated. "You ready to go, Taylor?"
"Just a sec." She pushed the last remains of her costume into her bag, then sealed it up and pulled it onto her back. "Ready."
"I wonder if your father's back." Shadow mused as they walked.
"I'll be able to tell once we get close enough to the house." Taylor replied. "There's enough bugs in my collection that I can hear pretty well."
"That's neat." Eon smiled. "Good for security too, so long as you're in range."
"They are, yeah. I have a lot of poisonous spiders in there."
"As long as they aren't in your hair."
"It's safe either way." Taylor shrugged, as the two foxes dropped into invisibility again. "So it's fine for me to do that. Like how you guys can apparently walk in fire and be mildly refreshed by it."
"It's nice, and so far seems to be confusing people that see it here." Eon responded. "Now, we're going quiet. We're still here though, I promise."
"Thanks Eon, Shadow."
"No worries!"
"Any time, Taylor."
The next morning, there was an explosion.
"All done?" The man asked. He looked to be about nineteen, just over six feet tall with wiry muscles, dyed light blue hair and grey eyes. He looked slightly down at her, a tiny smile on his face, making her grin in return.
"Yeah. Three burgers and a lot of fries." She nodded, holding up the bags.
"C'mon, let's go find a place to eat, yeah?" The other girl of the trio bounced, arms folded under her chest and a wide, beaming grin on her face. She was more tanned than her male friend, looked to be around seventeen, and was much shorter than both her friends, only a little above five feet. Her hair was a vibrant red that looked almost bloody, and sparkling blue eyes darted about with excitement.
"We can go back to my place." Taylor offered, nodding to her. "It's not far, and I could do with putting my bag away anyway."
"Lead the way." The man told her, grasping the bouncing girl's shoulder to make her stand still. Taylor smiled at the display and nodded, turning on the spot and walking back past the burger store down the Boardwalk, planning on dropping into a few alleyways to make the trip shorter. Both of her friends followed, carefully slipping through the large crowds with a fluid ease, the crowds shifting unconsciously to avoid knocking into them, which she noticed with a slight smile.
Dropping into an alleyway, she went about half way through before stopping and turning to her friends, looking around with her bugs as she did so.
"It's empty." She told them, holding out two of the three bags. Both of them sagged in relief, before flickering and vanishing, Eon and Shadow flickering out of invisibility a second after.
"Thank Arceus for that." Eon huffed, shaking himself and examining the floor, before picking a spot that was marginally less dirty than the rest of the area to sit down on. "That was far more stressful than I was expecting it to be."
"Are you alright?" Taylor checked.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." Eon flicked his tails, waving her off. "I could do with a bit of rest, and maybe a reminder next time I recommend trying to hold two Pokemon invisible and mostly inaudible while projecting two humans at the same time, but I'll be fine to patrol, if that's what you're asking."
"Well, I was more worried about you, but that's good too." Taylor admitted, as the Ninetales lifted the bags out of her grip and handed Shadow one of them. "Are you just going to go invisible for the rest of the trip back to mine, then?"
"That would probably be best." He nodded, as Shadow opened her bad and sniffed at it. "Way less strain than trying to hold all six of them at once." He sighed, lifting the burger from the bag. "Way less."
"I need to practise cloaking more." Shadow decided, through a mouthful of fries. "Pretty sure that'd make it easier, right?"
"It'd help, sure." Eon agreed, taking a cautious bite from his burger. "That's really nice, actually."
"I wouldn't recommend eating them too often," Taylor cautioned, through her own bite, "The stuff's known as 'heart attack in a bun' for a reason. Especially some of the bigger stuff. There's so much fat and grease that it's ridiculous."
"Nice on occasion, though." The three sat silently for a little while, just eating their way through the take-out, before Taylor hummed.
"Y'know, I've always been ok at cooking." She said slowly. "So maybe on some afternoons when dad's not around you guys could spend some time at mine. We'd have to listen out a bit, I guess, so that you don't get caught, but it'd be kinda fun, I think."
"Have you still not said anything to your father yet?" Eon asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I got in late last night and the night before, and I didn't have the time this morning or yesterday." She shrugged. "Plus, well, I've been a Cape for a pretty long time now- four months- and I haven't said anything to him before now. It makes me feel… a little awkward, I guess, about bringing it up."
"But if you do tell your father, he might be able to help cover for you in things. Like if you need the day of school for Cape business, he'd be able to phone you in as sick instead of you just skipping like you did today. And we'd be able to come over your house more easily that way. Show up under an illusion, and we could drop it as soon as we get into your house, without needing to worry about listening out for your father showing up." Eon told her. Taylor frowned, biting her lip for a few moments, then nodding and taking the final bite of her burger and working her way through some of the fries.
"I'll… have to find a good time to talk about it." She finally said slowly. "Maybe a weekend, or a Friday afternoon where there's plenty of time for him to get used to it." Eon gave a nod, leaving it at that.
"So, are we gonna start moving?" Shadow's voice made both of them look down, where the smaller Vulpix was balancing the balled up paper bag on the end of her nose, sitting perfectly still. She'd barely moved even asking her question, though the ball wobbled for a moment before she stilled again.
"Are you finished already?" Eon blinked, a few fries hovering in midair. "Where did it all go?"
"I finished because I wasn't talking." She muttered, the ball wobbling again before she reached up to put a paw on it, moving to a better position at the same time. "And it went in my stomach, silly."
"Fair enough, I suppose." Eon chuckled. "We'll be done soon, so just wait a bit."
"Ok." Shadow almost huffed out a sigh, but seemed to remember her balancing act and the last moment and just settled for tapping her paw and sweeping her tails around a little. Taylor and Eon exchanged amused looks, quickly finishing the rest of their food and balling up their own bags as well.
"Alright, now we can go to mine." Taylor smiled.
"Good." Shadow did huff this time, blowing the ball off her nose, which Taylor snatched out of the air with a quick movement. Shadow looked impressed. "Nice reflexes. That was really fast." Taylor blushed.
"Thanks." The teen muttered, turning and leading the way out of the alleyway. "Come on, my house is a bit far from here, so we should probably try and get there soon so I can hide my stuff there. Then we can go patrolling in daylight for the first time."
"Are you looking forward to it?" Shadow asked, trotting after her. Eon took a moment to brush the dirt off his tails before he followed with a slight huff of irritation, planning on cleaning it up properly once they were in Taylor's hopefully empty house.
"A bit, yeah." Taylor nodded. "I mean, I'm nervous too, it's kinda strange and I know people'll stare, but I'm used to that."
"Oh, I'm not asking that. I mean if you're actually excited for it. A proper step into being a famous rescue team is always done with a high profile mission from someone, normally capturing a big name outlaw, or a Guild expedition where you find lost treasures or areas long forgotten." Taylor looked around and down, seeing a glitter of excitement in her eyes. "I guess it's not likely we'll encounter some big name, but we'll be properly in public and doing lots of work helping people. That's just as good."
"I would almost say it's better, Shadow." Eon put in, taking up Taylor's other side as they turned a corner into another empty alley. "After all, if your team is just known for being famous, you'll be respected for that alone, but people will likely be wary of you. They might not see you as just another Pokemon- or person, in this case- because they don't know about the ordinary stuff you do. If you were known for being quite normal before you were famous, on the other hand…"
"People would be more likely to approach you." Taylor finished, understanding where his speech was going. "Which makes sense for someone like you guys, doing missions, but less for something like a Cape team?"
"It's possible it'd be easier to find informants in groups." Eon elaborated. "You're known to be powerful and famous, but also approachable and keep your word, perhaps even pushing towards noble. That'll make it more likely that other people would be willing to approach with information- hold on." Eon paused, wrapping both himself and Shadow in a cloak again as they started getting near to the streets. "-Information that could help with capturing criminals or finding missing Pokemon that no-one knows exactly where they are."
"Interesting…" Taylor mused quietly, before the three of them walked out into a less crowded but still populated street and they had to fall silent again.
"Come in, dad's not here, I checked with my bugs." Taylor said softly, holding open the back door for them both. Eon huffed slightly at the idea of bringing the dirt in with them, while Shadow just carefully walked in, trying not to disturb anything. "Don't worry about dirt, Eon, I'll fix it afterwards, before we leave."
"Fine." He grumbled. "I didn't want to get you in trouble."
"It'll be alright. Will you be ok getting it off on your own? I'm going to my room to put my things away and put my costume on."
"Sure, we can manage. It's not the first time we've had situations with dirt, after all." Eon laughed, tails flicking in amusement. "We'll see you in a moment." Taylor nodded acceptingly and trooped up the stairs. Eon listened for the creak of the doors, then looked at Shadow, who was brushing at the base of her tails with her paws. "Be careful, Shadow." Eon said lowly, making her look up at him and pause her ministrations.
"What about?"
"We're hunting in daylight, in a crowded area. You can't hold invisibility very well, so you're relying on your colour change, and that's not necessarily gonna be good enough for this." He told her firmly. "Be careful with how you work today."
"I will, Eon." She nodded. "Don't worry. You and Taylor stay invisible, I'll just drop in and out of things." She pawed gently at the end of his tail. "You be safe too, ok?"
"We both will be." The grey Ninetales placed his paw on Shadow's head. "This world is a lot more dangerous than ours in many ways. No risks, ok?"
"Ok." The two of them turned to getting the dirt off their tails for the next minute or so, then curled up on the floor and waited for Taylor to make a reappearance, listening to the sounds of her moving around upstairs. Shadow pawed slightly at the end of her scarf, the badge above it shifting as she did, and chewed at her lip. "I'm a little scared."
"What of?" Eon blinked, cocking his head.
"Dunno." She shrugged. "Just, something. Something feels off, and I don't like it."
"I thought I was the one with the future sight." Eon chuckled. "But I'll take your word for it. Instinct's have gotten us through this stuff before."
"Like the expedition in Murky Oceans the Guild went on." Shadow recalled with a smile. "That was fun, but a little scary."
"True." Eon shuddered. "The fact that you picked up on the attack before it happened was really lucky. Especially given that damned Scream that came right before it. Thanks again, by the way."
"You've been thanking me about that every other week for the last eleven months." Shadow giggled. "You can let it go now."
"Let what go?" Taylor, now fully costumed up as Swarm, asked, entering the room.
"Oh, just a story from an expedition." Eon waved off, pushing himself up in the same movement. "I'll tell it to you some other time. Maybe this evening after our patrol's over?"
"Could be fun, sure." Swarm nodded, standing next to Shadow. Both vulpines cocked their heads.
"Your voice sounds different." Shadow noted.
"I was messing with insects when I had some spare time, trying to make voices with them." She told them. "I can't use them to talk or anything, and I'm not sure I ever really will, but I can make my voice sound really different like this. I don't know why I didn't think of this before, to be honest, it could've been really helpful for dealing with villains."
"And heroes. Sometimes the so-called 'good guys' can be just as bad." Eon said darkly, glaring at the wall.
"Another story for later," Shadow whispered, before saying louder, "I think you might've been too close to the problem? Sometimes me and Eon don't spot things we could do for ages, then when someone points it out it's all 'Oh, duh. Why didn't we think of that?'"
"Probably." Swarm hummed, a noise that sounded very odd with the dull hum of insects behind it. "Anyway, ready to leave?"
"One last thing." Eon said, looking between the two girls. "Be careful, both of you. Things in this city are dangerous, and we're going to be out in the public eye for the first time today. Neither of you can get hurt during this, please. Especially not you, Taylor. Shadow doesn't have to explain away random injuries to people. You will. Do your best not to get hurt, and stay near me. I'm keeping the both of us invisible, so you should be safe unless we get into a fight about something. Shadow, I'm trusting you to know your limits. Cloak when you have to, hide when you can, and by Arceus keep an eye out for trouble. Don't go running into something on accident that might get you hurt. This isn't back home, in a Dungeon. If you get seriously injured, you won't be teleported out back to a safe spot outside the dungeon, you'll be injured in front of a hostile enemy. Watch out."
"I will, Eon." Shadow promised. "I know things are different here. I'm not going to try something stupid and get hurt. I grew out of that phase pretty quickly as part of a Rescue Team." Eon studied her for a moment, then nodded, looking up at Swarm.
"I'll be careful too, Eon." She agreed. "I'm not as experienced as you are in exploring and rescuing, and I know that."
"Coulda fooled me, jumping in front of a dragon."
"I'll be careful, and listen to what you guys recommend." Swarm finished, ignoring Shadow's comment with the unfortunate ease of practise. "Just show me where to go, and I'll follow."
"Unless we get into a big fight, then I hope you can manage yourself without the team leader yelling instructions at you." Eon grinned.
"I think I can do that, yeah."
"Then come on. Let's get out of here to make sure we don't run into your father or something, we'll cloak outside and get moving. Would you like to make your way to the Boardwalk while in costume, and see what we can do?" He asked, letting Taylor lead the way out of her house and waiting for her to lock up. "Or should we just sulk in the alleys again and pick people off in the dark and dirt?"
"Why don't we do that, but move along towards the Boardwalk as we go?" Shadow suggested. "We can do a bit of both then, right?"
"Sounds fine to me." Swarm nodded her acceptance.
"Then we cloak up and start moving. We'll stick mostly to the alleys this time, so Shadow has an easier time avoiding being spotted." Eon told them, waving his tails. An illusion formed around the two larger members of the team, while the smallest changed her colours to something somewhat darker as they all padded out quietly, dipping into an alleyway at the first chance they got.
Nearly three quarters of an hour, and one attempted mugging later, the group of three huddled together under a much larger illusion near the Boardwalk.
"So, we're pretty near the Boardwalk. Swarm, you're our native. How do things normally look about here?"
"I don't normally spend too much time here, to be honest." She said uncomfortably. "Don't really have the money to spend on a lot of the shops here, and when I'd normally have the time to even look everyone else is out of school and wandering about, so I can't even get away from those people here." Eon nodded.
"Well, anything you can say, from your bugs or yourself?"
"There's a lot of back alleys and passages, so plenty of potential for a mugging or five. Lots of pretty expensive shops, so it's likely that there'd be some idiot willing to try a robbery." Swarm said.
"That's more likely to be teenage gang members, I'd think." Shadow guessed. "I know back home that robbing low profile high profile stuff is kinda a kiddy move, basically."
"Sorry, what?"
"Um, things that are low profile targets, like shops, but high profile because they're really popular or in really obvious areas with lots of people?" She explained, sounding a little confused herself. "It's a bit of a weird way to class something, but that's what we call it. It's a bit low level, too, mostly newish outlaws who've done enough stuff to think that they're really good, but aren't really that good at all."
"Alright, moving the lessons to later, anything with your bugs, Swarm?" Eon interrupted.
"Things mostly look ok, to be honest. I still don't have the best grasp on insect senses, but I can't hear or see anything nearby." She reported. "It's possible that since most of the teenagers in the gangs are still in school- assuming they aren't skipping, or just mega high in the Merchant's cases- things are gonna be a bit quiet for a while, since they aren't around."
"Perhaps, I suppose." Eon frowned. "And here I was hoping there'd be some way we could have a decent debut for the three of us."
About three blocks over, something exploded.
"Oh, nice one, Eon." Shadow groaned. "Of course you had to speak up, oh so great and brilliant leader."
"Quit your yapping, pix!" The Ninetales snapped, turning to Swarm. "What's happening over there?"
"Hold on, I'm getting bugs into the area so I can see." They waited a moment, where Eon's tails flicked impatiently, then Swarm continued, "Bank robbery. There's a lot of black smoke at the main entrance, and… I think I see most of the Wards there too, plus a white figure? There's a few dogs running about too… Pretty sure it's the Undersiders." Shadow frowned.
"Do we go after them?" She asked awkwardly. "I mean, we helped them the other day…"
"They're villains, and remember what Tattletale said about reputation." Eon returned. "This could be an easy chance for a debut."
"The Wards do seem to be struggling a bit. I think… Clockblocker and Aegis are in the wrong costumes, they're showing the others powers and the dog's going after Clockblocker, who hasn't been seriously hurt yet, so I'm pretty sure they've swapped costumes. Probably to try and fool the Undersiders, I don't think they know that Tattletale's a Thinker." Swarm reported. Eon nodded, grinning.
"Let's go offer a helping hand, shall we?"
Dennis cursed quietly as he stepped forwards, trying to get close enough to the fight between the giant dog and his team mate to freeze the huge thing and try to buy them a few moments of breathing space. Vicky and Missy were trying to fight a second one, with slightly better results, and Dean and Chris were fighting with Grue and Regent respectively. Bitch was on the side, calling commands to her dogs, and the final member, Tattletale, was nowhere to be seen. Dennis assumed she was inside with however many hostages they'd kept in the bank, but for now he just was trying to even the odds a bit against the Undersiders and their giant dogs.
They were really too smart for dogs, he grumbled mentally, taking another step closer and trying to find some sort of way to touch the dog. A moment later, he jumped and made a small, startled yelp that he hastily muffled.
"Hey there!" A cheery female voice said from his left. "Need some help?" Dennis looked around for a second, trying to spot the owner of the voice, before a flash of red-orange made him look down towards the ground.
And blink, since a two foot tall fox with six tails and a cuteness factor of around twenty-six was not what he expected to find.
"Only, you guys seem to be getting a bit beaten up." She continued, apparently ignoring his confusion. "So I was thinking that it looked like you needed some help."
"We, ah, yeah." He tried, trying to get his brain working again. "Yeah, we could do with some help. Only, um, what could you do?"
"A lot of things, really." She replied, not seeming offended- which Dennis was glad for, since he'd realised about a second after he said it that it could have been taken very badly. "And Eon can do a lot more, if he remembers to tone it down a bit." Her part- or interest- in the conversation apparently over, she took a few steps closer to the dog and ignored him in favour of looking at it.
A sigh made him twitch, then look over at his left again, finding a three foot tall fox with nine tales and an almost six foot tall human had appeared from nowhere.
"Well, she'll be doing that, I suppose." The fox sighed. "Swarm, can you handle the humans, please? I believe I'll be dealing with the other dog, since Shadow seems to have picked this one."
"No problem, Eon." The woman- Swarm- nodded, running her hand through her hair. Dennis mentally recoiled when it came away with some dozen spiders attached to it. "No-one's getting shot at inside the bank, at least."
"I know, I can hear it." Eon told her. "Come on, we might as well get moving." Nodding to Dennis on her way past, Swarm started making her way closer to the ongoing fights between Dean, Grue, Regent, and Chris, before throwing the spiders into the mix in a careful fashion, seemingly waiting for some unknown signal before she did. The fox, Eon, nodded at him as well, walking over to the dog Vicky and Missy were fighting. Dennis just watched, slightly dumbfounded and very confused, as he looked between the girl and the larger fox, before turning to look at the smaller one, Shadow.
"Hey!" She shouted, her voice lost over the growls of the dog. For a moment, her slowly wagging tails stilled, before the rightmost one flicked angrily. "HEY!" The dog froze, as did Carlos, before looking across and down at the fox, whose voice had suddenly become about four times louder and a lot more intimidating. "Thank you. Mr Superhero, you might want to look away…" Bemused, Dennis watched his friend stare at her, before doing a double take and looking away from her as fast as possible, finding one of the nearby buildings many times more interesting than whatever the fox was doing. "Thank you…" The dog continued staring at her, its eyes slowly getting more and more droopy, and it opened a heavily fanged mouth in a yawn.
"Bitch, get them out of here!" A new female voice made all of them jump, including Shadow, who lost her focus on the dog. Said animal began blinking slowly, seeming confused, before a shrill whistle from its owner caused it to jump to attention and run over, the dog that had been fighting Vicky and Missy, as well as Eon, doing the same. A blonde in a skin-tight purple-and-black costume came running out of the front of the bank, another of the huge animals following her. "Grue, Regent, time to go!" Both of them disengaged from their fights with some difficulty, having to also deal with the pile of bugs that had joined them courtesy of Swarm, and made their way over to the dogs, both girls already climbing onto one each.
"Swarm, stop them!" Eon barked, tails wavering in the air. A swarm of bugs rose up at the command, chasing towards the dogs in a terrifying fashion, while an ethereal purple aura blasted from the blue tail-tips of the fox, following after the bugs. Tattletale seemed to pale behind her mask, eyes wide, and Bitch whistled sharply. The dogs jerked off, making a running jump at the nearest building and scrambling up. The purple creation froze and dispelled, now lacking a target, while the bug cloud buzzed dangerously before Swarm twitched, clearly calling them back. Shadow growled, the sound making both Carlos and Dennis jump and Eon turn.
"Damn it." She scowled. "They got away."
"Do we go after them, Eon?" Swarm asked, the cloud of bugs forming at her back. Eon watched after them for a moment, frowning, then shook his head.
"No point. The dogs move far faster than you could, Swarm, and even Shadow and myself would be pushing it a bit." He replied. "They're probably already well enough away, and I reckon those dogs would hear if we gave chase." Shadow huffed, making Eon glance at her. "Oh, get over it, pix."
"Alright. It's been a while since that's happened, though." She grumbled, making her way over to the larger fox. "Normally bad guys fight to the bitter end, or just give up straight away. I miss our reputation already."
"It'll come back, Shadow." Eon grinned, patting her head for a moment. "At least this time we're familiar with the climb."
"True." She smiled, as Swarm coughed.
"Maybe instead of chattering on about your awesomeness, we should actually introduce ourselves to people?" She asked awkwardly, the swarm of bugs now dispersing completely.
"Ah, yes. Thanks, Swarm." Eon nodded, shaking his head. A plume of white-grey fur on his head waved with the motion, making Dennis blink and wonder how he'd missed noticing that before the movement, and how Eon had avoided it getting in the way in the fight, before the giant fox turned towards the group. "Apologies for ignoring you all, and for just jumping into your fights like we did. We felt you all could use some help." The Wards traded glances, then Carlos, as the leader, stepped forwards to respond.
"Thank you for joining in. You're right, we did need a bit of help. The Undersiders aren't really known for frontal assaults, so we weren't prepared for it. I wonder what changed this time."
"Who knows?" Eon shrugged, the motion rippling down his tails. "Maybe we'll find out someday, most likely we won't. No reason to dwell on it either way." He stepped forwards slightly, leaving his two team mates flanking him, and offered a paw. "Now, introductions. My name's Eon, the team leader, Shadow there is my second in command and Swarm's the newbie." Shadow gave a cheery wave to them all, sitting down as she did to wait out the conversation, while Swarm coolly nodded. Seeming slightly more confused, Carlos stepped closer and shook the offered paw.
"I'm Aegis, the Ward's leader, that's Clockblocker, Gallant, Kid Win, and Vista." He introduced them all in turn, Dennis and Missy giving polite waves while Gallant and Kid Win nodded. "Glory Girl was here, but she seems to have gone right now."
"She went inside the bank." Swarm told him. "Something about her sister?"
"Ah, yes. Panacea was in the bank at the time, so she's probably gone to go and make sure she's ok." Carlos winced. "Gallant, can you…?"
"Sure thing, Aegis." Dean nodded, walking past them and into the bank. Eon smiled slightly.
"Her worry is understandable. Family is important, after all." He said, taking his paw back. "So, what's the procedure for this now? I assume it'll be somewhat different to back home, or when we were dealing with muggers over the last few days."
"The police will be here any minute, console says, so we'll need to give statements to them. They'll take witness statements as well, so we'll probably be here a while."
"Understandable." The fox nodded. "Back home, the authorities have a tendency to take extremely detailed statements from every member of the team- or teams, as the case may be- and I was slightly surprised to see that didn't happen with those muggings."
"The police are a little stretched thin in this city." Carlos agreed. "They stick around for longer with the bigger crimes, of course."
"That certainly makes sense." Eon glanced over his shoulder at his two team mates. "Relax, you two. We've got some time before we need to be all formal and giving information." Shadow immediately slumped down slightly, her tails wrapping around her paws, while Swarm just shifted a little on the spot, folding her arms. Dennis took the opportunity to properly examine the three of them.
Eon was clearly the leader of the group, and not just because he'd introduced himself as such. Even being nearly two feet shorter than him and sitting down, the nine-tailed vulpine gave a sense of being completely aware of everything around him, almost unnervingly so. His red eyes were constantly scanning the area, even after telling his two partners to relax- an order that sounded oddly like a slightly rephrased 'stand down' to him- and two of the nine tails were twitching, like he was expecting to have to jump into action in a moment.
Dennis wondered what sort of hell the animal had came from to act like that. And why he'd never heard of a pair of foxes causing trouble and heroics, since they were apparently famous, from Shadow's earlier words.
Said smaller fox was now lying on the stomach, six tails curling around her right side to lie along her body, looking completely relaxed and at ease, in contrast to her leader. She was looking around at the building and people in the area, just like he was, but her attitude appeared to be more idly curiosity than waiting for a sudden attack from somewhere. She was looking at him and the rest of the Wards curiously as well, like they were an interesting puzzle she wanted to figure out, but she didn't seem at all hostile, which was nice.
Dennis was especially glad of that, since she'd managed to yell down that dog of Bitch's and probably would've taken it down if Tattletale hadn't intervened.
Swarm was probably the least interesting of the three, in his opinion. She didn't bother looking around, aside from shifting her head slightly, alternating her likely view between Eon, Shadow and the Wards, but for the most part remained basically still. She didn't seem to have any sort of emotions towards the situation at all, which Dennis found unnerving.
Taking a closer look at the brown-black hair, he could see varyingly sized spots of mainly black running up and down it, occasionally meeting each other before moving on. Dennis wondering what they were for a moment, then was reminded of the woman pulling a number of spiders from her hair when she went to join the fight and shivered slightly.
That was one Cape he wasn't going to enjoy having to be around, he felt.
Dennis' attention was drawn back to Shadow when he spotted Missy making her way over to her, the smaller fox looking up with her head cocked in interest.
"Hello there." Shadow smiled, pushing herself upwards into a seated position and offering her paw. "You're Vista, right?"
"That's me." Missy grinned in reply, gently shaking the paw. "It's nice to meet you. We could always do with more heroes, and you're… well, you're really cute." Shadow laughed.
"Thank you. I'm happy to see that people, no matter where they are, find me cute." She smirked. "And Eon and I've always been heroes. Sure, we did it differently to how you guys apparently do things here; rescues mostly, and finding lost items, but we've done our own fair share of criminal hunting deals as well." She looked back at the damaged bank, placing her paw on the floor again and looking a little disappointed. "Although it was always rare that something like this happened."
"How so?" Missy asked, sounding curious. "Did people not rob banks where you came from?"
"Not normally, no." Shadow was smirking again, looking up at Missy's face. "The people that run the banks are really capable of defending themselves, so most people wouldn't take the risk. Plus with the banks being in the middle of towns, and pretty much anyone in the town would help out against a thief, so it's really stupid to try robbing a bank in our place."
"That's interesting." Missy mused. "What about shops?"
"Same sort of thing, really. Marketplaces tend to have a lot of people in them, so it's a bit stupid to try and rob them. Most people have single items stolen, then they put out a request to have a team like ours go and find the item for them, since the dungeons where thieves normally run to can be really dangerous for someone unprepared."
"Dungeons?"
"They're strange places, the layout of them changes for every person or team that enters, so you're never in the same place twice- or rarely, at least. So teams like us get hired to go into those dungeons and get back the stolen items or arrest criminals." Shadow grinned. "They're pretty fun, though some of them can be a real pain to fight through. Some of the targets we've had to hunt down have been really difficult to deal with, assuming they didn't just quit."
"Why would they just quit?" Dennis butted in, suddenly curious. Shadow looked up at him with a raised eyebrow, and for a moment he worried that he'd offended her, but she just grinned harshly after a moment.
"Between my crazy family tree and the skills Eon's learned, from me and other teams, we're absolutely terrifying together. We can manage to fight off pretty much anything working with each other. Burns and Hexes, for example, are really good." She snickered, looking up and back at Swarm. "I wonder what sort of terror we'd make if you came along, Swarm."
"It could be fun, certainly." She buzzed, looking slightly down at her team mate. Shadow nodded, grinning.
"Vespiquen and Ariados would probably be glad to meet you, and you'll probably like them as well. They're really powerful, and really good at trap laying. They work well together."
"Police are here." Carlos interrupted, making the Wards straighten. Swarm stiffened slightly, while Shadow stood up and shook herself out, fur rippling everywhere as she did. Eon remained seated, looking across at the cars rolling up, before turning away and looking at the bank front instead. Dennis followed his gaze, spotting Dean walking out with Vicky and Amy, who spotted the police and hurried over. Dean joined the rest of the Wards in their group, Vicky stayed hovering next to her sister, who froze and stared at the two foxes. Eon and Shadow both ignored them, the female fox moving back to flank her leader again while Swarm stayed in the back.
Chris nudged Dennis, dragging his attention off of the unusual team and back to the police that were heading over to them, and threw a smile on his face.
Time to act serious and give a report.
A good half an hour later, with all of the statements now collected and the police driving away, the ones who'd spoken to the foxes looking somewhat confused, the group of heroes- and apparent heroes- were ready to depart. Most of the civilians who'd been in the bank, or nearby, had already left, getting bored waiting about with nothing interesting happening with the Capes. Which amused Dennis, given how quick they normally were to stop and watch Capes doing absolutely nothing.
Eon yawned, standing and shaking himself, making the group back away slightly to avoid being hit by one of his tails, and smiled.
"Well, I suppose we ought to be off." He announced, as Shadow and Swarm stepped up behind him. "I'm certain you all have other things to be doing, as do we."
"Ah, a question before you go?" Carlos asked, a little awkward.
"That was one." Eon smirked. "I assume you have a second?"
"Are either of you two Case 53's?"
"Pardon?"
"Case 53's. They're sometimes referred to as monster Capes, all of them are really different from humans, and they have a specific tattoo on them somewhere." Carlos explained, fumbling for a moment before holding out his phone with an image of the tattoo on its screen. "They all have complete memory loss too."
"Well, I can certainly say that isn't what we are. No tattoos, for one." Eon disagreed, closely examining the picture even so. "And no amnesia either."
"Ah. Alright, then." Carlos nodded, putting the phone away. "Sorry for asking, it's just procedure."
"Not a problem." Eon smiled. "A pleasure to meet you all."
"Thank you for helping my sister out." Amy suddenly said, sticking her hand out to the nine-tailed fox. Eon blinked, surprised, then gently placed his paw on it and shook.
"It's our job, madam." He replied. "We're happy to do it." Taking his paw back, he looked over his shoulder at his second-in-command and nodded to her. Shadow nodded back, running away from the group and slipping out of sight into an alley a moment later. "Now, good luck with the debrief I assume you'll all be going through when you return to your base, and farewell." He looked up at Swarm, who gave a nod to whatever question his eyes asked, and the pair vanished from sight. Vicky made a startled choking sound, apparently having been about to ask a question, while Amy just kept staring at where they had been. Dean looked around, confused.
"That's… weird." He mumbled. "I can still kind of feel them, but it feels more like they just teleported a really long way away. They just went all blurry."
"Huh." Chris said.
"Yeah." They all stood about for a minute, confused, before Carlos shook his head.
"Come on, back to base. That Eon was right about one thing, we need to go debrief now."
"Joy." Dennis deadpanned. "See you around, Vicky, Amy."
"Bye, Clock." Vicky waved. Amy muttered some kind of agreement, still looking about with confusion. The group started off, Missy bending space to get them on top of a nearby building before they began roof-hopping.
"They were kind of cute, though." The sole girl said absently, crunching space again and letting them all step through. "And Eon's fur looked really pretty, all shiny and glittery." The four boys blinked, meeting each other's eyes behind their respective masks, and rolled their eyes.
"Priorities, Vista." Dennis chuckled.
"How come you didn't ask us about the Case 53 thing?" Eon asked, once the group was suitably far enough away, under a unified cloak, and able to relax.
"I didn't think of it, and to be honest something told me you weren't one." Swarm shrugged. "The stuff you were saying against Lung made me think you really were from elsewhere. Or possibly a Master projection that're playing practical jokes on people."
"I see…" Eon mused, then looked at Shadow, who was sniffing about and looking bored. "Do you want to end the patrol and drop back at your home? Or should we go and find another safe house to try robbing?"
"Safe house!" Shadow perked up, cheering. Swarm chuckled.
"Sure, we can do that. I'll keep some bugs out looking for muggings and stuff, too."
"Attagirl, Swarm." He praised. "Alright. Team Inari, form up and we're off." Shadow's colours quickly faded to something more muted as she slipped away, and Eon tightened his grip on the cloak before he and Swarm followed her, walking through the alleyways of the city towards some of the warehouses, which they all thought were likely to have something hidden in them- if you knew where to look.
In his bag, out of sight, the Wonder Map began to glow slightly.
"Keep your phone on you tonight, Taylor." Eon recommended, several hours later. The girl in question was behind a screen made from her bugs, changing into a civilian outfit from the supply she'd brought with her to the base, while Eon and Shadow worked on emptying out the Treasure Bag, Eon removing things while Shadow moved them into the den. "I'll keep ours turned on too, but keep yours with you even if you take the battery out or turn it off."
"Why?" She asked, over the rustling of folding clothes.
"It's probably a good idea that we always have a way to contact each other, in case of an emergency." He told her, lifting the rolled up Map from the bottom of the bag, before shrugging and putting it back. "If something happens while you're in school, you're more likely to be able to find out more about it than us, so you can send us information. These things do more than just call, I think?"
"Yeah, they can text as well." Taylor agreed. "And I see what you mean. I'll just have to keep it hidden from dad; he doesn't like phones."
"Alright, then." The bug wall came down, revealing Taylor adjusting her glasses and shirt, and the grey Ninetales looked upwards at the sky, then over at the girl again. "We'll walk you back, like before. Shadow, come on."
"Holb om." She mumbled, dragging the bag into the den with the strap in her mouth. The Vulpix returned a moment later. "Right. Where're we going?"
"Taking Taylor back to her house." He repeated. "You ready to go, Taylor?"
"Just a sec." She pushed the last remains of her costume into her bag, then sealed it up and pulled it onto her back. "Ready."
"I wonder if your father's back." Shadow mused as they walked.
"I'll be able to tell once we get close enough to the house." Taylor replied. "There's enough bugs in my collection that I can hear pretty well."
"That's neat." Eon smiled. "Good for security too, so long as you're in range."
"They are, yeah. I have a lot of poisonous spiders in there."
"As long as they aren't in your hair."
"It's safe either way." Taylor shrugged, as the two foxes dropped into invisibility again. "So it's fine for me to do that. Like how you guys can apparently walk in fire and be mildly refreshed by it."
"It's nice, and so far seems to be confusing people that see it here." Eon responded. "Now, we're going quiet. We're still here though, I promise."
"Thanks Eon, Shadow."
"No worries!"
"Any time, Taylor."
The next morning, there was an explosion.
- Location
- Norway. Mid-Norway. Møre og Romsdal.
Bakuda being Bakuda or Team Inari getting in a big fight with Squealer (tanks) or the E88?
- Location
- Море песка, солнце огня и множество злых сарацин
Probably the former.
(Checked the timeline; almost certainly the former.)
Interlude 1: Tattletale
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
Lisa dropped her phone down on the table and sat back, a slightly confused frown on her face, staring at the door she'd just let the two foxes- no, Pokemon- out of.
That was… intriguing. She mused, chewing her lip slightly in thought. Very, very intriguing. After a few moments, Lisa stood, heading into the kitchen area of the base and grabbing a coffee, slowly blowing on it to cool it down while she thought back over the conversation she'd just had.
Listening to the pair of Pokemon explaining their world had been interesting, she thought, but not nearly as interesting as some of the things her power told her that they weren't saying.
Mystery Dungeons are different every time.
Reason for changes unknown to all Pokemon in their world.
Humans exist in their world, but not in their lands.
Humans do not normally understand Pokemon speech.
Reason for change between worlds unknown.
Pokemon on Eon's side of the world know more about the human side than the other way.
Knowledge is due to bird migratory patterns.
Team rank ups determined upon review of mission difficulty.
All of that was interesting to her, for sure, but Lisa couldn't help but think the most interesting bits had been… missing, as though her power couldn't even figure it out from the clues Eon and Shadow had given her. Which annoyed her half to death, since Lisa could normally get far more out of far less than she'd been told by the pair.
Partly out of curiosity, and partly frustration, she tried again.
Hoopa unknown entity.
Hoopa has the ability to create portals.
Hoopa ERROR_0x2-ERROR_0x6-ERROR_0x8-ERROR_0x11-ERROR_0x15-ERROR_0x65_101-ERROR-
Lisa growled, sipping her coffee and frowning at the headache that was starting to develop, cutting off her ability before it got stuck any further.
The exact same thing had happened during the conversation as well. Lisa had been curious about the mention of the 'Hoopa' Pokemon that had sent the two to Earth Bet, only for her power to stick in a way that she'd never seen before. She'd almost call it a glitch, in fact. It certainly seemed like one.
The mention of these 'Time Gears' was even worse. Her power didn't even want to latch onto it at first, and once she'd finally forced it to, the only thing it had done was repeat the same things Shadow had told her about them, before erroring out on its own a few cycles after.
Sipping from her mug again, Lisa frowned even more deeply.
Another thing that was bothering her was Earth Bet. Explaining it all to Eon and Shadow like that, it had made Lisa realise just how strange, and how bad, the situation on their world truly was. Brockton Bay was a mess, the world was far worse, and the regular Endbringer attacks on every city and country the damn things could pick on had caused so much trouble for them all that she was surprised the world was still even anywhere near as functional as it was. Laying it all out as she had, to a pair of neutral strangers who'd never heard of any of it before, had given Lisa a shock that was almost as bad as the one she knew she'd given Eon and Shadow.
Having been looking over it all during her impromptu speech/lecture, Lisa had had an inkling that something was off about it all. It almost felt like someone was directing it…
The sound of a door slamming shut jolted Lisa from her thoughts, and nearly into her mug, before she pushed off the side of the kitchen's table and walked back into the front room, Brian and Alec meandering in while Rachel appeared from her room.
"So what do you need, Lisa?" The blonde Thinker blinked, suddenly remembering the text she'd sent out in the moments after the Pokemon had left, then glanced at the clock. Ten minutes had elapsed in no time at all, somehow, and she dropped herself into the nearest chair, shaking all other thoughts from her mind as she began repeating the conversation she'd just had.
"Huh."
"That's about right, yeah." Lisa nodded at Brian, looking over to him.
"Will they come back here?"
"I don't think so." Lisa rolled the thought around in her head for a moment, letting her power chew on it, and nodding to herself when it confirmed her original thought. "They only came because they didn't know about the Rules, so they didn't know that they weren't supposed to track us and just show up at the base. I told them about the Rules, and a few other things besides, so I don't think they'll just show up here again unless we invite them to."
"That's something, at least." Brian sighed. "Fuck, that could've been bad. If they'd been out to attack…" He trailed off, irate, and Lisa shuddered.
She only had an inkling about what they could potentially have done. She didn't want to think on it any harder.
"I think it might be best if we avoid fighting with them whenever possible." She recommended. "I'm not sure what their full abilities are- my power doesn't want to dig into them much more than I've already forced it to- but I don't think it'd be a good idea to try and fight against them."
"Given that the little one took on Lung like it was nothing?" Alec snorted. "Yeah, I'm happy staying the hell away from them when we can."
"Rachel?" All three of them looked at the girl, who glared and shrugged.
"Fine." She answered shortly, before leaving the room and slamming the door behind her. Lisa sighed.
"I think that's as good as we'll get." She told them, standing and grabbing the now empty coffee mug. Inclining her head, she got one confirming nod, and went back to the kitchen to make two new cups of coffee. I could've sworn I'm forgetting something here… Lisa mused to herself, waiting for the pot to finish. After a few moments, her power not providing any clues, she shrugged, giving up on it. It's probably not all that important anyway…
A few days later, on the morning after their bank robbery, Lisa got off the phone in a huff. Bloody Coil… She mentally growled, throwing the phone to one side before flopping down on her back.
The Undersiders' annoying bastard of a boss had tried ripping her a new one for her somewhat panicked retreat order the day before, when Team Inari had shown up half way through the bank job. She'd retorted with the fact that they didn't know enough about them to be able to deal with them as well as they could have fought the Wards, plus her own difficulties in reading them, and he'd eventually backed off, his voice almost a growl and a fairly audible- to her power, at least- glare on the phone as he hung up.
Which had slightly amused Lisa, but not enough to cover up all the irritation he'd also triggered.
Grumbling to herself for a few minutes, Lisa managed to regain enough control of herself to leave the room, heading straight for the coffee. Brian was sitting in the front, reading something, and Alec was on his game, both glancing up at her arrival.
"Something wrong, Lisa?" Brian asked.
"Just a personal pain in the ass, Brian." She replied. "Nothing to worry about." For now, she thought darkly, sipping the mug. "Anyway, my problems aside, anyone seen Rachel today?"
"She was still looking a bit pissed off about the bank job this morning." Alec put in. "She went out, I think."
"Great…" Lisa muttered, frowning again. "Anyone have any idea when she'll be back?"
"No idea." Brian shrugged. "Not as if she can get into much trouble, though. It's just walking her dogs."
It was at this moment the first explosion sounded. Lisa jumped, dropping her mug, while both Brian and Alec startled upwards, Alec pausing his game as he did.
"Of fucking course!" Lisa burst out. "Dammit!"
"What was that, Lisa?" Brian demanded. The Thinker frowned, pointing her power at the question.
Explosion was a bomb.
Bomb was Tinker created.
Tinker a member of the Azn Bad Boys.
Tinker's specialty is bombs.
Tinker attempting bombing attack on city.
Attack is due to the capture of Lung.
"Well shit."
That was… intriguing. She mused, chewing her lip slightly in thought. Very, very intriguing. After a few moments, Lisa stood, heading into the kitchen area of the base and grabbing a coffee, slowly blowing on it to cool it down while she thought back over the conversation she'd just had.
Listening to the pair of Pokemon explaining their world had been interesting, she thought, but not nearly as interesting as some of the things her power told her that they weren't saying.
Mystery Dungeons are different every time.
Reason for changes unknown to all Pokemon in their world.
Humans exist in their world, but not in their lands.
Humans do not normally understand Pokemon speech.
Reason for change between worlds unknown.
Pokemon on Eon's side of the world know more about the human side than the other way.
Knowledge is due to bird migratory patterns.
Team rank ups determined upon review of mission difficulty.
All of that was interesting to her, for sure, but Lisa couldn't help but think the most interesting bits had been… missing, as though her power couldn't even figure it out from the clues Eon and Shadow had given her. Which annoyed her half to death, since Lisa could normally get far more out of far less than she'd been told by the pair.
Partly out of curiosity, and partly frustration, she tried again.
Hoopa unknown entity.
Hoopa has the ability to create portals.
Hoopa ERROR_0x2-ERROR_0x6-ERROR_0x8-ERROR_0x11-ERROR_0x15-ERROR_0x65_101-ERROR-
Lisa growled, sipping her coffee and frowning at the headache that was starting to develop, cutting off her ability before it got stuck any further.
The exact same thing had happened during the conversation as well. Lisa had been curious about the mention of the 'Hoopa' Pokemon that had sent the two to Earth Bet, only for her power to stick in a way that she'd never seen before. She'd almost call it a glitch, in fact. It certainly seemed like one.
The mention of these 'Time Gears' was even worse. Her power didn't even want to latch onto it at first, and once she'd finally forced it to, the only thing it had done was repeat the same things Shadow had told her about them, before erroring out on its own a few cycles after.
Sipping from her mug again, Lisa frowned even more deeply.
Another thing that was bothering her was Earth Bet. Explaining it all to Eon and Shadow like that, it had made Lisa realise just how strange, and how bad, the situation on their world truly was. Brockton Bay was a mess, the world was far worse, and the regular Endbringer attacks on every city and country the damn things could pick on had caused so much trouble for them all that she was surprised the world was still even anywhere near as functional as it was. Laying it all out as she had, to a pair of neutral strangers who'd never heard of any of it before, had given Lisa a shock that was almost as bad as the one she knew she'd given Eon and Shadow.
Having been looking over it all during her impromptu speech/lecture, Lisa had had an inkling that something was off about it all. It almost felt like someone was directing it…
The sound of a door slamming shut jolted Lisa from her thoughts, and nearly into her mug, before she pushed off the side of the kitchen's table and walked back into the front room, Brian and Alec meandering in while Rachel appeared from her room.
"So what do you need, Lisa?" The blonde Thinker blinked, suddenly remembering the text she'd sent out in the moments after the Pokemon had left, then glanced at the clock. Ten minutes had elapsed in no time at all, somehow, and she dropped herself into the nearest chair, shaking all other thoughts from her mind as she began repeating the conversation she'd just had.
"Huh."
"That's about right, yeah." Lisa nodded at Brian, looking over to him.
"Will they come back here?"
"I don't think so." Lisa rolled the thought around in her head for a moment, letting her power chew on it, and nodding to herself when it confirmed her original thought. "They only came because they didn't know about the Rules, so they didn't know that they weren't supposed to track us and just show up at the base. I told them about the Rules, and a few other things besides, so I don't think they'll just show up here again unless we invite them to."
"That's something, at least." Brian sighed. "Fuck, that could've been bad. If they'd been out to attack…" He trailed off, irate, and Lisa shuddered.
She only had an inkling about what they could potentially have done. She didn't want to think on it any harder.
"I think it might be best if we avoid fighting with them whenever possible." She recommended. "I'm not sure what their full abilities are- my power doesn't want to dig into them much more than I've already forced it to- but I don't think it'd be a good idea to try and fight against them."
"Given that the little one took on Lung like it was nothing?" Alec snorted. "Yeah, I'm happy staying the hell away from them when we can."
"Rachel?" All three of them looked at the girl, who glared and shrugged.
"Fine." She answered shortly, before leaving the room and slamming the door behind her. Lisa sighed.
"I think that's as good as we'll get." She told them, standing and grabbing the now empty coffee mug. Inclining her head, she got one confirming nod, and went back to the kitchen to make two new cups of coffee. I could've sworn I'm forgetting something here… Lisa mused to herself, waiting for the pot to finish. After a few moments, her power not providing any clues, she shrugged, giving up on it. It's probably not all that important anyway…
A few days later, on the morning after their bank robbery, Lisa got off the phone in a huff. Bloody Coil… She mentally growled, throwing the phone to one side before flopping down on her back.
The Undersiders' annoying bastard of a boss had tried ripping her a new one for her somewhat panicked retreat order the day before, when Team Inari had shown up half way through the bank job. She'd retorted with the fact that they didn't know enough about them to be able to deal with them as well as they could have fought the Wards, plus her own difficulties in reading them, and he'd eventually backed off, his voice almost a growl and a fairly audible- to her power, at least- glare on the phone as he hung up.
Which had slightly amused Lisa, but not enough to cover up all the irritation he'd also triggered.
Grumbling to herself for a few minutes, Lisa managed to regain enough control of herself to leave the room, heading straight for the coffee. Brian was sitting in the front, reading something, and Alec was on his game, both glancing up at her arrival.
"Something wrong, Lisa?" Brian asked.
"Just a personal pain in the ass, Brian." She replied. "Nothing to worry about." For now, she thought darkly, sipping the mug. "Anyway, my problems aside, anyone seen Rachel today?"
"She was still looking a bit pissed off about the bank job this morning." Alec put in. "She went out, I think."
"Great…" Lisa muttered, frowning again. "Anyone have any idea when she'll be back?"
"No idea." Brian shrugged. "Not as if she can get into much trouble, though. It's just walking her dogs."
It was at this moment the first explosion sounded. Lisa jumped, dropping her mug, while both Brian and Alec startled upwards, Alec pausing his game as he did.
"Of fucking course!" Lisa burst out. "Dammit!"
"What was that, Lisa?" Brian demanded. The Thinker frowned, pointing her power at the question.
Explosion was a bomb.
Bomb was Tinker created.
Tinker a member of the Azn Bad Boys.
Tinker's specialty is bombs.
Tinker attempting bombing attack on city.
Attack is due to the capture of Lung.
"Well shit."
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
Ok, I'd like to make an apology for missing last week's update. The Post-Christmas 'I don't know what day of the week it is' syndrome kicked in with a vengeance, and I forgot what day it was. Next week will be back on schedule, have an interlude. Sorry it's short.
LostArchivist
Sane, unfortunately.
- Location
- The State of Confusion
I think robbing the ABB is more legal than Tinker fabrics, actually.
There are salvage laws for goods owned by villains, but there are also laws against most cape business...
This should be interesting:
A Biblical plague, a dragon, and two kitsune walk into a bar...
There are salvage laws for goods owned by villains, but there are also laws against most cape business...
This should be interesting:
A Biblical plague, a dragon, and two kitsune walk into a bar...
Interesting story. Taylor is definitely OOC, but as she's canonically a paranoid asshole who flips from going with the flow to being stubborn as a mule at the worst of times I don't particularly care.
I like to imagine she threw in spiders while in the same posture as the third panel of this:
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
Bitch just wants to befriend the lovely foxes :-/
- Location
- Somewhere over the Rainbow
Fun Fact:
Each continent in Super Mystery Dungeon is a reference to each of the previous games!
The reason Ampharos doesn't really react to finding out that MC is a human is the fact that it ISN'T the first case!
(I didn't know this until someone pointed it out on the forums... It's not obvious if you don't have good memory and/or know the references!)
This seems out of nowhere... especially since there's little context for what the Wonder Map is...
- Location
- Море песка, солнце огня и множество злых сарацин
IIRC, back when I originally read that line, I tried to google what the Wonder Map was, and still couldn't figure out what it was supposed to mean (and wasn't even actually sure what exactly the Wonder Map was in the first place, even after the googling).
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
My personal defence is that I've never played SMD before. I have Gates to Infinity, though I haven't beaten it yet... (Dragon and Grass in an Ice type area is not good) but that is actually really neat. Thanks for the tidbit!
This will come up in story... I think next chapter, but the Wonder Map is basically the 'pick your dungeon' menu screen in Time/Sky/Darkness.
Anyway! My life is a mess, I cannot keep a schedule. Sorry.
Was gonna update Sunday, ended up speed doing homework I'd forgotten about and/or been putting off. Forgot on Monday, then yesterday I was busy again. So here, I'm doing it today! Watch the space below, as soon as editing's over you'll have it. Sorry for the wait, all.
Chapter 8- Bombing, hunting, and contact
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
Taylor cursed as she awoke, the shaking of the house making her fall out of her bed.
"Taylor?" Her dad called from his own room.
"Dad?" She responded, her voice trembling slightly. No, I can deal with this, I managed fine at the bank yesterday, I can handle this. "Are you ok?"
"I'm fine. What about you?" Danny asked, knocking once on her door.
"I'm ok too." Taylor stood up carefully and made her way over, picking up her glasses as she went past. "What's going on?"
"I don't know." The older man frowned. "Probably some sort of Cape fight." Another explosion went off in the distance, forcing Taylor to cling to the doorframe to stay steady.
"Maybe we should go find out." Taylor muttered, straightening again. Carefully, she took control of the bugs in her room, pulling a few of the spiders out of the box under her bed and sending them crawling along the floor towards the wardrobe, while she and her dad went down the stairs and over to the television.
The thing burst into static for a moment, before scrolling reports of bomb attacks flared on the screen, with mentions of possible Tinker involvement.
"Shit." Taylor whispered under her breath. "That's not good."
"No." Danny said heavily. "This could easily start a gang war."
"Dammit." Silently, Taylor directed her spiders to pull the phone out from under the false board in her wardrobe, putting the battery in and turning it on.
Bomb attack on city Tinkers involved cant get out now dads here will try and meet soon.
The message sent to her team mates, Taylor pursed her lips. I wish I'd told him sooner, dammit. She sighed slightly. "Dad, I need to go."
"What?" Danny turned sharply, staring at her. "But- the bombs- Taylor, you can't go! You might get hurt!"
"I need to go to my friends, they might need help-"
"Fuck your friends!" He barked. "Taylor, you need to stay here-"
"Dad, there's a lot I need to tell you." She argued, clenching her fist. "I should've said something earlier, but with the Locker and the bullying I never could…"
"Taylor?" Danny asked, confused.
"I'm a Cape." She muttered, slumping in her chair. "I have been since the Locker, that's when I Triggered and got my powers, I've been learning to use them for months since then, I made my own costume in the basement." Taylor sighed. "I went out for the first time a few days ago, and I've ended up joining a new team. We only had our public debut yesterday, but I need to go find them. I've already told them what's going on, but I need to go and help them out."
"Taylor, what-?" Danny began, then shook his head. "No. I'm not going to get any answers out of you, am I?"
"Not right now." Taylor said. "Sorry, dad. I need to go help out, though."
"Stay safe, then." The man sighed. "Too much like your mother. I want to meet your team mates, and I want the full story when you've got time."
"I can manage that, dad." She replied, with a watery smile. "It might be a while, though." Danny nodded.
"I expected that." He gave his own tight smile. "Go on, then. Get your costume together, and for god's sake be careful."
"I will." Taylor nodded to her dad, running up the stairs two at a time. She scooped the phone off the floor of her room, her spiders pulling her costume towards her as she glanced at the return message.
Moving out now will meet you soon do your best. Eon. Throwing the phone on the bed, along with a few spiders, she began changing, directing the bugs to respond.
Told dad. Am changing now, will be on way soon. Meet in woods? Taking off her glasses and carefully putting her contacts in, Taylor blinked a few times before pulling on her mask and threading her hair through the back of it. Patting herself down, she made sure the sparkling badge of honour was in place, she drew all of the bugs she had scattered around the room to her, opening the large boxes under her bed to let all of them out and pushed her window out as far as it would go to let the ones outside in as well.
Swarm picked up her phone again as it blinked, reading the reply.
Stay at yours. We're coming. She hummed, sending a confirmation, then having one of her spiders take her phone back into the armoured backpack on her costume, the rest of the crawling creatures taking up hiding spots in her costume and hair. Closing the window again, Swarm looked out, hoping to see her team mates there, even though she knew they'd take a lot longer to get there than she'd given them, before hearing the curtains downstairs being drawn shut.
"Dad?" Swarm called.
"You can come down, Taylor." He replied carefully. "Though you might want to go straight into the back even so."
"Just a minute, then." She spent a few more seconds looking over everything, having bugs in her pack check her supplies before ensuring that everything Cape related was locked away under the floorboard in the wardrobe and closing everything she could, including jamming her door from the inside using a few spiders and roaches to drag some random things from around the room into the path of the door once she was outside.
Pushing on it a few times, Swarm nodded, satisfied that it wouldn't open any time soon, she made her way downstairs, doing her best to avoid as many windows as possible. "Hey dad." She greeted, a slight bit of buzz in her voice. Danny jumped, turning to stare at her.
"Holy crap." He muttered. "Taylor?"
"It's Swarm when in costume." She responded. "But yeah, it's me."
"You look absolutely terrifying like that." He told her, carefully looking her up and down. "Impressive, though. How'd you manage to only go public yesterday?"
"I only went out at night, and one of my team mates is an illusion maker." She explained. "We can go invisible, though it's hard for him to hold more than two people at a time like that without help from our other member."
"There's only three of you?"
"Yeah. I'm probably the weakest of us." She sighed. "I'll get there, I know it, but it kind of sucks."
"What's your power, then?" Danny asked. "I'd assume something to do with bugs?"
"Insect control, mostly. Spiders and worms as well." She grinned through her mask. "All individually controlled. I have super-multitasking, basically."
"Interesting." He smiled slightly, still examining her. "Annette would've been proud of you, I think."
"Really?"
"Most likely." The conversation stalled for a moment as the shape of a small squirrel, white with a blue stripe running down its large tail and over its head, blue ears, and yellow cheeks, bounced at the window. Carefully, after a nod from Swarm, he opened it, letting the creature it.
"We're here, Swarm." It said, in the familiar voice of Shadow. "We'll be mostly doing some scouting, though Eon thinks we'll be able to find this Tinker and the bomber if we look around enough. Their scent should be on everything they've made." The image faded, and Swarm nodded to herself.
"That's Shadow, my team mate. Or her work, at least." She told Danny. "I'll see you later, dad."
"Stay safe, Taylor."
"I will." Smiling at him from behind her mask, she unlocked the back door and slipped out, seeing the pair of Pokemon sitting at the edge of her garden.
"Swarm, come on." Eon said softly, in a carrying voice. Nodding, the bug user hurried over, letting the Ninetales cloak himself and her as they started to move away, Shadow vanishing with her own patchy cloaking method. "What's going on?"
"I'm not completely sure." She shrugged. "Pretty much everything I know was in that message. Some kinda bomb attack going on, and they think there's Tinker involvement going on."
"Tinker, Tinker... ah, the scientists?" Shadow checked.
"Yeah, that'd be them." She grinned momentarily. "But it's bad news, trust me. Tinkertech is weird, and doesn't tend to follow the agreed laws of physics, so it's possible that we'll end up with a lot of weird effects going on wherever the bombs are going off."
"We'll do our best to avoid them, then." Eon decided, as they sidestepped into an alley. "Now, any idea where the bombs mostly are?" Swarm shook her head.
"No, but I'll send my bugs out to scout things. I've got about four blocks of range, so I think I'll be able to notice them at least a little, so we can avoid them."
"Thanks." Eon paused, sniffing at the air, then barked. Shadow made a reappearance at his side, looking confused. "Shadow, be careful. You're still scouting, but Swarm's going to be looking for the bombs, so listen to her. If you think you find the bomber, memorise his or her scent, but don't get too close, ok? And don't get hurt."
"Yes, Eon." She saluted, balancing on three legs for a moment, before flickering out and away to do her job.
"Swarm, stay close. Shadow won't go too far, but hopefully she'll be able to get close enough to find out who the bomber is."
"Alright." Loosing a shaky breath, Swarm straightened, directing her bugs into a search pattern across her range, focused on looking for irregularities.
"Eon," Shadow murmured, coming back to their side around half an hour later. "I've found something. It's... not good."
"Lead the way." Eon growled softly. Shadow nodded, turning on the spot and slowly making her way down the path, invisibility flickering on and off from tiredness, before she dodged into an alley and dropped it. Eon followed, doing the same once Swarm was close enough, and looked at his subordinate. "What is it?"
"I just wanted to give you a moment." She said lowly. "It's just up ahead." Smelling curiosity, Eon noticed some of the bugs in the alley running away from them, and looked back at Swarm.
"I'm just coming up on the end now..." She started, before freezing. "What the...?!"
"I know." Shadow replied, pawing the ground. Her tails flicked irritably, and she scowled at nothing for a moment. "Eon, just... invisibility up, and come on."
"I'll stay here and keep a look out." Swarm said faintly, leaning against the wall and focusing. Eon raised an eyebrow, cloaking himself with little effort and following the semi-invisible Vulpix down the alley.
"What the heck..." He whispered, breathless, as he caught sight of the area on the end of the alleyway.
"I know..." Shadow quietly whimpered, as the two of them walked in.
The area was clearly one of the areas that had been bombed, and had once been a fairly decent suburban area, one that Eon thought looked quite nice in comparison to some of the places they'd ended up seeing during their two patrols around the city. However, it was sadly marred by a semi-large hole in the middle of the street, which was quite obviously where the bomb had gone off, but the coating of glass across the entire street was the main cause for pause.
"Goodness..." Eon pursed his lips, looking back and forth along the road. He glanced along the front of some of the houses, then stopped, freezing dead. "Are those... people in there?"
"I think so." Shadow confirmed. Padding forwards down the deserted street, Eon gently reached out and brushed his paw along the edge of one of the glass statues-
The man stepped carefully out of his house, looking around warily. Along the road, other people were doing the same, searching for the source of the explosion.
"Daddy?" A little girl asked, making him look back and down. "What was that?"
"I'm not sure, sweetie." He replied, gently patting her head. "You go back inside to mummy, ok?"
"Ok." The three year old nodded, tottering off through the house, while he looked around the street again.
The chink of metal on concrete made him stop, staring at the middle of the road, where an unfortunately familiar metal capsule was rolling to a stop. He gasped, backing into the house again and starting to close the door.
The grenade went off, and he didn't even get time to scream as glass began flashing over the house.
Eon froze, backing away suddenly with a harsh shudder.
"Arceus…" He muttered, steadily creeping away from the now frozen human. "That's… that's…"
"Eon?" Shadow asked softly, touching a paw on his side. He flinched, then darted back into the alleyway, feeling his illusion rippling unstably as he lost concentration.
"That's… I don't…" He shook himself.
"Was it another vision?" She asked, as Swarm came over and patted him on the back, seeming slightly awkward about the entire thing.
"I… yeah, it was." He huffed, pulling himself together and dropping the cloak. "We've definitely got confirmation that it's Tinkertech, and that this bomber needs to go down." He shuddered again. "There were kids in there, Shadow. That man had a little daughter, something like three… how…" His tails lashed at the air as he growled, then struck out at the nearest wall with sharp claws.
"I know, Eon." Shadow growled, scratching at the ground as well. "I don't understand how someone could do this."
"What do you mean, Eon, Shadow?" Swarm questioned softly, her hand still on Eon's back. "What do you mean by visions? What did you see?"
"The visions thing is a discussion for another time, Swarm." He replied. "But… there are people in those houses, with families and everything, that this bomber caught. They didn't even have the time to scream before they died. There wasn't even a chance they could escape."
"I see." Swarm exhaled sharply. "Come on. Let's see how much ground we can cover today." She stood, straightening, while her bugs swarmed around her. "Let's get this person."
Nearly four hours later, approaching midday, the entire group paused in the middle of one of the streets, all spotting something with their extra senses.
"Isn't that the Undersiders?" Shadow asked, sniffing at the air curiously.
"It is." Swarm nodded, looking at the group with her bugs. They were a little way out of reach, about a block over from where they were currently, and from the scent on the wind seemed both angry and a little bit injured. "Do you think we should go and meet them?"
"We did kinda fight them yesterday, though." Shadow pointed out. "Would they try and fight us again?"
"I don't-" Swarm began, shrugging, before halting. "Tattletale's just noticed my bugs. She's waving them down. Do I go?"
"Go on, see what she wants." Eon told her, curious.
"Alright." She went silent for a minute, then frowned. "She wants to know if we should team up to try and find this bomber."
"Why not?" The Ninetales shrugged. "The more people we have working together, the more likely it is we'll find them."
"Are the local heroes even doing anything, on that note?" Shadow mused, as Swarm directed her bugs.
"Probably focusing on the richer areas of the city." She said, sounding sour. "They tend to do that. Leave's the lower end of the city to the independents, which is probably why they aren't known to last very long on their own."
"Good thing you have a team then, eh?" Shadow grinned. Swarm chuckled, nodding.
"Yeah, it is." She replied. "Anyway, the Undersiders are coming this way now. I've directed them over to us, and given that they've got those huge dogs they'll probably be here in a minute."
"I hear them." Eon agreed, turning to look in their direction. "Shadow, Swarm, back up, will you? Same as yesterday."
"Alright, leader." Shadow smirked, before falling back to flank the Ninetales while wiping the look from her face. Swarm looked between them both for a moment, confused, before shrugging and mimicking her on the other side.
"Ready, Swarm?" Eon asked lowly.
"Yeah, I can do this." She smiled. "It's just like yesterday."
"Hopefully with less fighting, though." Shadow added. Both nodded, then the three large dogs jumped off one of the nearby buildings and landed in front of them, Grue and Tattletale jumping off their own animals while Regent and Bitch stayed back.
"Hello there!" The Thinker called, waving to the three. "Good to see you again. We aren't going to end up fighting again, are we?"
"I should hope not, Tattletale." Eon replied. "Not unless you decide you want to start something."
"No fear of that." She smirked. "This bomber's more important than this right now."
"Good." The Ninetales smiled, before turning to Grue. "Now, then, to business."
"Indeed." The male's voice echoed slightly inside his helmet, creating an interesting disguise for his voice. "Though you'll still want to talk to Tattletale. She's our information expert."
"The bomber's definitely a Tinker, a member of the ABB, and the attack's because of Lung's capture the other day." Tattletale reeled off, losing the smug look slightly. "She's also a bomb specialist, so there's going to be a lot of really weird effects wherever the bombs are."
"We've already seen the effects of one." Eon nodded, with barely restrained anger. "Turned the entire street into glass. People, too."
"I see..." Tattletale muttered, thinking. "That... really isn't good. That sort of obvious disregard for life is probably going to get her a kill order."
"Hey, what happened to you guys, anyway?" Shadow asked, trying to drag Eon's attention off of his thoughts. "You guys look like a mess."
"We got caught up by Uber and Leet." Grue rumbled, sounding a little irate. "Not sure what was going on with them, but they gave us a bit of information. Apparently the bomber, Bakuda has implanted bombs into some of the ABB."
"I see." Eon slowly loosed a breath. "Right. Shadow, think you can manage things?"
"Yeah." She grinned, a little nervously. "I think it'll work." Closing her eyes and focusing, she barked once, a wave of energy flickered out with the sound of a bell.
"Whoa!" Regent shouted, while the dogs recoiled in shock. "What the-?"
"Heal Bell and Heal Pulse." Shadow smiled. "It's something I figured out a while ago. Sort of an accident, actually, I panicked while battling a fake Dialga and used both moves at once trying to heal me and Eon. Good to see that it works in this world as well." Sure enough, it had, the slight cuts and bruises their fight had left on them vanishing, leaving only the marks on the costumes.
"Huh." Tattletale hummed. "That's interesting. Might be a useful skill for Endbringer battles. And we can always use more healers."
"I like healing." Shadow nodded. "I can't do it much, only five to eight times for the mixed one, but Heal Pulse alone is somewhere between ten and sixteen. Still works well. Back home it'll reach through an entire room, so any of my allies anywhere there would benefit from it, but I'm not sure how the boundaries would measure out here. Maybe rooms, maybe just random."
"Still, that's a very effective ability, Shadow." The Thinker whistled.
"Yes, yes. We'll have to arrange something." Eon muttered, sniffing at the air. "Come on, let's see if we can find this... Bakuda, as you called her."
"Sure thing." Grue and Tattletale made their way back to the dogs, the girl turning back after a moment. "Here, Swarm. It'll be easier if you ride along with us. I'm pretty sure Eon and Shadow can move pretty quickly?" She looked over at the pair of Pokemon, who nodded.
"Not a problem. I'm sure we can keep up with you lot." Shadow smirked.
"Go on, Swarm." Eon agreed. "It'll be easier to search that way."
"Alright." The insect user walked over, accepting Tattletale's offered hand to climb onto the back of the dog. Shadow and Eon looked at each other, then blurred into an Agility to boost their speed.
"We'll spread out to cover more ground." Eon decided. "Shadow, stay low, and stay safe."
"Always, Eon." The Vulpix cocked a grin, before vanishing off into the city. There were a number of shocked exclamations, which stopped when the Ninetales looked over at them.
"Don't get lost, and Swarm, call if you get into trouble, ok?"
"Sure thing." She nodded, carefully holding onto the spines of the dog.
"Eon out, then." The grey Pokemon vanished as well, reappearing on a rooftop in the opposite direction from the one Shadow had gone, sniffing at the air for the smell of explosions.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Eon startled as the sound of multiple explosions rang over the bay. Quickly spinning in that direction, he inhaled deeply, smelling the wind for any hint of the situation.
Boom!
"Well, they seem to have stopped in the same place for a while." Eon grumbled, using Agility again before bounding across the buildings towards the still ongoing explosions. The sun was starting to set as well, making visibility a bit of a pain, but Eon was lucky in that he could see in the dark fairly well. The problem would be the humans running around, since they didn't have that luxury, and it might cause the bomber to retreat for the day in an attempt to continue this attack tomorrow.
"Eon!" Shadow barked, jumping from the roof next to him and landing. She stumbled for a moment, then picked up the running once more. Eon slowed slightly, letting his second in command catch up with him. "Do you smell that?"
"What, the explosions?" He snarked, speeding up again.
"No, the smell underneath that!" She retorted, panting a little. "Smells like... sparkles, and tin, and... grey?" She sniffed again. "Yeah. Grey." Eon blinked, confused, then sniffed as well, looking underneath the familiar smell of explosions for what she was saying.
"Huh. You're right. That's new." Eon mused, sniffing again.
"Hey!"
"Not what I meant, little pix. I'm more confused at the smell, though. It's weird."
"Unique, though." Shadow grinned. "We can use that to find her later, if she manages to escape."
"Let's try and make sure she doesn't escape, first." Eon remarked, jumping down to street level. Shadow joined him, and the dogs carrying Swarm and the Undersiders followed a minute later. "We've got a scent! Follow us!"
"Alright!" Tattletale shouted back. Bitch whistled sharply, the dogs picking up their pace, panting loudly, while Eon moved into the front of the group.
Let's hope we get there on time.
Shadow, Eon and the Undersiders found themselves overlooking the battle from a nearby rooftop, peering carefully over the edge. Eon had layered a cloaking illusion over the entire group as well, and was sure that Shadow, at the very least, had picked up on it, but the rest of them were theoretically ignorant.
Breathing deeply, Eon's eyes focused on one of the females on the ground. She was clearly the bomber, and not just from the grenades she was throwing around, though that just made it more obvious. The scent of the explosives, both the common and the strange sparkly one, was practically radiating from her like her own personal light show to the pair of Pokemon, making him growl softly in his chest.
"I know the bomber," he muttered, knowing the Undersiders and Swarm could hear him, "But I don't exactly recognise the rest of them down there. Any info?"
"The one in blue and silver armour is Armsmaster. He's a Tinker, and local Protectorate leader. Next to him is Miss Militia, and the red guy bouncing around the place is Assault. Militia makes weapons, and Assault does stuff with kinetic energy." Tattletale explained, watching them. "Not sure where anyone else is, but they're probably running around trying to deal with the aftermath of Bakuda's little bombing spree. Or maybe they're dealing with the ABB, or something."
"Maybe." Eon stayed still for a moment more, then grinned sharply. "I think we should go and offer our assistance, hm, Shadow?"
"Sure thing, Eon." The Vulpix's own smirk was about as wide and wicked as her leader's, and the two continued to survey their prospective battleground and make plans.
Around five minutes later, Tattletale hesitantly tapped the pair on the shoulder.
"Bakuda's thinking about trying to retreat." She murmured. "If you want to jump in, now's your time." Eon smirked.
"Thank you for the heads up, Tattletale. Since I understand that you don't have the best relations with the heroes down there, I'd suggest you and your team move off for now." The Thinker blinked, and the scents on the air became confused and surprised, but she nodded.
"Right." Tattletale nodded, jumping back up onto her dog. Swarm slipped down, going to stand next to Eon and Shadow, a little bit back from the two. "Seeya around. Probably on the other side of a battle, but oh well."
"Goodbye." Eon nodded slightly, ignoring as the three animals scrambled off, and continued glaring at the battle below.
"How do you plan on doing this?" Swarm questioned, after a moment's delay.
"Illusions, and bug bites." Eon told her. "We'll distract, you go and put her out, and we'll see if we can get Shadow in close enough to Hypnosis her unconscious."
"She's wearing goggles." Swarm noted. "Will Shadow's Hypnosis get through that?"
"I don't see why not." The Vulpix shrugged when they both looked at her questioningly. "I mean, it's worked before on Pokemon with funny vision, and I can Hypnosis bat Pokemon even though they don't see, so…"
"Your powers are weird." Swarm commented.
"Said the insect controller."
"Point."
"Alright, girls." Eon chuckled slightly, rolling his eyes. "Shadow, get down there, I want you close enough to surprise her. Swarm, get your bugs together. Try and avoid anything too poisonous- actually, maybe try and avoid poison at all. Just bite at her as best you can, or fly around and distract her. My illusions will do the same."
"Can you hold that many illusions up all at once?" Shadow checked. "You're holding the cloak as well…"
"I can do a couple more. Pokemon aren't all that hard for me, since I'm so familiar with them. I'll stick with Pokemon that're easy to move, like Ekans and Seviper, but the fox, dog, and cat-like Pokemon won't be too hard either, I'm used to how they move." Eon promised. "I'll be staying away from birds though, since they're a bit harder to make move realistically. I've almost cracked it, I think, but I need more time on them."
"So I'll use a lot of flying bugs to get in her face, and you trip her up on the ground."
"Not literally. My illusions aren't solid enough for that."
"Guys, she's starting to back away." Shadow warned, peering over the edge of the building.
"Go!" Eon barked, making Shadow nod and jump off the side of the building down to ground level. Looking over the edge himself, he flicked his tails, forming a pair of illusions next to him and walking them into the alleyway as well.
"What were those?" Swarm asked, as bugs began swarming out of her costume.
"The long purple and yellow snake was an Ekans. Poison type, pretty weak alone despite the size of'em, but kind of terrifying in a… pack, or whatever the collective for snakes is-"
"Den, I think. Or nest."
"Thank you. They evolve into something called Arbok, which is terrifying even alone and I'll show you later. The other's an Eevee, a cute little fox that has eight different possible evolutions depending on the conditions."
"Huh." Swarm muttered. "Did I mention that your world's weird?"
"You have." Eon nodded. "Now hush. Get your bugs moving, we need to block her. And if we head down there, let me do the talking."
"Sure." The rush of bugs dove over the edge of the building, and out of the cloak as they did so, making the four Capes down on the ground freeze and look over.
"What the fuck?" Bakuda gaped, staring. Eon smirked massively, taking the chance to send the Ekans illusion out, the serpentine Pokemon darting around her feet and lunging as if it were to bite her. "Whoa!" The mad bomber pulled out a grenade and aimed it at the illusion, which is when Swarm sent her bugs in, blinding her.
"Hey Eon," Shadow's voice whispered, from the sound-displacing illusion she'd become so fond of, "Do you think that I should use Swift?" Eon thought for a moment, then made the brown Pokemon nod. "Alright. Throw some fake ones in too, if you can." Illusion-Eevee nodded again, and a few moments later a flood of real and fake Swift stars were flying out of the alley, the Ekans illusion dodging around them all as they cut into Bakuda's legs.
"Ouch! What the fuck?"
"I'm going in." Shadow said, while Bakuda danced around the illusory snake, the bugs covering her face, and the stars that were very occasionally firing from the alleyway still.
Shooting a glance at the three other Capes, Eon was slightly pleased to notice that none of them seemed to know what was going on. The strange smells from the Capes covered a lot of their scents, especially in the case of the one called Armsmaster, but he and Miss Militia seemed intrigued and curious, while Assault appeared to be just as confused, but also extremely amused by the situation at hand.
A few seconds later, Shadow stepped out of the alleyway with a frown on her face, Eon directing illusion-Eevee to follow her. "Hey, watch your language." Shadow scolded, looking up at Bakuda. With a flick of his tails, Eon moved the Ekans away, looping around the two of them in a slightly protective position, while also giving Shadow enough room to look Bakuda in the eyes. "Seriously, it's a bit impolite, y'know?"
"What the hell are you?" The bomber Cape snapped. From his current angle, Eon watched Shadow's face, frowning, as Swarm made her bugs retreat and join the pair of illusions and the Vulpix.
Why aren't her eyes glowing? Eon thought, staring at her. I know she's using Hypnosis, she's got to be, but why aren't her eyes glowing if she is?
"My name's Shadow!" She grinned, before very obviously forcing herself to go back to at least mostly serious and grumpy. "Um, I mean, um…" While she stumbled slightly over her words, she flicked a tail slightly. "Make Ekans strike out again in a minute." She muttered in his ear, while she personally frowned. "Um, you should stop attacking people."
"Why would I listen to you?" Bakuda snarled, taking a step forward and pulling out a grenade. Immediately, the Ekans rose up, hissing and rattling its tail on Eon's command, before lunging out towards her, making the bomb Tinker squeak in shock and jump back.
"Hey, there's no need to be mean!" Shadow barked in return, as the illusion settled back down, still watching her warily. "And anyway, you should listen to me because attacking people is mean, and you're hurting people, and that's bad." The entire group was gaping at her now, Eon noticed with a smirk, while Swarm knelt down next to him, still keeping her bugs buzzing around Shadow and the illusions.
"Why is she acting like a child again?" She whispered, leaning close.
"It's one of her tactics." Eon breathed in reply. "She likes to act like a naïve kid around dangerous opponents. It makes then underestimate her, and it confuses them, so they tend to end up focusing on her and gives me a bit of time to get everything I need set up." Frowning for a moment, he manifested badges on the two Pokemon illusions, carefully arranged so that it would seem like they'd been there all along, before refocusing on Shadow. The Vulpix was still talking to Bakuda, making childish arguments about why she shouldn't be attacking anyone, and was now sitting on her haunches, waving one of her forepaws around in the air as she spoke.
For a moment, her paw drifted in front of the single eye Eon could see from his current angle as she brushed away some of the fur from her head plume that'd shifted while she was talking, and Eon noticed the eye flicker to a pale blue colour in the fractions of a second after her paw passed it.
"Ah…" He muttered to himself. "Clever, Shadow. Very clever indeed."
"What?" Swarm asked.
"She's hiding her Hypnosis with an illusion." He replied lowly, while the two continued their argumentative babbling down below. "Most likely she's doing it to make the heroes think she just needs time to focus to be able to knock them out."
"Why would she do that?" She wondered. "I thought she was trying to make herself look like less of a target, not more of one."
"She is though." Swarm blinked, radiating confusion, making Eon explain. "She's making herself less of a target by making herself more of a threat. Shadow's small and cute, which makes her less of a threat, and therefore less likely to be targeted, but by playing up her abilities. It makes her seem like more of a threat to be able to knock you out from anywhere, as long as she's focused on you, which makes her less of a target, since no-one wants to give her the opportunity to get mad and knock you out in an instant."
"It also makes her more of a target because they'll want her out of the fight as fast as possible." Swarm countered.
"They'll do that, and get careless." Eon retorted. "It gives her the ability to pull out other stuff. Or, alternatively, takes attention away from her team mates, who can then take them out while she's being a distraction. It works, we've done it before." He smirked at the memory. "Good times…"
"You need to tell me this stuff."
"Another time."
"Hey Eon, she's gonna be dropping in a minute." Shadow's voice echoed through the illusion, during a period where Bakuda began ranting at her. "The lenses on her mask blocked me more than I thought, but she's going now. Might wanna get Swarm ready to come down. And also be ready to do whatever you're doing with these illusion Pokemon. Don't think I didn't see what you did with the badges." Eon chuckled to himself.
"Come on, Swarm. Shadow's nearly got it, so we need to be down there." He told her, standing and shaking himself. "Oh, look. That Assault person's moving towards Bakuda. I wonder if he's going to try something."
"We should get moving, then." Swarm nodded, standing as well. The Ninetales jumped off the rooftop and into the alley in a graceful, flowing movement, making sure he could still see his illusions to make then react and move like they should, and with another part of his mind he lifted Swarm off the edge of the building and carried her down to him with Extrasensory. "I keep forgetting you can do that." She remarked, finding her balance again.
"It's a bit more difficult than you'd expect. I've got experience with lifting heavy things, no offense, but it's not a skill I use very much." Eon explained, sneaking forwards. "Now, get ready. Stand behind me, in the sort of position that implies you're the third in command."
"I am, though."
"No, there's only three of us. In that case, you don't count as third in command, you count as the rookie." Eon corrected. "And just getting a fourth member wouldn't count, either."
"Fine." She responded. "Now what?"
"-you… argh!" Bakuda snapped, glaring at Shadow.
"Eh, it's not like it bothers me." She shrugged. "Besides, you're gonna go down in a minute, so I think I win anyway."
"Wha-?" She started, before pitching forwards and collapsing to the concrete, snoring slightly on the way.
"There we go." Shadow huffed. "That took way longer than it should've."
"Going in now." Eon whispered to Swarm, before taking a few steps forward out of the alley, standing proudly with his tails swaying behind him. "But you still did well." He remarked, grinning.
"Thanks, Eon." Shadow chuckled, jumping over the illusion Ekans and heading to his side. "Thanks too, Swarm." She added, as the bugs flew over their heads and back to the girl.
"No problem, Shadow." The Cape nodded, as Eon went over to his illusions- now turned around to look at them- and Shadow slotted herself into the second position. The shiny Pokemon was mildly amused to see that Assault had frozen mid-step, and Armsmaster and Miss Militia appeared to have started up a debate in low voices. Out of respect for their privacy, he ignored what was being said, instead moving back to his illusions. Eon examined them for a moment, then flicked his tail and dispelled them both. Assault gave a muttered exclamation of shock, making Eon hide a smirk by turning around again and patting Shadow on the head.
"Good job, little pix." He told her. "That could've gotten very dangerous. I'm glad you're ok."
"I'd've been fine, Eon." She replied, swatting at his paw. "But thanks. Both f'the help 'n' all that."
"No problem." Eon turned again, heading over to Bakuda and sniffing at her, taking the moment to memorise the strange scents attached to her. "Yeah, she's out solid. Any idea how long for?"
"Nope. Probably... I'unno, couple hours?" Shadow shrugged. "Might be less. Prolly more, if anything." She yawned. "Urgh, that sucked."
"How much energy did you use?"
"Dunno."
"Ah, excuse me?" All three of them looked over- and somewhat upwards- at the red-costumed Cape, who was hovering somewhat awkwardly in the background.
"Yes?"
"What exactly... did your friend do?"
"Put'er to sleep." Shadow told him, lying on the floor and resting her head on her paws. "Lik'I said, she'll be out a while." She yawned again, then grumbled to her feet when Eon cleared his throat.
"Well, thanks for that." The man replied, before grinning widely at them. "Hey, you're the three that intervened at the bank yesterday, right? The Wards were telling us all about you."
"Yes, that was us." Eon grinned back, careful not to display too many fangs. "I'm glad we were able to help out before things got too bad, both yesterday and today."
"It would've been a bit of a pain to try and chase Bakuda here down in the dark." Assault nodded. "And if she'd escaped, who knows how much more damage she could've done."
"All part of the job, in the end." Eon said, looking up at the sky. "The dark wouldn't have been too much of a bother for us, I think, but it's still difficult to move and fight in the darkness. Speaking of..." He frowned, lashing his tails. Whirls of fire lanced along his body, forming orbs on the blue tail-tips before detaching and floating around them in loose circles, providing a somewhat eerie lilac light for them to see by and throwing sharp shadows on everything.
Assault whistled. "Neat trick. These things hot?" He reached over towards one, careful not to touch it.
"A little, I think. They might Burn you if you touch them, though. That's something Shadow would need to heal, and she's a bit tired right now."
"Side-effect o'the Hypnosis." She muttered, yawning again. "Be alright inna minute'r so."
"I think I'll just avoid touching them." Assault replied, pulling his hand back. "Useful, though, I'd assume?"
"Pretty good, yes. We've used them as lights before. They're technically battle weapons, but what works works." Eon shrugged, before looking at Bakuda again. "I think we'll leave you to deal with our... friend, here. Shadow, at the very least, should be getting home now. She needs a break."
"Not that bad." The Vulpix grumped.
"I'm pretty sure the others want to ask you some questions..." Assault began.
"You all stay up in that building over there, right? The PRT one?" Eon checked, interrupting him. "We'll come to you tomorrow. Or we can find some kind of neutral meeting point, if you'd rather." Assault hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
"There's a place called Somer's Rock. It's commonly used by heroes and villains to meet up on neutral ground without fighting. We could meet there around midday?"
"Midday would be fine. I'm sure we can find it." Eon grinned, holding out a paw for him. "Naturally, I'll be bringing my team. Bring yours, if you wish."
"Of course." He agreed, shaking his paw. "We'll handle Bakuda from here."
"Tomorrow, then." Eon nodded, shifting back. "Good evening to you all." With a flick of two of his tails, the Ninetales extinguished the Will-o-Wisps floating around and cloaked the group of three, before picking up Shadow by the scruff of her neck and carrying her into the alleyway, Swarm following alongside. Behind them, there was a muttered exclamation of surprise from Assault, which made him grin, while the other two Capes came over, apparently finished with their discussion.
Eon entertained the thought of stopping to listen for a while, before deciding not too. Shadow needed rest, Swarm needed to get home before her dad worried too badly, and it'd have been rude to eavesdrop on potential allies.
Progressing well into the alleyway, Eon placed Shadow on her paws, shaking his head as he did so.
"Urgh. That... should not be as straining as it was." He grumbled. "That's not good."
"Why?" Swarm asked, crouching down and patting Shadow's back.
"It means I'm gonna end up with a headache if I keep pushing myself with illusions." He replied, curling around the younger fox and girl. "Moves use up a different type of energy to illusions, so while I just get tired using Moves too often, I get headaches and more mental exhaustion from illusions. If it gets too bad, I can't do them anymore."
"Oh. That's... bad."
"I can get you home alright, and it'll be fine after a night of sleep and not needing to make anything, so don't worry." Eon added, nudging her ankle. "But moving Shadow here will be annoying."
"I'll be fine." She yawned, swaying slightly on her feet. Swarm giggled, then lifted Shadow into the air, carrying her in her arms carefully. "Hey!"
"It'll be faster if I carry you back. Both of you can spend the night at my place, I don't think dad'll mind and I need to explain things to him anyway." She sighed, then stiffened. "I mean, unless it bothers you...?"
"'Sokay, I guess." Shadow yawned again, shifting slightly so she was more comfortable. "Eon, y'ok?"
"I'll be fine too." He agreed, pushing himself up and uncurling. "C'mon, let's go, we'll take up that offer of staying overnight if your dad's ok with it, Swarm."
"Sure, no problem. Let's go." Swarm said nervously, her bugs buzzing and twitching in her hair until she forced them to stop, making Eon's job of cloaking them easier. The Ninetales slipped past her, standing close to her side as they walked, staying invisible and doing their best to avoid any of the locations where Bakuda's attack had hit.
Unfortunately, there were quite a number of them.
"Why did you let them leave?" Colin asked lowly of Ethan, while Hannah called for a transport for Bakuda.
"That little fox just took out Bakuda by looking at her." Ethan retorted, waving a hand towards the ABB Cape. "I wasn't going to try forcing her to stay while she had backup. Who knows what the other two might have done? Meeting them at a neutral place tomorrow and letting them bring their entire team with them makes it less likely they'll feel like they're being threatened at all, so we can get some kind of report out of them without needing to worry about them doing something to us if they suddenly felt like they were being threatened for some reason."
"I'm pretty sure they were the kitsune that took out Lung, as well." Hannah said quietly, coming over to them both, keeping an eye on the downed Cape as she did. "Their appearances matched the description that Lung gave. A pair of kitsune, one red one with six tails, and a grey one with nine tails. Plus a girl with some sort of insect control, which is probably the one Lung was fighting in the first place before they intervened." Ethan whistled.
"Wow. You mean the little one took on Lung?" He nodded. "Yeah, I'm leaving that alone, then. If the little one, and probably the weaker one, can take Lung, I don't want to see what the larger one could do if pissed off." Colin paused, apparently just as unsettled by that idea as he was.
"Are you going to take someone else with you to Somer's Rock tomorrow?" Hannah asked.
"If the three of them are coming, I probably should. Fancy joining me, Militia?" Ethan grinned widely as she sighed, her eyes showing mild amusement even so.
"I probably should, just to make sure you don't say something stupid to them." She agreed. "And maybe bring Battery as well. She can keep you under control."
A PRT transport rolled up next to them, dispensing a number of troops with containment foam sprayers who immediately moved Bakuda into the van.
"I suppose we should go get this handled, then." Ethan sighed. "Meet you there." The red Cape bounced off, jumping from wall to wall with enthusiasm. Colin and Hannah traded exasperated glances, then headed over to their own motorcycles, starting them up.
"Keep him from doing anything stupid, please." Colin muttered to her, as they got ready to move off. "I have no wish to see first hand what one of these kitsune could do, let alone one of the Kyuubi if it were annoyed." Hannah shuddered slightly, nodding.
"Battery and I can keep him in line, I think." She promised, before smiling as a thought struck her. "Besides, kitsune and Kyuubi are typically pranksters and tricksters. Who's to say they wouldn't get along with Assault because they share his sense of humour?"
Colin actually slowed down in order to give her a dark look through his visor.
"Taylor?" Her dad called from his own room.
"Dad?" She responded, her voice trembling slightly. No, I can deal with this, I managed fine at the bank yesterday, I can handle this. "Are you ok?"
"I'm fine. What about you?" Danny asked, knocking once on her door.
"I'm ok too." Taylor stood up carefully and made her way over, picking up her glasses as she went past. "What's going on?"
"I don't know." The older man frowned. "Probably some sort of Cape fight." Another explosion went off in the distance, forcing Taylor to cling to the doorframe to stay steady.
"Maybe we should go find out." Taylor muttered, straightening again. Carefully, she took control of the bugs in her room, pulling a few of the spiders out of the box under her bed and sending them crawling along the floor towards the wardrobe, while she and her dad went down the stairs and over to the television.
The thing burst into static for a moment, before scrolling reports of bomb attacks flared on the screen, with mentions of possible Tinker involvement.
"Shit." Taylor whispered under her breath. "That's not good."
"No." Danny said heavily. "This could easily start a gang war."
"Dammit." Silently, Taylor directed her spiders to pull the phone out from under the false board in her wardrobe, putting the battery in and turning it on.
Bomb attack on city Tinkers involved cant get out now dads here will try and meet soon.
The message sent to her team mates, Taylor pursed her lips. I wish I'd told him sooner, dammit. She sighed slightly. "Dad, I need to go."
"What?" Danny turned sharply, staring at her. "But- the bombs- Taylor, you can't go! You might get hurt!"
"I need to go to my friends, they might need help-"
"Fuck your friends!" He barked. "Taylor, you need to stay here-"
"Dad, there's a lot I need to tell you." She argued, clenching her fist. "I should've said something earlier, but with the Locker and the bullying I never could…"
"Taylor?" Danny asked, confused.
"I'm a Cape." She muttered, slumping in her chair. "I have been since the Locker, that's when I Triggered and got my powers, I've been learning to use them for months since then, I made my own costume in the basement." Taylor sighed. "I went out for the first time a few days ago, and I've ended up joining a new team. We only had our public debut yesterday, but I need to go find them. I've already told them what's going on, but I need to go and help them out."
"Taylor, what-?" Danny began, then shook his head. "No. I'm not going to get any answers out of you, am I?"
"Not right now." Taylor said. "Sorry, dad. I need to go help out, though."
"Stay safe, then." The man sighed. "Too much like your mother. I want to meet your team mates, and I want the full story when you've got time."
"I can manage that, dad." She replied, with a watery smile. "It might be a while, though." Danny nodded.
"I expected that." He gave his own tight smile. "Go on, then. Get your costume together, and for god's sake be careful."
"I will." Taylor nodded to her dad, running up the stairs two at a time. She scooped the phone off the floor of her room, her spiders pulling her costume towards her as she glanced at the return message.
Moving out now will meet you soon do your best. Eon. Throwing the phone on the bed, along with a few spiders, she began changing, directing the bugs to respond.
Told dad. Am changing now, will be on way soon. Meet in woods? Taking off her glasses and carefully putting her contacts in, Taylor blinked a few times before pulling on her mask and threading her hair through the back of it. Patting herself down, she made sure the sparkling badge of honour was in place, she drew all of the bugs she had scattered around the room to her, opening the large boxes under her bed to let all of them out and pushed her window out as far as it would go to let the ones outside in as well.
Swarm picked up her phone again as it blinked, reading the reply.
Stay at yours. We're coming. She hummed, sending a confirmation, then having one of her spiders take her phone back into the armoured backpack on her costume, the rest of the crawling creatures taking up hiding spots in her costume and hair. Closing the window again, Swarm looked out, hoping to see her team mates there, even though she knew they'd take a lot longer to get there than she'd given them, before hearing the curtains downstairs being drawn shut.
"Dad?" Swarm called.
"You can come down, Taylor." He replied carefully. "Though you might want to go straight into the back even so."
"Just a minute, then." She spent a few more seconds looking over everything, having bugs in her pack check her supplies before ensuring that everything Cape related was locked away under the floorboard in the wardrobe and closing everything she could, including jamming her door from the inside using a few spiders and roaches to drag some random things from around the room into the path of the door once she was outside.
Pushing on it a few times, Swarm nodded, satisfied that it wouldn't open any time soon, she made her way downstairs, doing her best to avoid as many windows as possible. "Hey dad." She greeted, a slight bit of buzz in her voice. Danny jumped, turning to stare at her.
"Holy crap." He muttered. "Taylor?"
"It's Swarm when in costume." She responded. "But yeah, it's me."
"You look absolutely terrifying like that." He told her, carefully looking her up and down. "Impressive, though. How'd you manage to only go public yesterday?"
"I only went out at night, and one of my team mates is an illusion maker." She explained. "We can go invisible, though it's hard for him to hold more than two people at a time like that without help from our other member."
"There's only three of you?"
"Yeah. I'm probably the weakest of us." She sighed. "I'll get there, I know it, but it kind of sucks."
"What's your power, then?" Danny asked. "I'd assume something to do with bugs?"
"Insect control, mostly. Spiders and worms as well." She grinned through her mask. "All individually controlled. I have super-multitasking, basically."
"Interesting." He smiled slightly, still examining her. "Annette would've been proud of you, I think."
"Really?"
"Most likely." The conversation stalled for a moment as the shape of a small squirrel, white with a blue stripe running down its large tail and over its head, blue ears, and yellow cheeks, bounced at the window. Carefully, after a nod from Swarm, he opened it, letting the creature it.
"We're here, Swarm." It said, in the familiar voice of Shadow. "We'll be mostly doing some scouting, though Eon thinks we'll be able to find this Tinker and the bomber if we look around enough. Their scent should be on everything they've made." The image faded, and Swarm nodded to herself.
"That's Shadow, my team mate. Or her work, at least." She told Danny. "I'll see you later, dad."
"Stay safe, Taylor."
"I will." Smiling at him from behind her mask, she unlocked the back door and slipped out, seeing the pair of Pokemon sitting at the edge of her garden.
"Swarm, come on." Eon said softly, in a carrying voice. Nodding, the bug user hurried over, letting the Ninetales cloak himself and her as they started to move away, Shadow vanishing with her own patchy cloaking method. "What's going on?"
"I'm not completely sure." She shrugged. "Pretty much everything I know was in that message. Some kinda bomb attack going on, and they think there's Tinker involvement going on."
"Tinker, Tinker... ah, the scientists?" Shadow checked.
"Yeah, that'd be them." She grinned momentarily. "But it's bad news, trust me. Tinkertech is weird, and doesn't tend to follow the agreed laws of physics, so it's possible that we'll end up with a lot of weird effects going on wherever the bombs are going off."
"We'll do our best to avoid them, then." Eon decided, as they sidestepped into an alley. "Now, any idea where the bombs mostly are?" Swarm shook her head.
"No, but I'll send my bugs out to scout things. I've got about four blocks of range, so I think I'll be able to notice them at least a little, so we can avoid them."
"Thanks." Eon paused, sniffing at the air, then barked. Shadow made a reappearance at his side, looking confused. "Shadow, be careful. You're still scouting, but Swarm's going to be looking for the bombs, so listen to her. If you think you find the bomber, memorise his or her scent, but don't get too close, ok? And don't get hurt."
"Yes, Eon." She saluted, balancing on three legs for a moment, before flickering out and away to do her job.
"Swarm, stay close. Shadow won't go too far, but hopefully she'll be able to get close enough to find out who the bomber is."
"Alright." Loosing a shaky breath, Swarm straightened, directing her bugs into a search pattern across her range, focused on looking for irregularities.
"Eon," Shadow murmured, coming back to their side around half an hour later. "I've found something. It's... not good."
"Lead the way." Eon growled softly. Shadow nodded, turning on the spot and slowly making her way down the path, invisibility flickering on and off from tiredness, before she dodged into an alley and dropped it. Eon followed, doing the same once Swarm was close enough, and looked at his subordinate. "What is it?"
"I just wanted to give you a moment." She said lowly. "It's just up ahead." Smelling curiosity, Eon noticed some of the bugs in the alley running away from them, and looked back at Swarm.
"I'm just coming up on the end now..." She started, before freezing. "What the...?!"
"I know." Shadow replied, pawing the ground. Her tails flicked irritably, and she scowled at nothing for a moment. "Eon, just... invisibility up, and come on."
"I'll stay here and keep a look out." Swarm said faintly, leaning against the wall and focusing. Eon raised an eyebrow, cloaking himself with little effort and following the semi-invisible Vulpix down the alley.
"What the heck..." He whispered, breathless, as he caught sight of the area on the end of the alleyway.
"I know..." Shadow quietly whimpered, as the two of them walked in.
The area was clearly one of the areas that had been bombed, and had once been a fairly decent suburban area, one that Eon thought looked quite nice in comparison to some of the places they'd ended up seeing during their two patrols around the city. However, it was sadly marred by a semi-large hole in the middle of the street, which was quite obviously where the bomb had gone off, but the coating of glass across the entire street was the main cause for pause.
"Goodness..." Eon pursed his lips, looking back and forth along the road. He glanced along the front of some of the houses, then stopped, freezing dead. "Are those... people in there?"
"I think so." Shadow confirmed. Padding forwards down the deserted street, Eon gently reached out and brushed his paw along the edge of one of the glass statues-
The man stepped carefully out of his house, looking around warily. Along the road, other people were doing the same, searching for the source of the explosion.
"Daddy?" A little girl asked, making him look back and down. "What was that?"
"I'm not sure, sweetie." He replied, gently patting her head. "You go back inside to mummy, ok?"
"Ok." The three year old nodded, tottering off through the house, while he looked around the street again.
The chink of metal on concrete made him stop, staring at the middle of the road, where an unfortunately familiar metal capsule was rolling to a stop. He gasped, backing into the house again and starting to close the door.
The grenade went off, and he didn't even get time to scream as glass began flashing over the house.
Eon froze, backing away suddenly with a harsh shudder.
"Arceus…" He muttered, steadily creeping away from the now frozen human. "That's… that's…"
"Eon?" Shadow asked softly, touching a paw on his side. He flinched, then darted back into the alleyway, feeling his illusion rippling unstably as he lost concentration.
"That's… I don't…" He shook himself.
"Was it another vision?" She asked, as Swarm came over and patted him on the back, seeming slightly awkward about the entire thing.
"I… yeah, it was." He huffed, pulling himself together and dropping the cloak. "We've definitely got confirmation that it's Tinkertech, and that this bomber needs to go down." He shuddered again. "There were kids in there, Shadow. That man had a little daughter, something like three… how…" His tails lashed at the air as he growled, then struck out at the nearest wall with sharp claws.
"I know, Eon." Shadow growled, scratching at the ground as well. "I don't understand how someone could do this."
"What do you mean, Eon, Shadow?" Swarm questioned softly, her hand still on Eon's back. "What do you mean by visions? What did you see?"
"The visions thing is a discussion for another time, Swarm." He replied. "But… there are people in those houses, with families and everything, that this bomber caught. They didn't even have the time to scream before they died. There wasn't even a chance they could escape."
"I see." Swarm exhaled sharply. "Come on. Let's see how much ground we can cover today." She stood, straightening, while her bugs swarmed around her. "Let's get this person."
Nearly four hours later, approaching midday, the entire group paused in the middle of one of the streets, all spotting something with their extra senses.
"Isn't that the Undersiders?" Shadow asked, sniffing at the air curiously.
"It is." Swarm nodded, looking at the group with her bugs. They were a little way out of reach, about a block over from where they were currently, and from the scent on the wind seemed both angry and a little bit injured. "Do you think we should go and meet them?"
"We did kinda fight them yesterday, though." Shadow pointed out. "Would they try and fight us again?"
"I don't-" Swarm began, shrugging, before halting. "Tattletale's just noticed my bugs. She's waving them down. Do I go?"
"Go on, see what she wants." Eon told her, curious.
"Alright." She went silent for a minute, then frowned. "She wants to know if we should team up to try and find this bomber."
"Why not?" The Ninetales shrugged. "The more people we have working together, the more likely it is we'll find them."
"Are the local heroes even doing anything, on that note?" Shadow mused, as Swarm directed her bugs.
"Probably focusing on the richer areas of the city." She said, sounding sour. "They tend to do that. Leave's the lower end of the city to the independents, which is probably why they aren't known to last very long on their own."
"Good thing you have a team then, eh?" Shadow grinned. Swarm chuckled, nodding.
"Yeah, it is." She replied. "Anyway, the Undersiders are coming this way now. I've directed them over to us, and given that they've got those huge dogs they'll probably be here in a minute."
"I hear them." Eon agreed, turning to look in their direction. "Shadow, Swarm, back up, will you? Same as yesterday."
"Alright, leader." Shadow smirked, before falling back to flank the Ninetales while wiping the look from her face. Swarm looked between them both for a moment, confused, before shrugging and mimicking her on the other side.
"Ready, Swarm?" Eon asked lowly.
"Yeah, I can do this." She smiled. "It's just like yesterday."
"Hopefully with less fighting, though." Shadow added. Both nodded, then the three large dogs jumped off one of the nearby buildings and landed in front of them, Grue and Tattletale jumping off their own animals while Regent and Bitch stayed back.
"Hello there!" The Thinker called, waving to the three. "Good to see you again. We aren't going to end up fighting again, are we?"
"I should hope not, Tattletale." Eon replied. "Not unless you decide you want to start something."
"No fear of that." She smirked. "This bomber's more important than this right now."
"Good." The Ninetales smiled, before turning to Grue. "Now, then, to business."
"Indeed." The male's voice echoed slightly inside his helmet, creating an interesting disguise for his voice. "Though you'll still want to talk to Tattletale. She's our information expert."
"The bomber's definitely a Tinker, a member of the ABB, and the attack's because of Lung's capture the other day." Tattletale reeled off, losing the smug look slightly. "She's also a bomb specialist, so there's going to be a lot of really weird effects wherever the bombs are."
"We've already seen the effects of one." Eon nodded, with barely restrained anger. "Turned the entire street into glass. People, too."
"I see..." Tattletale muttered, thinking. "That... really isn't good. That sort of obvious disregard for life is probably going to get her a kill order."
"Hey, what happened to you guys, anyway?" Shadow asked, trying to drag Eon's attention off of his thoughts. "You guys look like a mess."
"We got caught up by Uber and Leet." Grue rumbled, sounding a little irate. "Not sure what was going on with them, but they gave us a bit of information. Apparently the bomber, Bakuda has implanted bombs into some of the ABB."
"I see." Eon slowly loosed a breath. "Right. Shadow, think you can manage things?"
"Yeah." She grinned, a little nervously. "I think it'll work." Closing her eyes and focusing, she barked once, a wave of energy flickered out with the sound of a bell.
"Whoa!" Regent shouted, while the dogs recoiled in shock. "What the-?"
"Heal Bell and Heal Pulse." Shadow smiled. "It's something I figured out a while ago. Sort of an accident, actually, I panicked while battling a fake Dialga and used both moves at once trying to heal me and Eon. Good to see that it works in this world as well." Sure enough, it had, the slight cuts and bruises their fight had left on them vanishing, leaving only the marks on the costumes.
"Huh." Tattletale hummed. "That's interesting. Might be a useful skill for Endbringer battles. And we can always use more healers."
"I like healing." Shadow nodded. "I can't do it much, only five to eight times for the mixed one, but Heal Pulse alone is somewhere between ten and sixteen. Still works well. Back home it'll reach through an entire room, so any of my allies anywhere there would benefit from it, but I'm not sure how the boundaries would measure out here. Maybe rooms, maybe just random."
"Still, that's a very effective ability, Shadow." The Thinker whistled.
"Yes, yes. We'll have to arrange something." Eon muttered, sniffing at the air. "Come on, let's see if we can find this... Bakuda, as you called her."
"Sure thing." Grue and Tattletale made their way back to the dogs, the girl turning back after a moment. "Here, Swarm. It'll be easier if you ride along with us. I'm pretty sure Eon and Shadow can move pretty quickly?" She looked over at the pair of Pokemon, who nodded.
"Not a problem. I'm sure we can keep up with you lot." Shadow smirked.
"Go on, Swarm." Eon agreed. "It'll be easier to search that way."
"Alright." The insect user walked over, accepting Tattletale's offered hand to climb onto the back of the dog. Shadow and Eon looked at each other, then blurred into an Agility to boost their speed.
"We'll spread out to cover more ground." Eon decided. "Shadow, stay low, and stay safe."
"Always, Eon." The Vulpix cocked a grin, before vanishing off into the city. There were a number of shocked exclamations, which stopped when the Ninetales looked over at them.
"Don't get lost, and Swarm, call if you get into trouble, ok?"
"Sure thing." She nodded, carefully holding onto the spines of the dog.
"Eon out, then." The grey Pokemon vanished as well, reappearing on a rooftop in the opposite direction from the one Shadow had gone, sniffing at the air for the smell of explosions.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Eon startled as the sound of multiple explosions rang over the bay. Quickly spinning in that direction, he inhaled deeply, smelling the wind for any hint of the situation.
Boom!
"Well, they seem to have stopped in the same place for a while." Eon grumbled, using Agility again before bounding across the buildings towards the still ongoing explosions. The sun was starting to set as well, making visibility a bit of a pain, but Eon was lucky in that he could see in the dark fairly well. The problem would be the humans running around, since they didn't have that luxury, and it might cause the bomber to retreat for the day in an attempt to continue this attack tomorrow.
"Eon!" Shadow barked, jumping from the roof next to him and landing. She stumbled for a moment, then picked up the running once more. Eon slowed slightly, letting his second in command catch up with him. "Do you smell that?"
"What, the explosions?" He snarked, speeding up again.
"No, the smell underneath that!" She retorted, panting a little. "Smells like... sparkles, and tin, and... grey?" She sniffed again. "Yeah. Grey." Eon blinked, confused, then sniffed as well, looking underneath the familiar smell of explosions for what she was saying.
"Huh. You're right. That's new." Eon mused, sniffing again.
"Hey!"
"Not what I meant, little pix. I'm more confused at the smell, though. It's weird."
"Unique, though." Shadow grinned. "We can use that to find her later, if she manages to escape."
"Let's try and make sure she doesn't escape, first." Eon remarked, jumping down to street level. Shadow joined him, and the dogs carrying Swarm and the Undersiders followed a minute later. "We've got a scent! Follow us!"
"Alright!" Tattletale shouted back. Bitch whistled sharply, the dogs picking up their pace, panting loudly, while Eon moved into the front of the group.
Let's hope we get there on time.
Shadow, Eon and the Undersiders found themselves overlooking the battle from a nearby rooftop, peering carefully over the edge. Eon had layered a cloaking illusion over the entire group as well, and was sure that Shadow, at the very least, had picked up on it, but the rest of them were theoretically ignorant.
Breathing deeply, Eon's eyes focused on one of the females on the ground. She was clearly the bomber, and not just from the grenades she was throwing around, though that just made it more obvious. The scent of the explosives, both the common and the strange sparkly one, was practically radiating from her like her own personal light show to the pair of Pokemon, making him growl softly in his chest.
"I know the bomber," he muttered, knowing the Undersiders and Swarm could hear him, "But I don't exactly recognise the rest of them down there. Any info?"
"The one in blue and silver armour is Armsmaster. He's a Tinker, and local Protectorate leader. Next to him is Miss Militia, and the red guy bouncing around the place is Assault. Militia makes weapons, and Assault does stuff with kinetic energy." Tattletale explained, watching them. "Not sure where anyone else is, but they're probably running around trying to deal with the aftermath of Bakuda's little bombing spree. Or maybe they're dealing with the ABB, or something."
"Maybe." Eon stayed still for a moment more, then grinned sharply. "I think we should go and offer our assistance, hm, Shadow?"
"Sure thing, Eon." The Vulpix's own smirk was about as wide and wicked as her leader's, and the two continued to survey their prospective battleground and make plans.
Around five minutes later, Tattletale hesitantly tapped the pair on the shoulder.
"Bakuda's thinking about trying to retreat." She murmured. "If you want to jump in, now's your time." Eon smirked.
"Thank you for the heads up, Tattletale. Since I understand that you don't have the best relations with the heroes down there, I'd suggest you and your team move off for now." The Thinker blinked, and the scents on the air became confused and surprised, but she nodded.
"Right." Tattletale nodded, jumping back up onto her dog. Swarm slipped down, going to stand next to Eon and Shadow, a little bit back from the two. "Seeya around. Probably on the other side of a battle, but oh well."
"Goodbye." Eon nodded slightly, ignoring as the three animals scrambled off, and continued glaring at the battle below.
"How do you plan on doing this?" Swarm questioned, after a moment's delay.
"Illusions, and bug bites." Eon told her. "We'll distract, you go and put her out, and we'll see if we can get Shadow in close enough to Hypnosis her unconscious."
"She's wearing goggles." Swarm noted. "Will Shadow's Hypnosis get through that?"
"I don't see why not." The Vulpix shrugged when they both looked at her questioningly. "I mean, it's worked before on Pokemon with funny vision, and I can Hypnosis bat Pokemon even though they don't see, so…"
"Your powers are weird." Swarm commented.
"Said the insect controller."
"Point."
"Alright, girls." Eon chuckled slightly, rolling his eyes. "Shadow, get down there, I want you close enough to surprise her. Swarm, get your bugs together. Try and avoid anything too poisonous- actually, maybe try and avoid poison at all. Just bite at her as best you can, or fly around and distract her. My illusions will do the same."
"Can you hold that many illusions up all at once?" Shadow checked. "You're holding the cloak as well…"
"I can do a couple more. Pokemon aren't all that hard for me, since I'm so familiar with them. I'll stick with Pokemon that're easy to move, like Ekans and Seviper, but the fox, dog, and cat-like Pokemon won't be too hard either, I'm used to how they move." Eon promised. "I'll be staying away from birds though, since they're a bit harder to make move realistically. I've almost cracked it, I think, but I need more time on them."
"So I'll use a lot of flying bugs to get in her face, and you trip her up on the ground."
"Not literally. My illusions aren't solid enough for that."
"Guys, she's starting to back away." Shadow warned, peering over the edge of the building.
"Go!" Eon barked, making Shadow nod and jump off the side of the building down to ground level. Looking over the edge himself, he flicked his tails, forming a pair of illusions next to him and walking them into the alleyway as well.
"What were those?" Swarm asked, as bugs began swarming out of her costume.
"The long purple and yellow snake was an Ekans. Poison type, pretty weak alone despite the size of'em, but kind of terrifying in a… pack, or whatever the collective for snakes is-"
"Den, I think. Or nest."
"Thank you. They evolve into something called Arbok, which is terrifying even alone and I'll show you later. The other's an Eevee, a cute little fox that has eight different possible evolutions depending on the conditions."
"Huh." Swarm muttered. "Did I mention that your world's weird?"
"You have." Eon nodded. "Now hush. Get your bugs moving, we need to block her. And if we head down there, let me do the talking."
"Sure." The rush of bugs dove over the edge of the building, and out of the cloak as they did so, making the four Capes down on the ground freeze and look over.
"What the fuck?" Bakuda gaped, staring. Eon smirked massively, taking the chance to send the Ekans illusion out, the serpentine Pokemon darting around her feet and lunging as if it were to bite her. "Whoa!" The mad bomber pulled out a grenade and aimed it at the illusion, which is when Swarm sent her bugs in, blinding her.
"Hey Eon," Shadow's voice whispered, from the sound-displacing illusion she'd become so fond of, "Do you think that I should use Swift?" Eon thought for a moment, then made the brown Pokemon nod. "Alright. Throw some fake ones in too, if you can." Illusion-Eevee nodded again, and a few moments later a flood of real and fake Swift stars were flying out of the alley, the Ekans illusion dodging around them all as they cut into Bakuda's legs.
"Ouch! What the fuck?"
"I'm going in." Shadow said, while Bakuda danced around the illusory snake, the bugs covering her face, and the stars that were very occasionally firing from the alleyway still.
Shooting a glance at the three other Capes, Eon was slightly pleased to notice that none of them seemed to know what was going on. The strange smells from the Capes covered a lot of their scents, especially in the case of the one called Armsmaster, but he and Miss Militia seemed intrigued and curious, while Assault appeared to be just as confused, but also extremely amused by the situation at hand.
A few seconds later, Shadow stepped out of the alleyway with a frown on her face, Eon directing illusion-Eevee to follow her. "Hey, watch your language." Shadow scolded, looking up at Bakuda. With a flick of his tails, Eon moved the Ekans away, looping around the two of them in a slightly protective position, while also giving Shadow enough room to look Bakuda in the eyes. "Seriously, it's a bit impolite, y'know?"
"What the hell are you?" The bomber Cape snapped. From his current angle, Eon watched Shadow's face, frowning, as Swarm made her bugs retreat and join the pair of illusions and the Vulpix.
Why aren't her eyes glowing? Eon thought, staring at her. I know she's using Hypnosis, she's got to be, but why aren't her eyes glowing if she is?
"My name's Shadow!" She grinned, before very obviously forcing herself to go back to at least mostly serious and grumpy. "Um, I mean, um…" While she stumbled slightly over her words, she flicked a tail slightly. "Make Ekans strike out again in a minute." She muttered in his ear, while she personally frowned. "Um, you should stop attacking people."
"Why would I listen to you?" Bakuda snarled, taking a step forward and pulling out a grenade. Immediately, the Ekans rose up, hissing and rattling its tail on Eon's command, before lunging out towards her, making the bomb Tinker squeak in shock and jump back.
"Hey, there's no need to be mean!" Shadow barked in return, as the illusion settled back down, still watching her warily. "And anyway, you should listen to me because attacking people is mean, and you're hurting people, and that's bad." The entire group was gaping at her now, Eon noticed with a smirk, while Swarm knelt down next to him, still keeping her bugs buzzing around Shadow and the illusions.
"Why is she acting like a child again?" She whispered, leaning close.
"It's one of her tactics." Eon breathed in reply. "She likes to act like a naïve kid around dangerous opponents. It makes then underestimate her, and it confuses them, so they tend to end up focusing on her and gives me a bit of time to get everything I need set up." Frowning for a moment, he manifested badges on the two Pokemon illusions, carefully arranged so that it would seem like they'd been there all along, before refocusing on Shadow. The Vulpix was still talking to Bakuda, making childish arguments about why she shouldn't be attacking anyone, and was now sitting on her haunches, waving one of her forepaws around in the air as she spoke.
For a moment, her paw drifted in front of the single eye Eon could see from his current angle as she brushed away some of the fur from her head plume that'd shifted while she was talking, and Eon noticed the eye flicker to a pale blue colour in the fractions of a second after her paw passed it.
"Ah…" He muttered to himself. "Clever, Shadow. Very clever indeed."
"What?" Swarm asked.
"She's hiding her Hypnosis with an illusion." He replied lowly, while the two continued their argumentative babbling down below. "Most likely she's doing it to make the heroes think she just needs time to focus to be able to knock them out."
"Why would she do that?" She wondered. "I thought she was trying to make herself look like less of a target, not more of one."
"She is though." Swarm blinked, radiating confusion, making Eon explain. "She's making herself less of a target by making herself more of a threat. Shadow's small and cute, which makes her less of a threat, and therefore less likely to be targeted, but by playing up her abilities. It makes her seem like more of a threat to be able to knock you out from anywhere, as long as she's focused on you, which makes her less of a target, since no-one wants to give her the opportunity to get mad and knock you out in an instant."
"It also makes her more of a target because they'll want her out of the fight as fast as possible." Swarm countered.
"They'll do that, and get careless." Eon retorted. "It gives her the ability to pull out other stuff. Or, alternatively, takes attention away from her team mates, who can then take them out while she's being a distraction. It works, we've done it before." He smirked at the memory. "Good times…"
"You need to tell me this stuff."
"Another time."
"Hey Eon, she's gonna be dropping in a minute." Shadow's voice echoed through the illusion, during a period where Bakuda began ranting at her. "The lenses on her mask blocked me more than I thought, but she's going now. Might wanna get Swarm ready to come down. And also be ready to do whatever you're doing with these illusion Pokemon. Don't think I didn't see what you did with the badges." Eon chuckled to himself.
"Come on, Swarm. Shadow's nearly got it, so we need to be down there." He told her, standing and shaking himself. "Oh, look. That Assault person's moving towards Bakuda. I wonder if he's going to try something."
"We should get moving, then." Swarm nodded, standing as well. The Ninetales jumped off the rooftop and into the alley in a graceful, flowing movement, making sure he could still see his illusions to make then react and move like they should, and with another part of his mind he lifted Swarm off the edge of the building and carried her down to him with Extrasensory. "I keep forgetting you can do that." She remarked, finding her balance again.
"It's a bit more difficult than you'd expect. I've got experience with lifting heavy things, no offense, but it's not a skill I use very much." Eon explained, sneaking forwards. "Now, get ready. Stand behind me, in the sort of position that implies you're the third in command."
"I am, though."
"No, there's only three of us. In that case, you don't count as third in command, you count as the rookie." Eon corrected. "And just getting a fourth member wouldn't count, either."
"Fine." She responded. "Now what?"
"-you… argh!" Bakuda snapped, glaring at Shadow.
"Eh, it's not like it bothers me." She shrugged. "Besides, you're gonna go down in a minute, so I think I win anyway."
"Wha-?" She started, before pitching forwards and collapsing to the concrete, snoring slightly on the way.
"There we go." Shadow huffed. "That took way longer than it should've."
"Going in now." Eon whispered to Swarm, before taking a few steps forward out of the alley, standing proudly with his tails swaying behind him. "But you still did well." He remarked, grinning.
"Thanks, Eon." Shadow chuckled, jumping over the illusion Ekans and heading to his side. "Thanks too, Swarm." She added, as the bugs flew over their heads and back to the girl.
"No problem, Shadow." The Cape nodded, as Eon went over to his illusions- now turned around to look at them- and Shadow slotted herself into the second position. The shiny Pokemon was mildly amused to see that Assault had frozen mid-step, and Armsmaster and Miss Militia appeared to have started up a debate in low voices. Out of respect for their privacy, he ignored what was being said, instead moving back to his illusions. Eon examined them for a moment, then flicked his tail and dispelled them both. Assault gave a muttered exclamation of shock, making Eon hide a smirk by turning around again and patting Shadow on the head.
"Good job, little pix." He told her. "That could've gotten very dangerous. I'm glad you're ok."
"I'd've been fine, Eon." She replied, swatting at his paw. "But thanks. Both f'the help 'n' all that."
"No problem." Eon turned again, heading over to Bakuda and sniffing at her, taking the moment to memorise the strange scents attached to her. "Yeah, she's out solid. Any idea how long for?"
"Nope. Probably... I'unno, couple hours?" Shadow shrugged. "Might be less. Prolly more, if anything." She yawned. "Urgh, that sucked."
"How much energy did you use?"
"Dunno."
"Ah, excuse me?" All three of them looked over- and somewhat upwards- at the red-costumed Cape, who was hovering somewhat awkwardly in the background.
"Yes?"
"What exactly... did your friend do?"
"Put'er to sleep." Shadow told him, lying on the floor and resting her head on her paws. "Lik'I said, she'll be out a while." She yawned again, then grumbled to her feet when Eon cleared his throat.
"Well, thanks for that." The man replied, before grinning widely at them. "Hey, you're the three that intervened at the bank yesterday, right? The Wards were telling us all about you."
"Yes, that was us." Eon grinned back, careful not to display too many fangs. "I'm glad we were able to help out before things got too bad, both yesterday and today."
"It would've been a bit of a pain to try and chase Bakuda here down in the dark." Assault nodded. "And if she'd escaped, who knows how much more damage she could've done."
"All part of the job, in the end." Eon said, looking up at the sky. "The dark wouldn't have been too much of a bother for us, I think, but it's still difficult to move and fight in the darkness. Speaking of..." He frowned, lashing his tails. Whirls of fire lanced along his body, forming orbs on the blue tail-tips before detaching and floating around them in loose circles, providing a somewhat eerie lilac light for them to see by and throwing sharp shadows on everything.
Assault whistled. "Neat trick. These things hot?" He reached over towards one, careful not to touch it.
"A little, I think. They might Burn you if you touch them, though. That's something Shadow would need to heal, and she's a bit tired right now."
"Side-effect o'the Hypnosis." She muttered, yawning again. "Be alright inna minute'r so."
"I think I'll just avoid touching them." Assault replied, pulling his hand back. "Useful, though, I'd assume?"
"Pretty good, yes. We've used them as lights before. They're technically battle weapons, but what works works." Eon shrugged, before looking at Bakuda again. "I think we'll leave you to deal with our... friend, here. Shadow, at the very least, should be getting home now. She needs a break."
"Not that bad." The Vulpix grumped.
"I'm pretty sure the others want to ask you some questions..." Assault began.
"You all stay up in that building over there, right? The PRT one?" Eon checked, interrupting him. "We'll come to you tomorrow. Or we can find some kind of neutral meeting point, if you'd rather." Assault hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
"There's a place called Somer's Rock. It's commonly used by heroes and villains to meet up on neutral ground without fighting. We could meet there around midday?"
"Midday would be fine. I'm sure we can find it." Eon grinned, holding out a paw for him. "Naturally, I'll be bringing my team. Bring yours, if you wish."
"Of course." He agreed, shaking his paw. "We'll handle Bakuda from here."
"Tomorrow, then." Eon nodded, shifting back. "Good evening to you all." With a flick of two of his tails, the Ninetales extinguished the Will-o-Wisps floating around and cloaked the group of three, before picking up Shadow by the scruff of her neck and carrying her into the alleyway, Swarm following alongside. Behind them, there was a muttered exclamation of surprise from Assault, which made him grin, while the other two Capes came over, apparently finished with their discussion.
Eon entertained the thought of stopping to listen for a while, before deciding not too. Shadow needed rest, Swarm needed to get home before her dad worried too badly, and it'd have been rude to eavesdrop on potential allies.
Progressing well into the alleyway, Eon placed Shadow on her paws, shaking his head as he did so.
"Urgh. That... should not be as straining as it was." He grumbled. "That's not good."
"Why?" Swarm asked, crouching down and patting Shadow's back.
"It means I'm gonna end up with a headache if I keep pushing myself with illusions." He replied, curling around the younger fox and girl. "Moves use up a different type of energy to illusions, so while I just get tired using Moves too often, I get headaches and more mental exhaustion from illusions. If it gets too bad, I can't do them anymore."
"Oh. That's... bad."
"I can get you home alright, and it'll be fine after a night of sleep and not needing to make anything, so don't worry." Eon added, nudging her ankle. "But moving Shadow here will be annoying."
"I'll be fine." She yawned, swaying slightly on her feet. Swarm giggled, then lifted Shadow into the air, carrying her in her arms carefully. "Hey!"
"It'll be faster if I carry you back. Both of you can spend the night at my place, I don't think dad'll mind and I need to explain things to him anyway." She sighed, then stiffened. "I mean, unless it bothers you...?"
"'Sokay, I guess." Shadow yawned again, shifting slightly so she was more comfortable. "Eon, y'ok?"
"I'll be fine too." He agreed, pushing himself up and uncurling. "C'mon, let's go, we'll take up that offer of staying overnight if your dad's ok with it, Swarm."
"Sure, no problem. Let's go." Swarm said nervously, her bugs buzzing and twitching in her hair until she forced them to stop, making Eon's job of cloaking them easier. The Ninetales slipped past her, standing close to her side as they walked, staying invisible and doing their best to avoid any of the locations where Bakuda's attack had hit.
Unfortunately, there were quite a number of them.
"Why did you let them leave?" Colin asked lowly of Ethan, while Hannah called for a transport for Bakuda.
"That little fox just took out Bakuda by looking at her." Ethan retorted, waving a hand towards the ABB Cape. "I wasn't going to try forcing her to stay while she had backup. Who knows what the other two might have done? Meeting them at a neutral place tomorrow and letting them bring their entire team with them makes it less likely they'll feel like they're being threatened at all, so we can get some kind of report out of them without needing to worry about them doing something to us if they suddenly felt like they were being threatened for some reason."
"I'm pretty sure they were the kitsune that took out Lung, as well." Hannah said quietly, coming over to them both, keeping an eye on the downed Cape as she did. "Their appearances matched the description that Lung gave. A pair of kitsune, one red one with six tails, and a grey one with nine tails. Plus a girl with some sort of insect control, which is probably the one Lung was fighting in the first place before they intervened." Ethan whistled.
"Wow. You mean the little one took on Lung?" He nodded. "Yeah, I'm leaving that alone, then. If the little one, and probably the weaker one, can take Lung, I don't want to see what the larger one could do if pissed off." Colin paused, apparently just as unsettled by that idea as he was.
"Are you going to take someone else with you to Somer's Rock tomorrow?" Hannah asked.
"If the three of them are coming, I probably should. Fancy joining me, Militia?" Ethan grinned widely as she sighed, her eyes showing mild amusement even so.
"I probably should, just to make sure you don't say something stupid to them." She agreed. "And maybe bring Battery as well. She can keep you under control."
A PRT transport rolled up next to them, dispensing a number of troops with containment foam sprayers who immediately moved Bakuda into the van.
"I suppose we should go get this handled, then." Ethan sighed. "Meet you there." The red Cape bounced off, jumping from wall to wall with enthusiasm. Colin and Hannah traded exasperated glances, then headed over to their own motorcycles, starting them up.
"Keep him from doing anything stupid, please." Colin muttered to her, as they got ready to move off. "I have no wish to see first hand what one of these kitsune could do, let alone one of the Kyuubi if it were annoyed." Hannah shuddered slightly, nodding.
"Battery and I can keep him in line, I think." She promised, before smiling as a thought struck her. "Besides, kitsune and Kyuubi are typically pranksters and tricksters. Who's to say they wouldn't get along with Assault because they share his sense of humour?"
Colin actually slowed down in order to give her a dark look through his visor.
Hm. Seems that Danny is a bit more reasonable without Taylor having been sneaking out even longer. Also, Bakuda likely still has her detonator, so that'll probably lead to an interesting situation when she wakes up.
Also, I find it increasingly funny that so far the group's M.O. is "aren't I so cute and adorable you could just go to SLEEP?"
Also, I find it increasingly funny that so far the group's M.O. is "aren't I so cute and adorable you could just go to SLEEP?"
- Location
- Seattle, Washington
It would be absurdly dumb if the protectorate didn't scan Bakuda very carefully and remove all of her tinkertech before she wakes up.
- Location
- Canada
Kinda agree on that one - she's a bomb tinker, of all things. Careful search should not even be so much optional as mandatory. Armsmaster, as a tinker himself, should actually be properly paranoid about these possibilities.
- Location
- Somewhere over the Rainbow
Totally fair.
In fact, if it wasn't for that post - I wouldn't have realize the fact... even AFTER completing the main storyline!
PLEASE let them mention smelling Battery on Assault, or Vice versa? Or something like that... after all, they ARE husband and wife!
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
Yeah, I figured Danny would be a bit more sane if Taylor's only gone out three nights- though of course there's the fact that she skipped school in-story-yesterday to go patrolling, but given what he already knows about school he's not reacting too badly to it in the end. He'll be more pissed that it's still going on, and that Taylor waited so long to tell him.
And yes, the M.O. is mostly based on the fact that they're adorable and know it. Mostly Shadow's M.O., since bugs are a little scary and Eon never learned all the cute moves since he started as a Ninetales, but it's Shadow's main method and she likes using it.
Partly for the easy takedowns, and partly because she knows criminals are more enraged when the wake up realising they got beaten by a cute fox.
It would, indeed, be extremely dumb. I'm trying to make the Protectorate vaguely more competent than canon is, hence them being perfectly willing to meet the unknown group of Capes in a neutral point where they won't want to cause trouble, rather than taking them in for questioning in an environment where they could possibly be conceived as hostile.
So yeah, they'll scan Bakuda before sending her off for processing.
They will, obviously, smell stuff like that. However, coming from a world where most the population can also take note of things like that, through scents or in some cases stuff to do with Aura, they're unlikely to really mention it aloud. They take note of it, thinking it's interesting and could be useful, but they don't see any reason to point it out; they're used to other Pokemon noticing it themselves, and in this case they're also getting used to the Rules, which they're being careful not to break and don't know if that could possibly cause trouble.
Anyway-
Happy Sunday, everyone! My life's in a bit less of a mess today, so watch the space below for the update! This week; talking. Oh dear god the talking. Have fun, all!
Chapter 9- Homecoming, talking, and mapping
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
Swarm, still holding onto Shadow, snuck into her back yard, Eon silently dogging her steps and telekinetically closing the gate behind him.
"Swarm?"
"Let's go into the house, then you can let go of the illusion." She replied tensely.
"I can hold it." Eon agreed. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." Swarm swallowed. "Just not looking forward to this."
"He'sya dad." Shadow yawned, shuffling in her arms. "He'll be fine."
"I thought you were asleep." He replied, looking up at her.
"Was. Though' I should be awake t'meet Swarm's dad."
"Thanks, Shadow." She smiled through her mask, then sighed. "Right. In we go, I suppose. Time to face the music." Eon nodded, releasing the inaudibility illusion as Swarm knocked on the kitchen door. It opened, a tall man looking out of it.
Shadow sniffed discreetly at him, as did Eon, noticing how similar his scent was to Taylor's.
"Taylor?" He asked lowly. Eon flickered the illusion, stepping closer to Swarm's side as he did so.
"We're here, dad." She replied, as he startled slightly. "I bought my team mates too, though Shadow's a bit tired."
"I'll be a'right." She remarked, punctuated by a yawn.
"Come in, then." The man nodded, stepping back out of the door. Swarm lead the way, still holding Shadow, and Eon pushed in behind her before breaking the illusion over the three of them. He sagged slightly, his tails drooping, before shaking his head and pushing himself up again, still acting as the team leader. The door closed, the man looked over the group. "Taylor? These are your friends?"
"Yeah." Swarm nodded, before leaning down to place Shadow on her own feet next to Eon, then peeling off her mask, revealing tired eyes underneath. "Dad, these are my team mates. Eon, the grey one, is a Ninetales and the team leader. Shadow is the second in command, a Vulpix. They were a team before I came along, but they've let me into their group. Eon, Shadow, this is my dad, Danny Hebert."
"A pleasure to meet you." Eon greeted, taking a step forward and offering a paw to shake. "My apologies for keeping Taylor out so late. I assure you it was not intended. We were hoping that we would find who we were looking for earlier than this, and by the time we found the scent, it was so late that we had to catch her before she was able to escape and do more damage." Danny looked surprised, then shook the offered paw.
"I suppose that's alright." He replied. "At least she's back safe."
"We've been doing our best to keep her out of danger, though from what I've seen so far it's mostly been good luck that we have at this point." Eon frowned slightly, looking back at the insect controller and the Vulpix behind him. "Plus the fact that Shadow's willing to push herself to almost unsafe levels to keep trouble out of the way."
"'Snot unsafe." Shadow grumbled at him. "Jus' a bit tirin', 'sall."
"Keep telling yourself that, and maybe one day we'll believe it." He sighed, taking back his paw from Danny. "But not today, though."
"Bleh." She stuck her tongue out at him, then shook her head and walked slowly forwards, offering her own paw to shake with Danny. "Um, hi, Mr Hebert. Nice t'meet you too. S'rry 'bout bein' tired."
"It makes sense, it is a bit late." Danny nodded, looking at the nearest clock. Eon and Taylor both looked too, then winced; it was a little after ten, and they'd all been out and searching since eight that morning.
"Dad, I'm going to go get changed out of my costume." Taylor started, looking a little awkward as she did. "Do you want to talk tonight, or tomorrow morning?" For a few moments, Danny looked conflicted, then shook his head.
"Tomorrow. Your team mate, Shadow, needs to sleep, I think, and it'd be best if we all went into a conversation like this with clear heads." Eon nodded, heading over to Shadow again and letting her lean on his side as she released Danny's hand.
"Probably a good idea, Mr Hebert." He smiled a little, trying not to show too many teeth. "We'll be here tomorrow… around ten, perhaps? That should give everyone time to recover… and Taylor, we'll bring some more stuff from the base down to you, since I think we need to show you some of it still and we might as well do both at once."
"Wait, what?" Taylor blinked, glancing at him. "You're going back to the base?"
"Well, yeah." Eon shrugged one shoulder, steadying Shadow slightly with a tail as she swayed with the movement. "It's not too much of an issue to get back, it's dark enough that I don't think we'll need a cloaking illusion to hide properly, I can just throw darker colours over us both, and once we reach the woods then I can drop that completely. Won't be too bad."
"Why don't you just stay over?" Taylor asked, then freezing slightly and looking at her dad. "I mean, they can stay over, right? It'd be better than them needing to go back to the base again just to come back here tomorrow."
"I... suppose that's ok?" Danny said slowly, looking between the three of them. "We have a spare room you can use, Eon, and I suppose Shadow can sleep in the same one as Taylor or something-"
"We'll sleep in the same room, it's no problem." Eon replied, half-shrugging again. "We do all the time in our normal bases, so we'll be ok doing it here."
"Y'p. We'll b' fine." Shadow muttered, yawning again. "Don' worry 'bout us."
"Well, ok then?" Danny sounded a little confused, and Taylor took over, lifting Shadow in her arms again to a slightly tired protest.
"I'll show you both the room, ok? It's right next to mine." She told them, starting up the stairs two at a time. Eon hurried up after her, his tails curling slightly so that they didn't drag on the steps, and she pushed open the door. "It's a little bit of a mess, we haven't used it in ages, sorry."
"It's fine, Taylor." Eon smiled up. "Trust me, when we worked with the Guild, we worked with some really messy people. And the expedition… well, let's just say it doesn't matter about any mess, we'll be alright."
"Ok." She smiled slightly, then let Eon lift Shadow out of her arms with his telekinesis and carry her in with him.
"It'll be fine, Taylor." He muttered, looking back at her. She blushed.
"Is it that obvious?"
"Not overly, but a bit, yes." Eon replied, placing Shadow on the floor and walking back to her. "Seriously, don't worry about it. You tell your story, we'll tell ours, and your dad'll be fine with it, so there'll be no need for you to sneak around when going out to patrol with us."
"He'll probably put more restrictions on doing patrols, though." Taylor sighed slightly.
"He's your dad, it's expected. We'll make sure everything's manageable, and we'll work in line with whatever he wants." Eon smiled. "Trust me, it'll be fine. I'm sure we can handle it."
"Thanks, Eon." The Cape crouched down, hugging her team leader, then drew back into the doorway of her own room. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."
"Sleep well, Taylor."
"You too, Eon. Say night to Shadow for me."
"If she's not already out, I will." The Ninetales nodded, before stepping back and closing the door. He heard Taylor doing the same, drawing the blinds as she changed out of her costume, while he looked around the room before digging out a blanket for them to lie on, curling around the ball of fur that was Shadow once he had her settled. "Night, little pix."
"N'gh', Eon."
Taylor woke incredibly early the next morning, a bundle of nerves twisting her stomach into knots. For a while she just lay there, staring blindly at the ceiling while directing the weaving spiders under her bed to keep making her spare costume for her, before she finally hissed out a quiet sigh and rolled over, looking blearily at the clock.
Six o'clock.
Wonderful.
For a few moments, Taylor entertained the idea of sneaking out to go on her run, then thought the better of it as the muscles in her legs protested. While she hadn't had to do that much running, she'd still done quite a lot in the process of hunting for Bakuda, and sitting on those mutated dogs for as long as she had had hurt.
With another soft sound that was half sigh, half groan, Taylor pushed herself upright and found her glasses on the dresser, putting them on and blinking a few times as she focused.
"Right," she murmured to herself, moving to pull the box of spiders out from under her bed, "Let's see if I can do anything to hurry this entire thing up…" For a little while, Taylor directed her spiders around the already woven piece of spider silk, trying to remember exactly what she'd done to make her costume the first time, drawing more spiders out from the tangle under her bed to do so, and happily lost herself in the semi-familiar motions of it all, at the same time watching the bugs outside as they went about their own days.
"Hey, Taylor?" A quiet voice asked from the door, slightly startling her.
"Shadow?" The bug user blinked, looking up to see the Vulpix edging around the door slightly. "What's up? Come in."
"Thanks." The little orange fox made her way over, smiling slightly as she did. "Your room's pretty cool."
"It's not much." Taylor dismissed, looking around despite herself. There'd been pictures in there once, but most of them had Emma in them in some capacity, so she'd moved them out of her room once the bullying started.
"The base is currently a little more than a room with some boxes and beds." Shadow replied. "So this place is definitely better than that. And our little base back home isn't much different, either. I mean, we don't really keep mementos in the base, they go in the storage Kangaskhan runs in the town, because it's definitely not getting stolen from there, while someone might think it's a good challenge to break into a semi-famous Rescue Team's base."
"That's stupid."
"That's life. There's stupid people no matter where you turn." Shadow sighed. "Anyway, how're you doing after yesterday?"
"I'm fine." Taylor frowned, confused. "Why wouldn't I be? You and Eon were the one's over exerting yourselves trying to do a ton of illusions at once."
"Yeah, and that's... kinda why?" She started, scuffing her paw against the carpet of the room. "Like, you didn't really get to do much, aside from using your bugs to help intimidate Bakuda a bit, so I wanted to know you were ok with that."
"Yeah, I'm ok." Taylor shrugged. "You and Eon had the better abilities to deal with things there, and my powers are probably better for either recon or distractions."
"To be fair, so're ours." Shadow retorted. "Illusions are good at distracting people, or making it look like you have much more backup than you really do, or hiding yourself to eavesdrop on people, or something like that. It's just that we happen to have a number of offensive abilities, as well as defensive and support. You just need to find your way of doing that, and you're golden, but for now you're the rookie, so you're just learning. None've us'll be annoyed if you don't do much for the first little while, and we'll help you figure stuff out."
"We've already had the idea of using my bugs to make people shapes to hide where I am."
"Yeah, and you'll probably have to get used to setting up massive swarms of them, so you can have tons and tons of clones going at once in big packs, and probably get used to having loads of bugs crawling on you so it looks kinda like you're a clone as well, which might suck."
"Maybe, yeah." Taylor frowned. "How would I even get enough bugs on me, and carry them all around?"
"Why carry them? Just have swarms wandering the sewers after you or something, like a massive bug party, and bring them up when you need them." Shadow suggested. "Keep what you want on you, and hide the rest."
"That works. I'd need to find a way to protect them when I'm out of range, or just always have them following me, but that could work." Shadow smiled.
"See? Already using your powers better. So support is covered, with recon and clones. Defence is a bit harder, unless you use them as shields to stop attacks using compacted bugs, which is a bit mean and gross, but would work. Offence, basically fine, if you like bites and stings and aren't worried about allergies... and I can heal reactions anyway, in an emergency... but yeah, maybe you're better off with support and possible defence, and keep your more offensive stuff as a backup. Or just stop caring about possibly hurting people, but I wouldn't recommend doing that, it's a bit worrying."
"Yeah, I don't think I could do that." Taylor nodded. "But honestly, I'm ok with acting as support. I'm the new girl, and my powers lean that way, so it's fine."
"Good." Shadow sniffed, looking for a moment at the weaving spiders, before finding a clock. "Huh, half six. Want to do anything? Eon's still sleeping, he was more tired than me-"
"Probably because of all of those power naps you took on the walk back." Taylor put in, with a slight smile.
"-Hush, you. Anyway, I think your dad's still asleep as well, so what do you want to do while we wait? You just gonna work on your costume, or...?"
"We could go and cook, I guess. Do you know how?"
"Of course I do. Mostly berries and stuff, but I can cook. Fire type, remember?"
"I'd take that as a sign that you can burn things, not cook them, but whatever." Taylor grinned, standing up. "Let me put the spiders in the box again, so they're out of the way, but I can keep working on it even when I'm doing something else."
"Heh, super multitasking too." Shadow chuckled, as Taylor pulled a box from under her bed and lifted the still weaving spiders into it. "That's a pretty cool bonus power."
"It's mostly for my bugs, but I can do multiple things at once a lot easier than before I Triggered, yeah." Taylor shrugged. "Still not entirely sure it was worth it."
"Was it bad?" Shadow tried nervously, watching her stiffen.
"You could say that, yes." Her voice was flat.
"I'm sorry." The Vulpix's ears drooped. "I don't think I like this world much. It's mean, even meaner than ours could ever be. Even on bad days, ours wasn't too bad. You didn't get murderers and thieves with massive mental problems running around. This is a mess."
"Yeah, it is." Taylor sighed, poking her glasses.
"I guess we'll have to try and fix it, then." Shadow scowled at the wall. "It'd be easier if we had bigger backup, not even any of the Legendaries but just bigger and more power Pokemon than just us, maybe more of us as well... but we'll have to do what we can."
"I'm glad you're so confident." Taylor snorted, looking at her with her head cocked slightly.
"Someone has to be. Might as well do it." Shadow grinned. "It's getting too heavy in here. C'mon, let's go try cooking stuff!" Taylor chuckled, following Shadow as she danced out of the room.
"Shadow the Vulpix, apparently comic relief." She muttered to herself, closing the door to her room.
"Basically, yeah." A voice by her ear said, making her lurch and spin around. "Heh. Sorry. It's the voice illusion I was using yesterday. I heard what you said, so I thought I'd give you an answer."
"Dammit Shadow." Taylor grumbled, heart slowing down to more normal levels as she went over to the stairs, spotting the Vulpix lying almost flat against the wood three steps down. "That was only mildly terrifying."
"Thanks!" She smirked, standing up and running down the stairs. "Glad I'm doing my job ok." Taylor smiled slightly, following on as Shadow made her way into the kitchen area. "Oh. I didn't think this through, did I."
"What's up, Shadow?"
"I'm short." She called, as the Cape entered the room. "And you guys have things a lot higher up than we do. This is a problem." Taylor started laughing.
"Sorry… how do you handle it normally?"
"People get kitchen areas custom done, or they sometimes build them themselves so it's to scale." Shadow explained, watching Taylor pull things out with practised ease. "Makes it hard to use someone else's kitchen, but most the time if you're stopping with someone you aren't cooking yourself anyway. And camping equipment can be custom ordered, but is usually pretty small, since there's normally a Pokemon in the team who's small enough to use it or can use telekinesis if they aren't."
"Huh." Taylor paused, then went back to finding the eggs. "That's cool. Hey, are you and Eon alright with eggs and bacon?"
"We can do that, sure." She nodded. "Is it ok if I jump on a chair or something to watch?"
"Go ahead." Shadow carefully pulled out one of the chairs at the table and jumped up, taking a moment to stabilise before balancing with two paws on the back of the chair.
"Why d'you have so many chairs, if it's just you and your dad?"
"When mom was alive, we had friends over a lot. We just never put them away." Shadow winced.
"Sorry."
"No, it's ok. You have questions, and I can answer them. No problem." Even still, Shadow stayed silent for the rest of the time Taylor was cooking, deciding that it would be a better idea to just watch and not talk in case she messed up something else.
"Morning, you two." Eon greeted, ten minutes later as he strolled into the room. "I heard you down here, Taylor, so I thought I should come down toooooh is that bacon?" Taylor blinked, looking down at the frying pan.
"Yes?"
"New favourite person." He decided, carefully shifting another chair and jumping onto it, curling his tails around his paws to keep his balance. "Thank you, Taylor."
"Eon's fond of bacon." Shadow explained, when Taylor gave her a questioning look from the corner of her eye.
"I gathered, now." She remarked, turning for a moment to pat Eon slightly awkwardly on the head before rushing back to everything. "And good morning, Eon."
"Oh, yeah. Morning." Shadow said belatedly. "And hi, Mr Hebert who just walked into the room and seems mildly confused." Taylor and Eon jolted a little in surprise, then looked over to the doorway, where Danny was leaning against the edge and looking in.
"Hello, Shadow, Eon, Taylor." He replied, still watching the three of them. "Thank you for starting breakfast, Taylor."
"No problem." She blinked, going back to the things. "Things should be done in a couple of minutes."
"Need any help?"
"I'll be alright, thanks, Eon."
Around a half an hour later, once everyone had eaten and Eon had arranged to wash the cutlery using his telekinesis from the chair so that he could see properly- something which interested Danny and slightly unnerved Taylor- the group moved into the front room to talk, with Eon and Shadow sitting carefully so they couldn't be seen well from the outside.
"So what would you like to know first, Mr Hebert?" Eon asked, taking the lead again. He was sitting up somewhat, with his tails curled around his paws again and the blue tips dangling over the edge. Shadow, conversely, had curled up on her own seat with her tails lying mostly parallel to her body, and her head resting on her forepaws as she watched the two humans.
"Actually, I'd rather start with Taylor, if you don't mind." Danny requested, looking at his daughter, who shuffled. "Since when've you been a Cape?"
"Since the Locker thing, back in January." He winced, and Eon frowned, remembering the vision he'd seen a few days before. "I got my powers after that, and I've been learning to use them since then."
"Christ... four months? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I just... couldn't. Too much was happening at the time, and since then it's never felt like the right time to bring it up and talk about it." Taylor shrugged, embarrassment colouring her face. "But, well, I made a costume, and I've used abandoned warehouses and stuff and the basement to practise and get used to my bugs, then a couple of nights ago, on the eleventh, I went out for the first time on a patrol." She looked down at the floor, wringing her hands. "I didn't really plan on doing much, just going around and maybe stopping a few muggings or something, but..." Eon snorted slightly, and Shadow grinned.
"Of course you were only planning on doing something simple. No-one's first proper time out ever goes particularly right. We had a friend who ended up finding a criminal on a hunch during one of their errands. We fought an angry Druddigon by accident, because someone else had annoyed it." Eon told her.
"Yeah, I've seen that now."
"Taylor, what did you do?" Danny questioned, pinning her with a look.
"I found a group of ABB talking about killing kids." She said. "I couldn't let that happen, so I went after them." She paused, then added reluctantly, "And Lung."
"Holy shit, Taylor!" He shouted, staring at her. "Why would you do that? Are you mad?"
"In her defence, Mr Hebert, Taylor was doing really well in her fight." Shadow started, leaning forward and lifting her head. "If we hadn't interrupted, she'd probably have won, though it'd've taken a while."
"You interrupted?" Danny turned, still looking angry.
"Quite." Eon sat up a little straighter, shooting Shadow a stern look. She lay down again, grumbling a little, while he gave a reassuring smile to Taylor. "Our story is a little bit longer, and the three of us have a meeting at midday, so I'd like to leave quite early to make sure we can find out about it all."
"When will we leave, Eon?"
"Half ten, perhaps?" He shrugged. "Assuming you know where Somer's Rock is, we could leave later."
"I don't, but I could find out. The computer's bad, but it works." Taylor smiled a little.
"Thank you, Taylor." Deciding that they'd waited long enough for Danny to calm down slightly, Eon turned back to the man. "Personally, my story starts just over two years ago, in another world. Our world- mine and Shadow's, that is- is a strange mixed world. On one side, the main species are humans, while on the other, no humans exist. There's a chain of islands in the middle, the Orange Archipelago, where the border between the two sections of the world exists. I'm not entirely certain anyone on the human side of the border knows of our side, but we know quite a lot about them from migrations and the like.
"Anyway, our kind are part of a large collection of species known as Pokemon, which are split up into sets of species, and evolution lines, and the like. There's time for a better explanation later, I think. My kind are called Ninetales, and Shadow is a Vulpix, which is a Pokemon that evolves into Ninetales depending on certain conditions. Shadow's always been a Vulpix, but from what I remember I was once a human, who got transformed into a Pokemon by something. It's not a completely unique case, I've heard of at least two others, but it's still very rare. I also ended up with amnesia, so I don't actually remember being a human, so most of my memories come from being a Ninetales instead."
"Eon's also what's called a shiny Pokemon, which is a special and rare type of Pokemon with a different colour scheme. Ninetales' are normally golden, with orange tail tips, but him being special made some Pokemon a bit wary of him." Shadow inserted. "Since shiny Ninetales' are often used by Inari, who's a Ninetales that can appear like normal, or shiny, or as a red Ninetales instead, as messengers."
"Shadow and I formed a Rescue team about six months after my arrival." Eon continued, giving Shadow a slight look. "We'd known each other for a while before- Shadow's actually the first Pokemon I met after whatever accident I had- and she'd been trying to get into the local branch of the Wigglytuff Rescue Guild for a while, but got rejected for being too young to work on her own. She asked me to come work with her, I agreed since I was kind of at a loose end, and we've made our way up to Hyper Rank-"
"The Ranks go Normal, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond, Super, Ultra, Hyper, then Master, Master Star, Master Two Star, Master Three Star, and Guildmaster." Shadow put in again.
"- To the point where we sometimes got the rare request for battles or help off of Legendary or Mythical Pokemon, which're kind of like gods in our world." Eon glared slightly at Shadow, who just gave him a slightly smug look and settled down again. "We got one about two months ago from a Pokemon called Hoopa, which is a sort of genie-like Pokemon that can open portals. We helped him out with a thing, and then six days ago we were approached with an offer of going through one of his portals to go somewhere else and do a job of trying to fix things there, with the offer of a pretty big payment when we ever get to finish it."
"Which is nice, because money is very useful." Shadow added, making Eon sigh.
"Anyway," Eon restarted, "Five days ago, we came through, landed a little ways away, and used my experience with making illusions of human-like Pokemon plus some descriptions from other Pokemon to make illusions and run around a bit, before we stumbled across Taylor here fighting Lung. I pulled her out of the fight, and Shadow took the dragon down."
"Shadow did?" Danny looked shocked, staring at her.
"Heck yeah! I'm way more powerful than I look, we're both immune to fire, and it turns out that even a dragon running mostly on the power of rage isn't immune to cuteness overloads." Taylor snorted, and even Danny smiled slightly through his confusion. "But yeah. We invited Taylor to come join us the next night, then we've been doing patrols since. We were involved in dealing with a bank robbery along with the Wards and Glory Girl two days ago against the Undersiders, then obviously yesterday was the whole bombing run thing." Danny nodded, and Taylor glanced at the nearest clock. Eon followed her gaze; it was eight o'clock, which gave them plenty of time to find out where they needed to be.
"Is there anything else you'd like to ask, Mr Hebert?"
"I… no, I don't think so." Danny said slowly, still looking a little confused. "I'd like some time to think on this, and at some point soon I think I'll have more questions for you, but for now I'd just like to think about everything. You mentioned a meeting at midday?"
"After the capture of Bakuda yesterday evening, Assault asked if we would be willing to speak to the PRT about the event. Since it was so late, I managed to arrange for that meeting to occur today instead, at midday, with my entire team coming along. I believe Assault will be bringing his own partners as well, or at least some of them." Eon explained. "Originally I suggested that we could make our way to the PRT's building, but Assault suggested a place called Somer's Rock as our meeting point instead. Apparently it's commonly used as a neutral ground for meetings where no-one wants to fight."
"He folded about that pretty quickly, didn't he?" Taylor mentioned, looking introspective. "I wonder why. In his position, I think I'd rather talk to the unknown new Cape team- even though you aren't Capes, the PRT don't know that right now, and I am a Cape so they'll probably go with the idea of it being a Cape team- in a place where I had more power to leverage than in neutral grounds."
"Actually, neutral grounds makes much more sense if you think about everything." Danny put in, making the group look at him. "Alright, look at it this way. You said that Shadow took down Lung, right?"
"I did." The Vulpix looked proud of herself.
"It's likely the Protectorate picked him up after that. I didn't see anything on the news, but they might not have put it out yet or we might've missed it. Either way, they probably interviewed Lung about what happened, if they didn't know."
"If anyone found him, he would've been alone." Eon confirmed.
"Alright. So, assuming he was open to talking, which he might have been, then the Protectorate would know what happened. So now we've got an insect controller that held her own against Lung, even for a little while, a small creature that was able to weaken and defeat Lung alone through strange and unknown methods, and a third, somewhat larger creature who is a complete unknown."
"Actually, they may know about my telekinesis, since I used that to move Taylor out of the way of the battle."
"Mostly unknown, then. Either way, that's the information they had going into the meeting yesterday. What happened with the Wards?"
"Shadow went after one of Bitch's dogs, using Hypnosis to put it to sleep, though she failed to manage completely. They might know a bit about Roar, or at least know that Shadow can make her voice a lot louder to scare people, since she used that to attract attention. They'll also know about our invisibility, because we used it both then and yesterday in the aftermath of Bakuda."
"They might know that you have better senses than normal people, too, since you were listening to the inside of the bank and all." Taylor added.
"Ah, yes. I'd forgotten about that. Thank you, Taylor." Eon nodded. "I also used the move Hex there, so there's that too."
"Ok, so they know some of what you can do from there, plus whatever they learned yesterday." Danny raised an eyebrow, making Eon continue;
"They'll know about Shadow's Hypnosis, though they won't have any idea of how quickly she can do it thanks to Bakuda's goggles slowing things down. I used Will-o-Wisp to provide light, and Shadow used Swift. There were also two illusionary Pokemon involved, an Eevee and an Ekans, that I used to distract and corral Bakuda before dismissing them."
"Did whoever was there see that?"
"Assault, Armsmaster and Miss Militia were there, and all of them saw the whole thing, so yes."
"Do they know they were illusions?"
"They might, they might not. I've always been quite good with illusions, Eevee move quite like Shadow and I do since they're a similar species and it's not hard to mimic snakes, so while they know of my illusion abilities they might also believe they're real and that we can call backup."
"I wish we could." Shadow grumbled quietly from her seat, curled up in a ball once again.
"That second seems like a little bit of a leap, given that they do know about your illusions, so they'll probably go with that." Danny said. "But either way, I understand that they know very little about any of your abilities, compared to what I'm sure you could do if pushed. In their position, I'd be very cautious about doing such pushing. Bringing you into the PRT building, where they have the upper ground and might have other people involved in the interview who aren't as restrained, they might be worried about something happening that could make you all feel threatened in some way, and they might not be able to handle it to stop anything going nuts. In a neutral zone, on the other hand, things are probably going to be calmer, since neither side has the upper hand so no-one's going to want to push. Plus you'll be meeting with a few representatives of the PRT and Protectorate, so they'll have been chosen on how likely it is that they can keep their tempers in check and avoid causing a scene. Along with the fact that it'll be at least a little bit public, it'll keep them calm while they hope it does the same to you, so no-one causes trouble." Eon looked impressed.
"A lot of thought went into that."
"I work in the docks, and at this point I might as well be a politician for all that I deal with them on." He shrugged. "I've gotten good at reading people."
"Thank you for your input, then." Eon gave, waving a paw. "I'm not exactly used to people with such strange motivations, so it's good to have some help."
"No problem." Danny seemed to wrestle with himself for a minute, then nodded firmly to himself, fixing his eyes on the Ninetales. "You're Taylor's team mates, and you've been keeping her safe. If you need help with this world, and Taylor can't give it, I'll see what I can do."
"Thank you, Mr Hebert." Eon smiled widely, as Shadow looked up properly and Taylor gaped a little.
"No problem. Now, it's half eight, so perhaps the three of you should get ready for your meeting now, and go and find out exactly where this building is."
"Probably." Shadow agreed. "Wish the Map could help…"
"Map?" Both Taylor and Danny asked.
"The Wonder Map. It's something that all Rescue and Exploration teams get, at the very beginning when they join the Guilds or whatever, mostly Wigglytuff's Guild but there's others as well." Eon explained, as Shadow vanished up the stairs to go and get the bag that they'd brought with them during the Bakuda battle. The entire thing had been mostly healing supplies- though they hadn't encountered anything that would need them, and the confirmation that Shadow's Heal Pulse/Heal Bell worked in this world meant that they probably wouldn't need them much unless Shadow was knocked out- but Eon had left the Map in there despite the fact that it probably didn't work. "The Map automatically updates as you discover new areas, or once the Guildmaster or their assistant opens the area to you, which allows you to go and explore the place on your own. It's mostly for safety purposes, since the Map will always know where you are and lets you find where you need to go."
"That's interesting." Taylor mused. "And it shows your world?"
"Anything we've explored, sure." Eon nodded. "I think that's why Shadow's just vanished, so she can show you."
"Yup!" Shadow grinned from the doorway, putting the strap of the Bag down for a moment to speak. "We've both seen maps and stuff of your world, while we were online the other day, so I thought it'd be nice to show you ours!"
"Thanks, Shadow." Taylor seemed oddly touched by that, standing up and lifting the bag to bring it further into the room. Shadow sat down next to her, curling her tails around three of her paws, lifting the last to open the bag.
"So, yeah, there's a lot of stuff in here sometimes, because for some weird reason this thing can hold a lot more than it's supposed to, but the map doesn't seem to affect how much we can have in there, even though there's a limit to it." Shadow shrugged, while Danny and Taylor looked down at it in confusion. "No-one really gets it either, but it fits 48 items in there no matter the size of them, and nothing has weight. It's very weird, but whatever." Shadow reached into the bag, pulling out a rolled up bit of paper. "And this is the Wonder Map. It's absolutely awesome when we use it back home, since we can never get lost." She grinned, unrolling it, before pausing. "Huh."
"Huh?" Eon asked, looking away from the clock for a moment. "What's up?"
"The map-" Shadow started, but she didn't need to finish. Eon spotted it, jumping down from the chair he was in and pacing over.
It had gone completely blank, not even a sign of the markings that normally showed hidden areas to them.
"How on earth…?" He muttered, looking at it. Gently, he lifted it with his telekinesis, frowning and twisting it this way and that. "I've never heard of something like this happening before."
"D'you think it's because we're on another world?" Shadow questioned, coming around to examine the blank page as well. "I mean, maybe the magical whatever that makes it work only works there?"
"Maybe…" Eon sighed. "It'd be a shame, though. I'd've liked to show you both…" Letting the sheet fall to the ground, he batted at it irritably.
"I would've liked to see it." Taylor nodded, touching the corner gently, with some sadness.
The Wonder Map sparkled, then shone.
"Whoa!" All four of them recoiled sharply, shielding their eyes as the paper shone brighter and brighter for no apparent reason, before fading with a suddenness that seemed to suck the light from the room.
"What was that?" Danny half asked, half demanded, leaning forwards. The rest of them followed, peering at the map, which was still gently sparkling.
Slowly, lines began drawing themselves on the sheet, a smallish square box appearing first, the rest of it following outwardly in a web, some lines criss-crossing the others, more and more of the squares and rectangles being added to it.
It took almost a minute for the entire page to be filled, with the signature clouds of the unknown on the edges. Still staring in confusion, Eon touched the map again, flinching as another flicker followed.
"Look…" Shadow breathed, pointing.
The other three looked. On the first square that had formed, a circle with what looked like wings had appeared, the centre of it gaining a purple, crystal-like object.
"That's our badge." Eon frowned. "How on earth…"
"I think the map's picked up our new world." Shadow guessed, poking at it. "I think it's gonna try doing the same thing it normally does, and walk us around?"
"I wonder if it would show Somer's Rock?" Taylor asked, amazement in her voice. Eon bit his lip.
"Normally we put the mission request on the map and it tells us where we need to go," he explained, looking at it curiously. "I don't know how that would even begin to work properly here…" He trailed off as another badge emblem appeared on the map, floating in the middle of the clouded section. "Huh."
"All I had to do was poke it while thinking about where I needed to be." Shadow looked mildly incredulous. "No mission request, no need for the badge, just poke it."
"At least you won't need to spend very long looking for the place online, if you could even find it there." Danny put in, looking at the map curiously. "The clouds vanish, you said?"
"When we explore the area, normally. Or get permission to go there if you're in the Guild." Eon repeated, nodding.
"Then I suppose the three of you ought to get ready for your meeting and go take a look, don't you?" All three of the team looked away from the map and up at the clock, before Taylor nodded.
"Sure, dad." The bug using Cape nodded softly. "Eon, Shadow, do you need to stop by the base first, or...?"
"No, we have everything we need here. I don't think we'd need much of what's in the base for a meeting like this." Eon replied. "We'll just take the bag with us, but we won't need anything else."
"Alright. I'll go get into costume, then." Eon and Shadow nodded, rolling up the map for the moment and putting it back into the Treasure Bag, which Eon carefully shifted to his back.
"Shadow, your scarf's upstairs too, right?" The shiny checked.
"Yeah, it's got both our badges on it for safekeeping." She agreed, quickly picking up what he wasn't saying. "C'mon, let's go get that, then you get to set up all the invisibility we'll need."
"What fun." He snarked in return, both of them quickly making their way back into the room they'd been lent for the night. Closing the door behind him with a nudge, he took the scarf from Shadow's weaker telekinesis and unpinned his badge, handing it back to let her tie it around her neck while he put his back on the bag, near his neck.
"I still don't get why you won't just get a scarf, Eon." Shadow muttered to him, fiddling with her own. "We could do that while we're here easily."
"Yes, yes, I suppose we could." Eon sighed, looking at it. "Or I could ask Taylor to weave something for me."
"That could be cool. I mean, spider silk scarves? So cool." Shadow smiled. "Bet there's some people back home that'd love to buy something like that."
"Pitch it to Ariados or something when we see them again." He recommended, turning towards the door at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. "C'mon, let's head back down and slip out the back. Might be an idea to set up a stable cloak that I can collapse onto us."
"You can do that?"
"I can do quite a bit, since those lessons with Zoroark." Eon shrugged, bouncing back down the staircase. "But yeah, that's one of the things I picked up."
"Can you make them solid?"
"No, that's something illusions can't do." Eon refuted. "No-one's can, I wouldn't think."
"What about Uxie's Groudon?" Shadow tilted her head. "Y'know, the one we got told about by-"
"That was a projection, not an illusion, and either way Uxie's a Legendary, so of course he'd be able to do things like that." He waved her off, heading towards the kitchen and the back door. "Different abilities and situations."
"I guess."
"Solid illusions sound like they'd be helpful." Danny commented, from where he was standing to one side with a mug. "You could use them to avoid getting into fights yourself."
"True, but we're used to it." Eon shrugged, inclining his head towards Shadow. "Taylor's not, admittedly, but we'll keep her safe until she is, and the best way to get used to it is to be in the middle of things."
"Unfortunately, yes." The man sighed. "Thank you for keeping her safe, at least."
"She's joined the team, she's my responsibility."
"And Eon takes that seriously." Shadow added. "So do I. We always do, when someone new joins up; it's just that Taylor's more fragile than most the Pokemon we work with so we keep more of an eye on her."
"Thank you for that. The thought of Taylor being right in the middle of a Cape fight terrifies me. She's an insect controller…"
"Yeah, a bit worrying. It's probably best if she sticks back." Shadow nodded. "She and I talked about that this morning, while you were all asleep. A good bit of support options, some defensive if she's ok killing her bugs, but not much offence aside from bites or stings."
"A good assessment of it all." Eon smiled. "So yes, keeping her back from battles is a good idea. Not too far back, that would be an insult to her abilities, but in a place where her range can help without her getting into fights herself." Footsteps from the hall halted that conversation, Taylor walking through the door a few moments later in her costume, mask in one hand as she ran the other through her hair.
Eon suspected the spiders and other bugs were hidden deep in the dark mass for now.
"Ready to go?" She asked nervously.
"We are. Are you?" Shadow padded over, looping once around her feet and looking up with concern. "This is gonna be a bit of a big one."
"Yeah, I know. I'll manage, I think."
"Just let us do the talking, if you'd like." Eon said.
"I can feed you lines if they need to talk to you that much." Their Vulpix companion offered. "It'll be a bit difficult, but I managed it in front of Bakuda and no-one noticed."
"They were a bit further away than they will be today, though." Shadow shrugged.
"I'll manage." Taylor told her, straightening and pushing her shoulders back. "So, we just follow the map?"
"It'll reveal more of the area as we get closer, but just walking towards the badge symbol will help guide us, yeah." Eon agreed. "Mask up, then, and I'll cloak us all."
"Ok." She nodded, smiling at her father. "I'll see you later, dad."
"I don't think we'll be gone for too long, but we might end up going for a patrol after the meeting, if there's time." Eon mentioned.
Danny raised an eyebrow, and he inclined his head towards Taylor, who was now pulling on her mask. The man nodded slightly, a small smile on his lips.
"That's fine, just don't get into too much trouble. While you're gone… maybe I'll look into getting a new computer or something for you, Taylor." The now masked hero looked over in surprise. "It might help your work. Speaking of work, I'd prefer if you didn't skip school to go patrolling too often, or if you did you warned me so I could organise a sick day or something. Or have more time off than you do patrolling publicly."
"It would look a bit suspicious if Swarm was only out in the day when Taylor was ill." Eon sighed. "At least today's Saturday, so there's no school. And it's possible it'll be cancelled on Monday, too." While Danny admitted that he wasn't entirely certain, since he had no idea of exactly where all of the damage to buildings was from Bakuda's attack, and Eon was sceptical due to how bad the school looked, it was always a possibility that the school would be closed, letting them have time to patrol.
"Actually… that's something I'd like to talk to you about, dad." The Cape said softly. Danny glanced at the clock.
"Later, little owl. You have a meeting in three hours to get too, and who knows how often you'll get lost on the way."
"With the Wonder Map, probably less than you'd expect." Eon told him, smiling. "But you're right. Come on, girls, let's get moving over to Somer's Rock." With a touch of telekinesis, he lifted the map out of his bag, looking over it carefully for the correct direction. "We'll be under cloak the entire time- or at least as long as I can hold it. Shadow, are you staying, or…?"
"I'll go ahead a bit. Not much, but I'll find us a route forwards and around things." She decided. "Let me see the map?" Eon held it out to her, and she examined it for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, that's no problem. Pretty sure I can keep us all off the main roads, if you'd like?"
"Good idea." Eon acknowledged. "Let's go. Mr Hebert, we'll see you soon."
"Good luck, and don't let them push you. If you can gain control of the conversation, do so, but don't try threatening them. Negotiating from a position of power is good, even in a neutral zone, and you can bet the Protectorate will be aware of that." Eon accepted that advice with another nod, then led the group over to the door and wrapped them all in a cloak.
"Come on, let's get over to this place, then." Eon smiled backwards at them both. Swarm still looked tense, but she was standing straight and proud, one hand drifting unconsciously towards the badge pinned to her chest while bugs were making their way out into her hair. Shadow was relaxed, looking around as if bored, but Eon could easily tell that she was ready to deal with the heroes they were about to talk to.
All three made their way to the fence, slipping through with ease, then Shadow vanished into a mixed charcoal colour and darted away, leaving Eon to tighten the cloak around himself and Swarm before following her trail.
Danny looked out of the still open door silently, knowing that they had probably already left despite not having spotted the gate opening.
He assumed Eon's illusions had taken care of that.
Sighing, he closed the door and leaned against the counter and toyed with the empty mug, before placing it in the sink and wandering to his study. Closing that door as well, he sat down heavily and opened the lowest drawer with the key sitting under another mug, pulling out the leather-bound book and skimming across the pages, finally halting on one around the middle.
It was a picture of Taylor and Emma, sitting on a blanket in the back yard of the house with plates of sandwiches and glasses of lemonade balanced carefully so they wouldn't fall over on uneven ground or if the blanket slipped when they inevitably started messing about. They'd been about eight then, enjoying a sunny day while all the parents were a little busy. The picture had been taken by Danny when he'd gone to check on them, since he'd heard one of the girls wander into the house a few minutes before, making him peer out of the kitchen window before carefully reaching for the camera he'd left on the side earlier that morning.
Emma was sitting very carefully on the blanket, with a pair of butterflies perched on her hair, while Taylor was cross-legged next to her and giggling slightly, a bit of ham in the palm of her outstretched hand being offered to a grey fox, which was slowly and nervously edging towards her, sniffing the air.
Danny had stared at them all, amazed, before carefully snapping a picture of the strange scene to show Annette later. The woman he'd married had stared at it for a few minutes, looking closely at the fox and butterflies as if there was something strange about them- well, stranger than them all approaching the girls so calmly- before smiling and making a joke that both girls looked to have a promising future in animal care, if this sort of thing was what they were hiding.
She'd then promptly gone to the two, relaxing in the front room and giggling to each other, and asked about their day, immediately being regaled with the story of the fox and butterflies, soon followed by other incidents that they'd launched into once Annette had commented on that being quite unusual.
Like the time with the three cats at Alan's, or that pair of dogs and the bird when they were at the park and no-one was watching them, or the time where Taylor swore she'd seen a tiny yellow bee fumble past on gentle wings, with a bunch of tiny yellow dots on the bushes next to it moving alongside that'd all stopped and seemed to look as Taylor and Emma walked by…
Danny had taken that to just be confirming Annette's joke about the two girls; perhaps they'd've ended up as vets, or animal trainers- he'd even thought about speaking to Alan and seeing if they should offer that to the girls, once they were a bit older, to see if it was something they might enjoy. Annette, on the other hand, had listened closely and seriously, taking in all of the stories, and in the end smiled with amusement and asked that the girls be a bit more careful, since you never knew what might happen with animals, and she didn't want something to go bad at all for them. They'd nodded, with the sort of immortal air that eight year olds had, and gone back to their chatter as Annette slipped away again, a thoughtful frown slipping onto her face for a little while as she watched.
"I wonder, Annette…" He whispered into the silence of the room, still staring at the picture. "Did you notice something I didn't then? About the girls… or maybe about the animals?" Danny frowned; the only link he could possibly see would be the bee and the butterflies, both bugs which is what her powers connected her too, but Taylor had only Triggered recently and he doubted that powers could affect people before they Triggered… and that still wouldn't explain the dogs or cats or birds or that fox, or anything else that the girls had mentioned that afternoon. "The girls, probably. Still odd… maybe Taylor would still be willing to try for some career involving animals. She might have fun with that… it'd give her something fun outside of the Cape stuff, at least."
Naturally, nothing answered him.
With a sigh, Danny closed the book and locked it away, before standing to go and get his coat. If his daughter was going to be out with her friends for more than four hours at least, he might as well go out and take a look at getting some new computers.
And, as much as he hated the idea, a pair of phones too. It would be a good idea to be able to reach Taylor if something happened, or for her to be able to reach him if something went wrong on patrol or she was stopping with her team overnight or something. The money might be difficult, but he'd find a way to manage. This was important to Taylor, so he'd do what he could to help her with it all.
"Swarm?"
"Let's go into the house, then you can let go of the illusion." She replied tensely.
"I can hold it." Eon agreed. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." Swarm swallowed. "Just not looking forward to this."
"He'sya dad." Shadow yawned, shuffling in her arms. "He'll be fine."
"I thought you were asleep." He replied, looking up at her.
"Was. Though' I should be awake t'meet Swarm's dad."
"Thanks, Shadow." She smiled through her mask, then sighed. "Right. In we go, I suppose. Time to face the music." Eon nodded, releasing the inaudibility illusion as Swarm knocked on the kitchen door. It opened, a tall man looking out of it.
Shadow sniffed discreetly at him, as did Eon, noticing how similar his scent was to Taylor's.
"Taylor?" He asked lowly. Eon flickered the illusion, stepping closer to Swarm's side as he did so.
"We're here, dad." She replied, as he startled slightly. "I bought my team mates too, though Shadow's a bit tired."
"I'll be a'right." She remarked, punctuated by a yawn.
"Come in, then." The man nodded, stepping back out of the door. Swarm lead the way, still holding Shadow, and Eon pushed in behind her before breaking the illusion over the three of them. He sagged slightly, his tails drooping, before shaking his head and pushing himself up again, still acting as the team leader. The door closed, the man looked over the group. "Taylor? These are your friends?"
"Yeah." Swarm nodded, before leaning down to place Shadow on her own feet next to Eon, then peeling off her mask, revealing tired eyes underneath. "Dad, these are my team mates. Eon, the grey one, is a Ninetales and the team leader. Shadow is the second in command, a Vulpix. They were a team before I came along, but they've let me into their group. Eon, Shadow, this is my dad, Danny Hebert."
"A pleasure to meet you." Eon greeted, taking a step forward and offering a paw to shake. "My apologies for keeping Taylor out so late. I assure you it was not intended. We were hoping that we would find who we were looking for earlier than this, and by the time we found the scent, it was so late that we had to catch her before she was able to escape and do more damage." Danny looked surprised, then shook the offered paw.
"I suppose that's alright." He replied. "At least she's back safe."
"We've been doing our best to keep her out of danger, though from what I've seen so far it's mostly been good luck that we have at this point." Eon frowned slightly, looking back at the insect controller and the Vulpix behind him. "Plus the fact that Shadow's willing to push herself to almost unsafe levels to keep trouble out of the way."
"'Snot unsafe." Shadow grumbled at him. "Jus' a bit tirin', 'sall."
"Keep telling yourself that, and maybe one day we'll believe it." He sighed, taking back his paw from Danny. "But not today, though."
"Bleh." She stuck her tongue out at him, then shook her head and walked slowly forwards, offering her own paw to shake with Danny. "Um, hi, Mr Hebert. Nice t'meet you too. S'rry 'bout bein' tired."
"It makes sense, it is a bit late." Danny nodded, looking at the nearest clock. Eon and Taylor both looked too, then winced; it was a little after ten, and they'd all been out and searching since eight that morning.
"Dad, I'm going to go get changed out of my costume." Taylor started, looking a little awkward as she did. "Do you want to talk tonight, or tomorrow morning?" For a few moments, Danny looked conflicted, then shook his head.
"Tomorrow. Your team mate, Shadow, needs to sleep, I think, and it'd be best if we all went into a conversation like this with clear heads." Eon nodded, heading over to Shadow again and letting her lean on his side as she released Danny's hand.
"Probably a good idea, Mr Hebert." He smiled a little, trying not to show too many teeth. "We'll be here tomorrow… around ten, perhaps? That should give everyone time to recover… and Taylor, we'll bring some more stuff from the base down to you, since I think we need to show you some of it still and we might as well do both at once."
"Wait, what?" Taylor blinked, glancing at him. "You're going back to the base?"
"Well, yeah." Eon shrugged one shoulder, steadying Shadow slightly with a tail as she swayed with the movement. "It's not too much of an issue to get back, it's dark enough that I don't think we'll need a cloaking illusion to hide properly, I can just throw darker colours over us both, and once we reach the woods then I can drop that completely. Won't be too bad."
"Why don't you just stay over?" Taylor asked, then freezing slightly and looking at her dad. "I mean, they can stay over, right? It'd be better than them needing to go back to the base again just to come back here tomorrow."
"I... suppose that's ok?" Danny said slowly, looking between the three of them. "We have a spare room you can use, Eon, and I suppose Shadow can sleep in the same one as Taylor or something-"
"We'll sleep in the same room, it's no problem." Eon replied, half-shrugging again. "We do all the time in our normal bases, so we'll be ok doing it here."
"Y'p. We'll b' fine." Shadow muttered, yawning again. "Don' worry 'bout us."
"Well, ok then?" Danny sounded a little confused, and Taylor took over, lifting Shadow in her arms again to a slightly tired protest.
"I'll show you both the room, ok? It's right next to mine." She told them, starting up the stairs two at a time. Eon hurried up after her, his tails curling slightly so that they didn't drag on the steps, and she pushed open the door. "It's a little bit of a mess, we haven't used it in ages, sorry."
"It's fine, Taylor." Eon smiled up. "Trust me, when we worked with the Guild, we worked with some really messy people. And the expedition… well, let's just say it doesn't matter about any mess, we'll be alright."
"Ok." She smiled slightly, then let Eon lift Shadow out of her arms with his telekinesis and carry her in with him.
"It'll be fine, Taylor." He muttered, looking back at her. She blushed.
"Is it that obvious?"
"Not overly, but a bit, yes." Eon replied, placing Shadow on the floor and walking back to her. "Seriously, don't worry about it. You tell your story, we'll tell ours, and your dad'll be fine with it, so there'll be no need for you to sneak around when going out to patrol with us."
"He'll probably put more restrictions on doing patrols, though." Taylor sighed slightly.
"He's your dad, it's expected. We'll make sure everything's manageable, and we'll work in line with whatever he wants." Eon smiled. "Trust me, it'll be fine. I'm sure we can handle it."
"Thanks, Eon." The Cape crouched down, hugging her team leader, then drew back into the doorway of her own room. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."
"Sleep well, Taylor."
"You too, Eon. Say night to Shadow for me."
"If she's not already out, I will." The Ninetales nodded, before stepping back and closing the door. He heard Taylor doing the same, drawing the blinds as she changed out of her costume, while he looked around the room before digging out a blanket for them to lie on, curling around the ball of fur that was Shadow once he had her settled. "Night, little pix."
"N'gh', Eon."
Taylor woke incredibly early the next morning, a bundle of nerves twisting her stomach into knots. For a while she just lay there, staring blindly at the ceiling while directing the weaving spiders under her bed to keep making her spare costume for her, before she finally hissed out a quiet sigh and rolled over, looking blearily at the clock.
Six o'clock.
Wonderful.
For a few moments, Taylor entertained the idea of sneaking out to go on her run, then thought the better of it as the muscles in her legs protested. While she hadn't had to do that much running, she'd still done quite a lot in the process of hunting for Bakuda, and sitting on those mutated dogs for as long as she had had hurt.
With another soft sound that was half sigh, half groan, Taylor pushed herself upright and found her glasses on the dresser, putting them on and blinking a few times as she focused.
"Right," she murmured to herself, moving to pull the box of spiders out from under her bed, "Let's see if I can do anything to hurry this entire thing up…" For a little while, Taylor directed her spiders around the already woven piece of spider silk, trying to remember exactly what she'd done to make her costume the first time, drawing more spiders out from the tangle under her bed to do so, and happily lost herself in the semi-familiar motions of it all, at the same time watching the bugs outside as they went about their own days.
"Hey, Taylor?" A quiet voice asked from the door, slightly startling her.
"Shadow?" The bug user blinked, looking up to see the Vulpix edging around the door slightly. "What's up? Come in."
"Thanks." The little orange fox made her way over, smiling slightly as she did. "Your room's pretty cool."
"It's not much." Taylor dismissed, looking around despite herself. There'd been pictures in there once, but most of them had Emma in them in some capacity, so she'd moved them out of her room once the bullying started.
"The base is currently a little more than a room with some boxes and beds." Shadow replied. "So this place is definitely better than that. And our little base back home isn't much different, either. I mean, we don't really keep mementos in the base, they go in the storage Kangaskhan runs in the town, because it's definitely not getting stolen from there, while someone might think it's a good challenge to break into a semi-famous Rescue Team's base."
"That's stupid."
"That's life. There's stupid people no matter where you turn." Shadow sighed. "Anyway, how're you doing after yesterday?"
"I'm fine." Taylor frowned, confused. "Why wouldn't I be? You and Eon were the one's over exerting yourselves trying to do a ton of illusions at once."
"Yeah, and that's... kinda why?" She started, scuffing her paw against the carpet of the room. "Like, you didn't really get to do much, aside from using your bugs to help intimidate Bakuda a bit, so I wanted to know you were ok with that."
"Yeah, I'm ok." Taylor shrugged. "You and Eon had the better abilities to deal with things there, and my powers are probably better for either recon or distractions."
"To be fair, so're ours." Shadow retorted. "Illusions are good at distracting people, or making it look like you have much more backup than you really do, or hiding yourself to eavesdrop on people, or something like that. It's just that we happen to have a number of offensive abilities, as well as defensive and support. You just need to find your way of doing that, and you're golden, but for now you're the rookie, so you're just learning. None've us'll be annoyed if you don't do much for the first little while, and we'll help you figure stuff out."
"We've already had the idea of using my bugs to make people shapes to hide where I am."
"Yeah, and you'll probably have to get used to setting up massive swarms of them, so you can have tons and tons of clones going at once in big packs, and probably get used to having loads of bugs crawling on you so it looks kinda like you're a clone as well, which might suck."
"Maybe, yeah." Taylor frowned. "How would I even get enough bugs on me, and carry them all around?"
"Why carry them? Just have swarms wandering the sewers after you or something, like a massive bug party, and bring them up when you need them." Shadow suggested. "Keep what you want on you, and hide the rest."
"That works. I'd need to find a way to protect them when I'm out of range, or just always have them following me, but that could work." Shadow smiled.
"See? Already using your powers better. So support is covered, with recon and clones. Defence is a bit harder, unless you use them as shields to stop attacks using compacted bugs, which is a bit mean and gross, but would work. Offence, basically fine, if you like bites and stings and aren't worried about allergies... and I can heal reactions anyway, in an emergency... but yeah, maybe you're better off with support and possible defence, and keep your more offensive stuff as a backup. Or just stop caring about possibly hurting people, but I wouldn't recommend doing that, it's a bit worrying."
"Yeah, I don't think I could do that." Taylor nodded. "But honestly, I'm ok with acting as support. I'm the new girl, and my powers lean that way, so it's fine."
"Good." Shadow sniffed, looking for a moment at the weaving spiders, before finding a clock. "Huh, half six. Want to do anything? Eon's still sleeping, he was more tired than me-"
"Probably because of all of those power naps you took on the walk back." Taylor put in, with a slight smile.
"-Hush, you. Anyway, I think your dad's still asleep as well, so what do you want to do while we wait? You just gonna work on your costume, or...?"
"We could go and cook, I guess. Do you know how?"
"Of course I do. Mostly berries and stuff, but I can cook. Fire type, remember?"
"I'd take that as a sign that you can burn things, not cook them, but whatever." Taylor grinned, standing up. "Let me put the spiders in the box again, so they're out of the way, but I can keep working on it even when I'm doing something else."
"Heh, super multitasking too." Shadow chuckled, as Taylor pulled a box from under her bed and lifted the still weaving spiders into it. "That's a pretty cool bonus power."
"It's mostly for my bugs, but I can do multiple things at once a lot easier than before I Triggered, yeah." Taylor shrugged. "Still not entirely sure it was worth it."
"Was it bad?" Shadow tried nervously, watching her stiffen.
"You could say that, yes." Her voice was flat.
"I'm sorry." The Vulpix's ears drooped. "I don't think I like this world much. It's mean, even meaner than ours could ever be. Even on bad days, ours wasn't too bad. You didn't get murderers and thieves with massive mental problems running around. This is a mess."
"Yeah, it is." Taylor sighed, poking her glasses.
"I guess we'll have to try and fix it, then." Shadow scowled at the wall. "It'd be easier if we had bigger backup, not even any of the Legendaries but just bigger and more power Pokemon than just us, maybe more of us as well... but we'll have to do what we can."
"I'm glad you're so confident." Taylor snorted, looking at her with her head cocked slightly.
"Someone has to be. Might as well do it." Shadow grinned. "It's getting too heavy in here. C'mon, let's go try cooking stuff!" Taylor chuckled, following Shadow as she danced out of the room.
"Shadow the Vulpix, apparently comic relief." She muttered to herself, closing the door to her room.
"Basically, yeah." A voice by her ear said, making her lurch and spin around. "Heh. Sorry. It's the voice illusion I was using yesterday. I heard what you said, so I thought I'd give you an answer."
"Dammit Shadow." Taylor grumbled, heart slowing down to more normal levels as she went over to the stairs, spotting the Vulpix lying almost flat against the wood three steps down. "That was only mildly terrifying."
"Thanks!" She smirked, standing up and running down the stairs. "Glad I'm doing my job ok." Taylor smiled slightly, following on as Shadow made her way into the kitchen area. "Oh. I didn't think this through, did I."
"What's up, Shadow?"
"I'm short." She called, as the Cape entered the room. "And you guys have things a lot higher up than we do. This is a problem." Taylor started laughing.
"Sorry… how do you handle it normally?"
"People get kitchen areas custom done, or they sometimes build them themselves so it's to scale." Shadow explained, watching Taylor pull things out with practised ease. "Makes it hard to use someone else's kitchen, but most the time if you're stopping with someone you aren't cooking yourself anyway. And camping equipment can be custom ordered, but is usually pretty small, since there's normally a Pokemon in the team who's small enough to use it or can use telekinesis if they aren't."
"Huh." Taylor paused, then went back to finding the eggs. "That's cool. Hey, are you and Eon alright with eggs and bacon?"
"We can do that, sure." She nodded. "Is it ok if I jump on a chair or something to watch?"
"Go ahead." Shadow carefully pulled out one of the chairs at the table and jumped up, taking a moment to stabilise before balancing with two paws on the back of the chair.
"Why d'you have so many chairs, if it's just you and your dad?"
"When mom was alive, we had friends over a lot. We just never put them away." Shadow winced.
"Sorry."
"No, it's ok. You have questions, and I can answer them. No problem." Even still, Shadow stayed silent for the rest of the time Taylor was cooking, deciding that it would be a better idea to just watch and not talk in case she messed up something else.
"Morning, you two." Eon greeted, ten minutes later as he strolled into the room. "I heard you down here, Taylor, so I thought I should come down toooooh is that bacon?" Taylor blinked, looking down at the frying pan.
"Yes?"
"New favourite person." He decided, carefully shifting another chair and jumping onto it, curling his tails around his paws to keep his balance. "Thank you, Taylor."
"Eon's fond of bacon." Shadow explained, when Taylor gave her a questioning look from the corner of her eye.
"I gathered, now." She remarked, turning for a moment to pat Eon slightly awkwardly on the head before rushing back to everything. "And good morning, Eon."
"Oh, yeah. Morning." Shadow said belatedly. "And hi, Mr Hebert who just walked into the room and seems mildly confused." Taylor and Eon jolted a little in surprise, then looked over to the doorway, where Danny was leaning against the edge and looking in.
"Hello, Shadow, Eon, Taylor." He replied, still watching the three of them. "Thank you for starting breakfast, Taylor."
"No problem." She blinked, going back to the things. "Things should be done in a couple of minutes."
"Need any help?"
"I'll be alright, thanks, Eon."
Around a half an hour later, once everyone had eaten and Eon had arranged to wash the cutlery using his telekinesis from the chair so that he could see properly- something which interested Danny and slightly unnerved Taylor- the group moved into the front room to talk, with Eon and Shadow sitting carefully so they couldn't be seen well from the outside.
"So what would you like to know first, Mr Hebert?" Eon asked, taking the lead again. He was sitting up somewhat, with his tails curled around his paws again and the blue tips dangling over the edge. Shadow, conversely, had curled up on her own seat with her tails lying mostly parallel to her body, and her head resting on her forepaws as she watched the two humans.
"Actually, I'd rather start with Taylor, if you don't mind." Danny requested, looking at his daughter, who shuffled. "Since when've you been a Cape?"
"Since the Locker thing, back in January." He winced, and Eon frowned, remembering the vision he'd seen a few days before. "I got my powers after that, and I've been learning to use them since then."
"Christ... four months? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I just... couldn't. Too much was happening at the time, and since then it's never felt like the right time to bring it up and talk about it." Taylor shrugged, embarrassment colouring her face. "But, well, I made a costume, and I've used abandoned warehouses and stuff and the basement to practise and get used to my bugs, then a couple of nights ago, on the eleventh, I went out for the first time on a patrol." She looked down at the floor, wringing her hands. "I didn't really plan on doing much, just going around and maybe stopping a few muggings or something, but..." Eon snorted slightly, and Shadow grinned.
"Of course you were only planning on doing something simple. No-one's first proper time out ever goes particularly right. We had a friend who ended up finding a criminal on a hunch during one of their errands. We fought an angry Druddigon by accident, because someone else had annoyed it." Eon told her.
"Yeah, I've seen that now."
"Taylor, what did you do?" Danny questioned, pinning her with a look.
"I found a group of ABB talking about killing kids." She said. "I couldn't let that happen, so I went after them." She paused, then added reluctantly, "And Lung."
"Holy shit, Taylor!" He shouted, staring at her. "Why would you do that? Are you mad?"
"In her defence, Mr Hebert, Taylor was doing really well in her fight." Shadow started, leaning forward and lifting her head. "If we hadn't interrupted, she'd probably have won, though it'd've taken a while."
"You interrupted?" Danny turned, still looking angry.
"Quite." Eon sat up a little straighter, shooting Shadow a stern look. She lay down again, grumbling a little, while he gave a reassuring smile to Taylor. "Our story is a little bit longer, and the three of us have a meeting at midday, so I'd like to leave quite early to make sure we can find out about it all."
"When will we leave, Eon?"
"Half ten, perhaps?" He shrugged. "Assuming you know where Somer's Rock is, we could leave later."
"I don't, but I could find out. The computer's bad, but it works." Taylor smiled a little.
"Thank you, Taylor." Deciding that they'd waited long enough for Danny to calm down slightly, Eon turned back to the man. "Personally, my story starts just over two years ago, in another world. Our world- mine and Shadow's, that is- is a strange mixed world. On one side, the main species are humans, while on the other, no humans exist. There's a chain of islands in the middle, the Orange Archipelago, where the border between the two sections of the world exists. I'm not entirely certain anyone on the human side of the border knows of our side, but we know quite a lot about them from migrations and the like.
"Anyway, our kind are part of a large collection of species known as Pokemon, which are split up into sets of species, and evolution lines, and the like. There's time for a better explanation later, I think. My kind are called Ninetales, and Shadow is a Vulpix, which is a Pokemon that evolves into Ninetales depending on certain conditions. Shadow's always been a Vulpix, but from what I remember I was once a human, who got transformed into a Pokemon by something. It's not a completely unique case, I've heard of at least two others, but it's still very rare. I also ended up with amnesia, so I don't actually remember being a human, so most of my memories come from being a Ninetales instead."
"Eon's also what's called a shiny Pokemon, which is a special and rare type of Pokemon with a different colour scheme. Ninetales' are normally golden, with orange tail tips, but him being special made some Pokemon a bit wary of him." Shadow inserted. "Since shiny Ninetales' are often used by Inari, who's a Ninetales that can appear like normal, or shiny, or as a red Ninetales instead, as messengers."
"Shadow and I formed a Rescue team about six months after my arrival." Eon continued, giving Shadow a slight look. "We'd known each other for a while before- Shadow's actually the first Pokemon I met after whatever accident I had- and she'd been trying to get into the local branch of the Wigglytuff Rescue Guild for a while, but got rejected for being too young to work on her own. She asked me to come work with her, I agreed since I was kind of at a loose end, and we've made our way up to Hyper Rank-"
"The Ranks go Normal, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond, Super, Ultra, Hyper, then Master, Master Star, Master Two Star, Master Three Star, and Guildmaster." Shadow put in again.
"- To the point where we sometimes got the rare request for battles or help off of Legendary or Mythical Pokemon, which're kind of like gods in our world." Eon glared slightly at Shadow, who just gave him a slightly smug look and settled down again. "We got one about two months ago from a Pokemon called Hoopa, which is a sort of genie-like Pokemon that can open portals. We helped him out with a thing, and then six days ago we were approached with an offer of going through one of his portals to go somewhere else and do a job of trying to fix things there, with the offer of a pretty big payment when we ever get to finish it."
"Which is nice, because money is very useful." Shadow added, making Eon sigh.
"Anyway," Eon restarted, "Five days ago, we came through, landed a little ways away, and used my experience with making illusions of human-like Pokemon plus some descriptions from other Pokemon to make illusions and run around a bit, before we stumbled across Taylor here fighting Lung. I pulled her out of the fight, and Shadow took the dragon down."
"Shadow did?" Danny looked shocked, staring at her.
"Heck yeah! I'm way more powerful than I look, we're both immune to fire, and it turns out that even a dragon running mostly on the power of rage isn't immune to cuteness overloads." Taylor snorted, and even Danny smiled slightly through his confusion. "But yeah. We invited Taylor to come join us the next night, then we've been doing patrols since. We were involved in dealing with a bank robbery along with the Wards and Glory Girl two days ago against the Undersiders, then obviously yesterday was the whole bombing run thing." Danny nodded, and Taylor glanced at the nearest clock. Eon followed her gaze; it was eight o'clock, which gave them plenty of time to find out where they needed to be.
"Is there anything else you'd like to ask, Mr Hebert?"
"I… no, I don't think so." Danny said slowly, still looking a little confused. "I'd like some time to think on this, and at some point soon I think I'll have more questions for you, but for now I'd just like to think about everything. You mentioned a meeting at midday?"
"After the capture of Bakuda yesterday evening, Assault asked if we would be willing to speak to the PRT about the event. Since it was so late, I managed to arrange for that meeting to occur today instead, at midday, with my entire team coming along. I believe Assault will be bringing his own partners as well, or at least some of them." Eon explained. "Originally I suggested that we could make our way to the PRT's building, but Assault suggested a place called Somer's Rock as our meeting point instead. Apparently it's commonly used as a neutral ground for meetings where no-one wants to fight."
"He folded about that pretty quickly, didn't he?" Taylor mentioned, looking introspective. "I wonder why. In his position, I think I'd rather talk to the unknown new Cape team- even though you aren't Capes, the PRT don't know that right now, and I am a Cape so they'll probably go with the idea of it being a Cape team- in a place where I had more power to leverage than in neutral grounds."
"Actually, neutral grounds makes much more sense if you think about everything." Danny put in, making the group look at him. "Alright, look at it this way. You said that Shadow took down Lung, right?"
"I did." The Vulpix looked proud of herself.
"It's likely the Protectorate picked him up after that. I didn't see anything on the news, but they might not have put it out yet or we might've missed it. Either way, they probably interviewed Lung about what happened, if they didn't know."
"If anyone found him, he would've been alone." Eon confirmed.
"Alright. So, assuming he was open to talking, which he might have been, then the Protectorate would know what happened. So now we've got an insect controller that held her own against Lung, even for a little while, a small creature that was able to weaken and defeat Lung alone through strange and unknown methods, and a third, somewhat larger creature who is a complete unknown."
"Actually, they may know about my telekinesis, since I used that to move Taylor out of the way of the battle."
"Mostly unknown, then. Either way, that's the information they had going into the meeting yesterday. What happened with the Wards?"
"Shadow went after one of Bitch's dogs, using Hypnosis to put it to sleep, though she failed to manage completely. They might know a bit about Roar, or at least know that Shadow can make her voice a lot louder to scare people, since she used that to attract attention. They'll also know about our invisibility, because we used it both then and yesterday in the aftermath of Bakuda."
"They might know that you have better senses than normal people, too, since you were listening to the inside of the bank and all." Taylor added.
"Ah, yes. I'd forgotten about that. Thank you, Taylor." Eon nodded. "I also used the move Hex there, so there's that too."
"Ok, so they know some of what you can do from there, plus whatever they learned yesterday." Danny raised an eyebrow, making Eon continue;
"They'll know about Shadow's Hypnosis, though they won't have any idea of how quickly she can do it thanks to Bakuda's goggles slowing things down. I used Will-o-Wisp to provide light, and Shadow used Swift. There were also two illusionary Pokemon involved, an Eevee and an Ekans, that I used to distract and corral Bakuda before dismissing them."
"Did whoever was there see that?"
"Assault, Armsmaster and Miss Militia were there, and all of them saw the whole thing, so yes."
"Do they know they were illusions?"
"They might, they might not. I've always been quite good with illusions, Eevee move quite like Shadow and I do since they're a similar species and it's not hard to mimic snakes, so while they know of my illusion abilities they might also believe they're real and that we can call backup."
"I wish we could." Shadow grumbled quietly from her seat, curled up in a ball once again.
"That second seems like a little bit of a leap, given that they do know about your illusions, so they'll probably go with that." Danny said. "But either way, I understand that they know very little about any of your abilities, compared to what I'm sure you could do if pushed. In their position, I'd be very cautious about doing such pushing. Bringing you into the PRT building, where they have the upper ground and might have other people involved in the interview who aren't as restrained, they might be worried about something happening that could make you all feel threatened in some way, and they might not be able to handle it to stop anything going nuts. In a neutral zone, on the other hand, things are probably going to be calmer, since neither side has the upper hand so no-one's going to want to push. Plus you'll be meeting with a few representatives of the PRT and Protectorate, so they'll have been chosen on how likely it is that they can keep their tempers in check and avoid causing a scene. Along with the fact that it'll be at least a little bit public, it'll keep them calm while they hope it does the same to you, so no-one causes trouble." Eon looked impressed.
"A lot of thought went into that."
"I work in the docks, and at this point I might as well be a politician for all that I deal with them on." He shrugged. "I've gotten good at reading people."
"Thank you for your input, then." Eon gave, waving a paw. "I'm not exactly used to people with such strange motivations, so it's good to have some help."
"No problem." Danny seemed to wrestle with himself for a minute, then nodded firmly to himself, fixing his eyes on the Ninetales. "You're Taylor's team mates, and you've been keeping her safe. If you need help with this world, and Taylor can't give it, I'll see what I can do."
"Thank you, Mr Hebert." Eon smiled widely, as Shadow looked up properly and Taylor gaped a little.
"No problem. Now, it's half eight, so perhaps the three of you should get ready for your meeting now, and go and find out exactly where this building is."
"Probably." Shadow agreed. "Wish the Map could help…"
"Map?" Both Taylor and Danny asked.
"The Wonder Map. It's something that all Rescue and Exploration teams get, at the very beginning when they join the Guilds or whatever, mostly Wigglytuff's Guild but there's others as well." Eon explained, as Shadow vanished up the stairs to go and get the bag that they'd brought with them during the Bakuda battle. The entire thing had been mostly healing supplies- though they hadn't encountered anything that would need them, and the confirmation that Shadow's Heal Pulse/Heal Bell worked in this world meant that they probably wouldn't need them much unless Shadow was knocked out- but Eon had left the Map in there despite the fact that it probably didn't work. "The Map automatically updates as you discover new areas, or once the Guildmaster or their assistant opens the area to you, which allows you to go and explore the place on your own. It's mostly for safety purposes, since the Map will always know where you are and lets you find where you need to go."
"That's interesting." Taylor mused. "And it shows your world?"
"Anything we've explored, sure." Eon nodded. "I think that's why Shadow's just vanished, so she can show you."
"Yup!" Shadow grinned from the doorway, putting the strap of the Bag down for a moment to speak. "We've both seen maps and stuff of your world, while we were online the other day, so I thought it'd be nice to show you ours!"
"Thanks, Shadow." Taylor seemed oddly touched by that, standing up and lifting the bag to bring it further into the room. Shadow sat down next to her, curling her tails around three of her paws, lifting the last to open the bag.
"So, yeah, there's a lot of stuff in here sometimes, because for some weird reason this thing can hold a lot more than it's supposed to, but the map doesn't seem to affect how much we can have in there, even though there's a limit to it." Shadow shrugged, while Danny and Taylor looked down at it in confusion. "No-one really gets it either, but it fits 48 items in there no matter the size of them, and nothing has weight. It's very weird, but whatever." Shadow reached into the bag, pulling out a rolled up bit of paper. "And this is the Wonder Map. It's absolutely awesome when we use it back home, since we can never get lost." She grinned, unrolling it, before pausing. "Huh."
"Huh?" Eon asked, looking away from the clock for a moment. "What's up?"
"The map-" Shadow started, but she didn't need to finish. Eon spotted it, jumping down from the chair he was in and pacing over.
It had gone completely blank, not even a sign of the markings that normally showed hidden areas to them.
"How on earth…?" He muttered, looking at it. Gently, he lifted it with his telekinesis, frowning and twisting it this way and that. "I've never heard of something like this happening before."
"D'you think it's because we're on another world?" Shadow questioned, coming around to examine the blank page as well. "I mean, maybe the magical whatever that makes it work only works there?"
"Maybe…" Eon sighed. "It'd be a shame, though. I'd've liked to show you both…" Letting the sheet fall to the ground, he batted at it irritably.
"I would've liked to see it." Taylor nodded, touching the corner gently, with some sadness.
The Wonder Map sparkled, then shone.
"Whoa!" All four of them recoiled sharply, shielding their eyes as the paper shone brighter and brighter for no apparent reason, before fading with a suddenness that seemed to suck the light from the room.
"What was that?" Danny half asked, half demanded, leaning forwards. The rest of them followed, peering at the map, which was still gently sparkling.
Slowly, lines began drawing themselves on the sheet, a smallish square box appearing first, the rest of it following outwardly in a web, some lines criss-crossing the others, more and more of the squares and rectangles being added to it.
It took almost a minute for the entire page to be filled, with the signature clouds of the unknown on the edges. Still staring in confusion, Eon touched the map again, flinching as another flicker followed.
"Look…" Shadow breathed, pointing.
The other three looked. On the first square that had formed, a circle with what looked like wings had appeared, the centre of it gaining a purple, crystal-like object.
"That's our badge." Eon frowned. "How on earth…"
"I think the map's picked up our new world." Shadow guessed, poking at it. "I think it's gonna try doing the same thing it normally does, and walk us around?"
"I wonder if it would show Somer's Rock?" Taylor asked, amazement in her voice. Eon bit his lip.
"Normally we put the mission request on the map and it tells us where we need to go," he explained, looking at it curiously. "I don't know how that would even begin to work properly here…" He trailed off as another badge emblem appeared on the map, floating in the middle of the clouded section. "Huh."
"All I had to do was poke it while thinking about where I needed to be." Shadow looked mildly incredulous. "No mission request, no need for the badge, just poke it."
"At least you won't need to spend very long looking for the place online, if you could even find it there." Danny put in, looking at the map curiously. "The clouds vanish, you said?"
"When we explore the area, normally. Or get permission to go there if you're in the Guild." Eon repeated, nodding.
"Then I suppose the three of you ought to get ready for your meeting and go take a look, don't you?" All three of the team looked away from the map and up at the clock, before Taylor nodded.
"Sure, dad." The bug using Cape nodded softly. "Eon, Shadow, do you need to stop by the base first, or...?"
"No, we have everything we need here. I don't think we'd need much of what's in the base for a meeting like this." Eon replied. "We'll just take the bag with us, but we won't need anything else."
"Alright. I'll go get into costume, then." Eon and Shadow nodded, rolling up the map for the moment and putting it back into the Treasure Bag, which Eon carefully shifted to his back.
"Shadow, your scarf's upstairs too, right?" The shiny checked.
"Yeah, it's got both our badges on it for safekeeping." She agreed, quickly picking up what he wasn't saying. "C'mon, let's go get that, then you get to set up all the invisibility we'll need."
"What fun." He snarked in return, both of them quickly making their way back into the room they'd been lent for the night. Closing the door behind him with a nudge, he took the scarf from Shadow's weaker telekinesis and unpinned his badge, handing it back to let her tie it around her neck while he put his back on the bag, near his neck.
"I still don't get why you won't just get a scarf, Eon." Shadow muttered to him, fiddling with her own. "We could do that while we're here easily."
"Yes, yes, I suppose we could." Eon sighed, looking at it. "Or I could ask Taylor to weave something for me."
"That could be cool. I mean, spider silk scarves? So cool." Shadow smiled. "Bet there's some people back home that'd love to buy something like that."
"Pitch it to Ariados or something when we see them again." He recommended, turning towards the door at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. "C'mon, let's head back down and slip out the back. Might be an idea to set up a stable cloak that I can collapse onto us."
"You can do that?"
"I can do quite a bit, since those lessons with Zoroark." Eon shrugged, bouncing back down the staircase. "But yeah, that's one of the things I picked up."
"Can you make them solid?"
"No, that's something illusions can't do." Eon refuted. "No-one's can, I wouldn't think."
"What about Uxie's Groudon?" Shadow tilted her head. "Y'know, the one we got told about by-"
"That was a projection, not an illusion, and either way Uxie's a Legendary, so of course he'd be able to do things like that." He waved her off, heading towards the kitchen and the back door. "Different abilities and situations."
"I guess."
"Solid illusions sound like they'd be helpful." Danny commented, from where he was standing to one side with a mug. "You could use them to avoid getting into fights yourself."
"True, but we're used to it." Eon shrugged, inclining his head towards Shadow. "Taylor's not, admittedly, but we'll keep her safe until she is, and the best way to get used to it is to be in the middle of things."
"Unfortunately, yes." The man sighed. "Thank you for keeping her safe, at least."
"She's joined the team, she's my responsibility."
"And Eon takes that seriously." Shadow added. "So do I. We always do, when someone new joins up; it's just that Taylor's more fragile than most the Pokemon we work with so we keep more of an eye on her."
"Thank you for that. The thought of Taylor being right in the middle of a Cape fight terrifies me. She's an insect controller…"
"Yeah, a bit worrying. It's probably best if she sticks back." Shadow nodded. "She and I talked about that this morning, while you were all asleep. A good bit of support options, some defensive if she's ok killing her bugs, but not much offence aside from bites or stings."
"A good assessment of it all." Eon smiled. "So yes, keeping her back from battles is a good idea. Not too far back, that would be an insult to her abilities, but in a place where her range can help without her getting into fights herself." Footsteps from the hall halted that conversation, Taylor walking through the door a few moments later in her costume, mask in one hand as she ran the other through her hair.
Eon suspected the spiders and other bugs were hidden deep in the dark mass for now.
"Ready to go?" She asked nervously.
"We are. Are you?" Shadow padded over, looping once around her feet and looking up with concern. "This is gonna be a bit of a big one."
"Yeah, I know. I'll manage, I think."
"Just let us do the talking, if you'd like." Eon said.
"I can feed you lines if they need to talk to you that much." Their Vulpix companion offered. "It'll be a bit difficult, but I managed it in front of Bakuda and no-one noticed."
"They were a bit further away than they will be today, though." Shadow shrugged.
"I'll manage." Taylor told her, straightening and pushing her shoulders back. "So, we just follow the map?"
"It'll reveal more of the area as we get closer, but just walking towards the badge symbol will help guide us, yeah." Eon agreed. "Mask up, then, and I'll cloak us all."
"Ok." She nodded, smiling at her father. "I'll see you later, dad."
"I don't think we'll be gone for too long, but we might end up going for a patrol after the meeting, if there's time." Eon mentioned.
Danny raised an eyebrow, and he inclined his head towards Taylor, who was now pulling on her mask. The man nodded slightly, a small smile on his lips.
"That's fine, just don't get into too much trouble. While you're gone… maybe I'll look into getting a new computer or something for you, Taylor." The now masked hero looked over in surprise. "It might help your work. Speaking of work, I'd prefer if you didn't skip school to go patrolling too often, or if you did you warned me so I could organise a sick day or something. Or have more time off than you do patrolling publicly."
"It would look a bit suspicious if Swarm was only out in the day when Taylor was ill." Eon sighed. "At least today's Saturday, so there's no school. And it's possible it'll be cancelled on Monday, too." While Danny admitted that he wasn't entirely certain, since he had no idea of exactly where all of the damage to buildings was from Bakuda's attack, and Eon was sceptical due to how bad the school looked, it was always a possibility that the school would be closed, letting them have time to patrol.
"Actually… that's something I'd like to talk to you about, dad." The Cape said softly. Danny glanced at the clock.
"Later, little owl. You have a meeting in three hours to get too, and who knows how often you'll get lost on the way."
"With the Wonder Map, probably less than you'd expect." Eon told him, smiling. "But you're right. Come on, girls, let's get moving over to Somer's Rock." With a touch of telekinesis, he lifted the map out of his bag, looking over it carefully for the correct direction. "We'll be under cloak the entire time- or at least as long as I can hold it. Shadow, are you staying, or…?"
"I'll go ahead a bit. Not much, but I'll find us a route forwards and around things." She decided. "Let me see the map?" Eon held it out to her, and she examined it for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, that's no problem. Pretty sure I can keep us all off the main roads, if you'd like?"
"Good idea." Eon acknowledged. "Let's go. Mr Hebert, we'll see you soon."
"Good luck, and don't let them push you. If you can gain control of the conversation, do so, but don't try threatening them. Negotiating from a position of power is good, even in a neutral zone, and you can bet the Protectorate will be aware of that." Eon accepted that advice with another nod, then led the group over to the door and wrapped them all in a cloak.
"Come on, let's get over to this place, then." Eon smiled backwards at them both. Swarm still looked tense, but she was standing straight and proud, one hand drifting unconsciously towards the badge pinned to her chest while bugs were making their way out into her hair. Shadow was relaxed, looking around as if bored, but Eon could easily tell that she was ready to deal with the heroes they were about to talk to.
All three made their way to the fence, slipping through with ease, then Shadow vanished into a mixed charcoal colour and darted away, leaving Eon to tighten the cloak around himself and Swarm before following her trail.
Danny looked out of the still open door silently, knowing that they had probably already left despite not having spotted the gate opening.
He assumed Eon's illusions had taken care of that.
Sighing, he closed the door and leaned against the counter and toyed with the empty mug, before placing it in the sink and wandering to his study. Closing that door as well, he sat down heavily and opened the lowest drawer with the key sitting under another mug, pulling out the leather-bound book and skimming across the pages, finally halting on one around the middle.
It was a picture of Taylor and Emma, sitting on a blanket in the back yard of the house with plates of sandwiches and glasses of lemonade balanced carefully so they wouldn't fall over on uneven ground or if the blanket slipped when they inevitably started messing about. They'd been about eight then, enjoying a sunny day while all the parents were a little busy. The picture had been taken by Danny when he'd gone to check on them, since he'd heard one of the girls wander into the house a few minutes before, making him peer out of the kitchen window before carefully reaching for the camera he'd left on the side earlier that morning.
Emma was sitting very carefully on the blanket, with a pair of butterflies perched on her hair, while Taylor was cross-legged next to her and giggling slightly, a bit of ham in the palm of her outstretched hand being offered to a grey fox, which was slowly and nervously edging towards her, sniffing the air.
Danny had stared at them all, amazed, before carefully snapping a picture of the strange scene to show Annette later. The woman he'd married had stared at it for a few minutes, looking closely at the fox and butterflies as if there was something strange about them- well, stranger than them all approaching the girls so calmly- before smiling and making a joke that both girls looked to have a promising future in animal care, if this sort of thing was what they were hiding.
She'd then promptly gone to the two, relaxing in the front room and giggling to each other, and asked about their day, immediately being regaled with the story of the fox and butterflies, soon followed by other incidents that they'd launched into once Annette had commented on that being quite unusual.
Like the time with the three cats at Alan's, or that pair of dogs and the bird when they were at the park and no-one was watching them, or the time where Taylor swore she'd seen a tiny yellow bee fumble past on gentle wings, with a bunch of tiny yellow dots on the bushes next to it moving alongside that'd all stopped and seemed to look as Taylor and Emma walked by…
Danny had taken that to just be confirming Annette's joke about the two girls; perhaps they'd've ended up as vets, or animal trainers- he'd even thought about speaking to Alan and seeing if they should offer that to the girls, once they were a bit older, to see if it was something they might enjoy. Annette, on the other hand, had listened closely and seriously, taking in all of the stories, and in the end smiled with amusement and asked that the girls be a bit more careful, since you never knew what might happen with animals, and she didn't want something to go bad at all for them. They'd nodded, with the sort of immortal air that eight year olds had, and gone back to their chatter as Annette slipped away again, a thoughtful frown slipping onto her face for a little while as she watched.
"I wonder, Annette…" He whispered into the silence of the room, still staring at the picture. "Did you notice something I didn't then? About the girls… or maybe about the animals?" Danny frowned; the only link he could possibly see would be the bee and the butterflies, both bugs which is what her powers connected her too, but Taylor had only Triggered recently and he doubted that powers could affect people before they Triggered… and that still wouldn't explain the dogs or cats or birds or that fox, or anything else that the girls had mentioned that afternoon. "The girls, probably. Still odd… maybe Taylor would still be willing to try for some career involving animals. She might have fun with that… it'd give her something fun outside of the Cape stuff, at least."
Naturally, nothing answered him.
With a sigh, Danny closed the book and locked it away, before standing to go and get his coat. If his daughter was going to be out with her friends for more than four hours at least, he might as well go out and take a look at getting some new computers.
And, as much as he hated the idea, a pair of phones too. It would be a good idea to be able to reach Taylor if something happened, or for her to be able to reach him if something went wrong on patrol or she was stopping with her team overnight or something. The money might be difficult, but he'd find a way to manage. This was important to Taylor, so he'd do what he could to help her with it all.
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- Location
- Here
Where do bacon and eggs come from in the Pokemon world? Do you have it as having regular animals?
banjo2E
Has left the planet
- Location
- Mafia Town
Well, there's no definitive canon answer, since the various canons have at some point had basically every option between Pokemon and real animals at once, just Pokemon with everyone carefully avoiding topics like that, and people and Pokemon eating other Pokemon. And with the latter, it varies as to whether the Pokemon being eaten are subsapient or not. So basically it depends on what the author decides.
He's ya
half-past six
Quiet? Not entirely sure in context.
half-past eight
At least one Pokemon was specifically stated to taste delicious. IIRC it was a fish one.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
In this case, the smushing is supposed to help indicate that Shadow is tired.
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
Basically the below;
But I'm going with 'real animals exist, but they just don't come up very often.' Simply because it's a little happier.
Like most the other bits following this, it's Shadow being very tired and slurring her speech together. Much like I do in real life, actually.
Edit; and I've been outfoxed by Bezzerker.
That's a me-ism, it's what I tend to do IRL, so I'm keeping that one.
Quite is correct. It's basically a 'yes, we interrupted' as Eon prepares to join in the conversation.
Keeping this one too for the same reason as above.