Blaguarro Town Main Station

[Hap]

"What happened in your dreams?" Andre asked.

"We heard something like another voice talking to us," Ridley explained. "I guess we assumed it was related to the shadow pokemon because it happened right after, but if you didn't hear it then maybe not."

He was still paying attention to the ongoing conversation, though, so when Anite referenced someone worth talking to Ridley spoke up again.

"Mav's the next best person to talk to about this though I recommend doing so before he gets himself drunk beyond comprehension."

"Where can we find this guy?" he asked.

 

[canisaries]

"We heard something like another voice talking to us," Ridley explained. "I guess we assumed it was related to the shadow pokemon because it happened right after, but if you didn't hear it then maybe not."

Still not saying what the voice said, Andre thought. I don't want to reveal that I was spoken to in case he asks what was said, but I also don't like the idea of being the only one that sticks out if all the others involved in the encounter had a similar dream. Maybe if I...

"Yeah, I don't know," Andre said. "I think I could have had a dream like that and just forgotten about it before I woke up."

Not that I think it was the kind of dream somebody would just forget. Hopefully he'll buy my lie anyway.

 

[Butterfree]

Dave couldn't help smirking as Ryder cowered before Anite. Helped to get acquainted with someone here who wasn't a brute with a single braincell.

An Excadrill,, Sandslash and a Zweilous with an 'aura of power', huh. Assuming they meant that literally, quite possibly some humans or half-humans -- and they might be involved with Terminal Two.

"Was," Anite corrected. "He's gone too. Mav's the next best person to talk to about this though I recommend doing so before he gets himself drunk beyond comprehension."

Jesus. Dave's shoulder tingled uncomfortably. "Who's Mav? Where can we find him?"

 

[HelloYellow17]

So One-eyed Joe had also disappeared in the middle of the night…but others had been taken in the middle of the day? Wes frowned. So many disappearances, and yet so little leads to chase. It was…unsettling, to say the least.

Not only have these odd 'Witching Beasts' been putting us on edge but there have been sightings of strangers that exude an aura of power. Even I feel like I ain't a match for them.

Wes perked up at that. “What exactly do you mean by an ‘aura of power’? Anything off about their behavior? Any specific times of day that they’ve been spotted?”

If these were more shadow Pokémon, at least he could be on the lookout…though it would probably help to find out what the hell an Excadrill and a Zweilous looked like, first.

 

[Inkedust]

"It's hard to put a claw on," Anite answered. "They just give off this odd feeling like there's this pressure in the air that wasn't there before. They ain't feral or beasts though given that they're wearing maroon scarves. Well at least the sandslash and excadrill are. I think I saw the zweilous wearin' something else but it was hard to tell at night." She gestured to her left with her head. "They tend to loiter around the west-side of town, time of day doesn't seem to matter, though I've heard recounts of the zweilous being spotted in other parts like the outskirts too."

Anite closed her eyes, considering something before she continued. "Since Reno vanished, we lost our night watchmon. I'd hoped that, being the dawn watchmon, Mav would take up the mantle until we found Reno again but none of his three heads are biting. If you want to find him, he's a dodrio. When he's on duty, I hope you don't mind waking up before the sunrises. Otherwise, catch him in the neighbourhood before he leaves for The Dragon's Cellar in the evening." She pointed east. "Won't be in a very good mood but he's at least be understandable. Beyond that, I think investigating any part of town will do seeing that these happenings are happening just about everywhere in town."

"Perhaps a couple of us could take the night watch, to keep an eye out on any suspicious activity." Bellatrix quietly suggested out of Anite's earshot. "The nightguard being targeted specifically makes me think that something's happening at night that Terminal Two, or whoever's responsible, doesn't want to be seen."

Another question popped into her mind shortly after. She chewed on it for a second before deciding she had no reason not to ask. “And if you don’t mind me asking…what are your thoughts on the spike in the murkrow population? Have they been spewing anything of note?”

Anite didn't seem to notice the zorua's muttering as she scratched her chin, considering the mawile's question. "I don't think it's a good sign at all. Tala tells me they're a symbol of bad omen and to see them out so far west when they weren't here before..." She shuddered. "But I'm not sure how the two would be related. They look like plain old ferals, nothing witching beast about them, and jabber nonsense in strange voices to each other. Most recent thing I heard them squawking about was something about 'getting new blindfolds'. Your guess on what that means is as good as mine."

 

[Shadow Serenity]

Three 'powerful-aura' pokemon that loitered around. That was a clue if Kimiko ever heard one. Anite clearly didn't trust them, which explained the interrogation. But also one they probably didn't want to confront right now, at least not directly. It took their entire party to handle the mayor and his security, and they didn't feel like they had any special strength.

More importantly, a location. Or, well... Anite's revelation that there were problems all over town didn't help narrow down a place to start looking, but it was important information that answered Kimiko's question just the same.

"Weren't the caravans being moved at night, as well?" Kimiko quietly replied, managing to stay calm (by her standards) in the presence of the ghost. After the tongue-lashing at the bulletin board, she was making a conscious effort not to pretend the zorua just didn't exist. "If that's where our game plan ends up going, I'll volunteer for night watch. I'm more of a night owl anyway. Of course, assuming Anite would trust us that far."

 

[Sinderella]

Odette was too busy sitting on Anite’s words to initially catch what Bellatrix was suggesting. She didn’t fully snap back to attention until the aggron started talking about the murkrow.

So she’d been right on the money; similar to the myths of her world, murkrow weren’t a sign of anything particularly good. She wasn’t sure how prominent the occult sciences were here, but she subscribed enough to her own understanding of it that she would bet there was something important about the sudden murkrow population boom. Even if it were only a sign, it’d still be something.

The blindfold comment struck her, though. Going from “Ignumbnuts is a fraud” to “We need new blindfolds” was quite the jump. And it was a little odd that the murkrow were chirping something so blatantly related to her group’s issues at hand, yet Anite wasn’t noting any words of similar peculiarity or importance. Or, she simply didn’t realize what they were saying was important enough to note...

Finally, she registered Bellatrix’s comment, and turned her head to send the zorua a nod. “I’m in for that.”

With a breath, she rolled her shoulders. “Noted,” she said back to Anite. “Thanks for the info. In the event we come up with more questions about anything, where is the best place to find you, usually?” A pause as she thought of what to ask next. “And any rules here we should be majorly aware of while we’re looking around?”

 

[JFought]

At the mention of 'dodrio,' Isidora tilted her head. She'd never heard of that pokémon before. And did she just say Mav has three heads? Like a hydreigon? The hell? At least he'd be impossible to miss.

When Bellatrix whispered about a potential night watch, Isidora muttered back to her. "I was gonna be up anyway, but..."

But Odette was volunteering too? Could she even see in the dark all that well? Isidora would've like to avoid pairing with her, if possible. We have all day. Maybe she'll changed her mind...

Though the prospects of her avoiding a pair-up with a human weren't looking all that good to begin with. She knew that going in, but now, she felt nervous. She looked back towards the group. Odette, Dave, Wes, Ridley. And who knew about the others...

However things panned out, she had the feeling she wasn't going to be happy about it.

 

[Hap]

"Perhaps a couple of us could take the night watch, to keep an eye out on any suspicious activity." Bellatrix quietly suggested out of Anite's earshot. "The nightguard being targeted specifically makes me think that something's happening at night that Terminal Two, or whoever's responsible, doesn't want to be seen."

"I could take night watch," Ridley volunteered. "My night vision's excellent -" he was, after all, a ghost type "- and it wouldn't affect my sleep schedule at all."

Ahahaha, what sleep schedule? But more importantly, if there were more Witching Beasts out there, then Ridley desperately wanted to be the one to see them.

 

[Butterfree]

Oh, hell no. "Did you fucking miss the bit where the last person who had the night watch was literally abducted or murdered?" Dave hissed in Bellatrix's direction. "And the bit where we also nearly got murdered going up against the things known to be out here? Because I remember. What the fuck makes you think it'd be a good idea to go out there and take the dead guy's place?"

Goddamn it. He'd come here under the impression they would be finding a fucking inn for the night. He watched in disbelief as his companions eagerly volunteered one after another. Was everyone here determined to get themselves killed?

Fuck. Just fucking let them if they wanted to so badly. Why should he even care? "Well, I'm going to check on that Mav guy and then I'm finding somewhere to sleep. What's the Dragon's Cellar? Some kind of pub?"

 

[Inkedust]

"Just keep to yourselves and you'll be fine," Anite answered Odette. "If you want to ask questions, I suggest keeping to the Cellar where folks tend to be in a better mood. It also doubles as a tavern," Anite added to Dave's question. "I'm sure Tala will be happy to accommodate you if I put a good word in for you. May not even need to prove yourself either if she's feeling generous."

Bellatrix frowned slightly at Dave. That was a fair point although... "How do you know that Reno vanished?" she asked Anite. "If he's the night watchmon, then how can you be sure that he's just not sleeping all day?"

"Easy to tell when a watchmon's on duty," Anite answered. "They're always seen flying between towers every now and again. We appoint fliers for the job so they can circle around both towers to get a better view of the area, like now."

Anite looked up and if anyone else were to follow her gaze, they would have spotted the skarmory, Erva soaring overhead.

"As you can probably guess, Reno hasn't been seen on duty for a while."

"I see," Bellatrix replied with a nod. Back at Dave and the rest of the group she whispered, "He was likely known amongst the town beforehand which would have made him a target even if he wasn't up on one of those towers. They'd have no reason to go back to the towers at night if they haven't gotten a new nightguard if they were even able to get there to begin with. We're complete strangers here, they don't know our names, and we're small which will make hiding up there easy. It's a matter of hiding and staking out to try and find anything of note, which shouldn't pose much risk if we keep quiet about it, not that I'd recommend a group larger than three to go up there anyway."

Anite straightened herself, rolling her shoulders causing her plating to scrape against each other. "Seems like you lot have started sorting yourselves out. Any final questions?"

 

[Butterfree]

Dave frowned. "What kind of Pokémon was Reno?" Better stay the fuck away if they ran into someone who might be him, at any rate.

He was not buying Bellatrix's convoluted reasoning for why actually taking on the night watch was no more ill-advised than anything else (who the fuck said he'd been targeted because he was known and not because he was the guy on guard), but whatever. On her own head be it. He might just head straight to the Cellar for a drink.

 

[HelloYellow17]

It took Wes every ounce of willpower he had not to scoff and roll his eyes at Ridley volunteering for night watch. Moron. Somehow, he’d learned absolutely nothing from the incident a few nights ago. Well, that was fine by Wes; Ridley could go dig his own grave if he damn well pleased as long he left others out of his idiotic decisions.

He then shook his head in disbelief at Bellatrix’s assurance that night watch would be safe. You weren’t in the wagon. You don’t know. You have no idea. “Regardless, I don’t think anybody should be taking up night watch alone. Best for all of us to be in groups, no matter what.” Not that being in a group helped any of them much in the wagon a few nights ago, but…well, maybe it had. The Charmeleon had been so occupied bouncing from one person to the next, it hadn’t had the time to finish off any of their group. That unfortunate Rattata had been left in the dust by his companion, and, well…they’d all seen how that ended up.

Speaking of which…Wes nodded to Dave, who was making the most sense of anybody here. “I’ll come along with you to check out this Mav guy, if you don’t mind.”

A tiny part of him wondered if he ought to lie low somewhere and try to catch a glimpse of those “bad vibes” Pokemon Anite had mentioned, but Wes wasn’t exactly keen to be out alone anywhere after dark, least of all in a place like this. Back in Orre, Pyrite was bad enough news during the day, let alone at night, and not even that godsforsaken town had strings of disappearances in broad daylight. He wasn’t about to roll the dice on what this place would do to someone alone in the dark.

 

[Sinderella]

While Odette saw some reasoning in Bellatrix's statement, she'd be lying to herself if she said she thought twice about any of that before saying she might be interested in the night watch. She'd known the first round of their group to get caught up out here didn't exactly have a good time, but in her head, they'd been out on the highway. Far away from civilization. At least here, they were close to a population of other 'mon and had a more robust place to run to if things went south. Cover, so to speak.

Additionally, the part of her that spewed from her chained-up jaws was horrifically curious to see how one of these cryptid things worked. They also wanted to see one of those "powered-up" aura 'mons. But she didn't want to acknowledge any of that.

"I'm good on my end. You've been more than helpful. We'll try to make us barging up in here worth the town's while."

Now to just decide what she wanted to do before it got too dark...

 

[Inkedust]

"Noctowl," Anite answered. "Pretty scrawny one too. If you find him or his body, do let me know. In the meantime, you can do me a favour and take up the nightwatch yourself. Would take you a long way in getting in the town's good graces." It was unclear if Anite had actually heard the group discussing or if she'd come up with the idea on her own.

The aggron straightened herself and then, with little else to cover, began to lumber away from the group. Several of the townies followed while others watched the group curiously. It seemed that there was a lot to investigate here with several places to start.

Just what would they do?

<><><>​

 

[Inkedust]

Tala watched the town from the railway platform with her arms crossed. In just a few days, so soon after Terminal Two, the town had fallen into a new kind of chaos. Windows had been broken, shingles had been torn from their rooftops to be scattered across the ground, and holes had been punched into walls. Granted, compared to Terminal Two, this was more a minor annoyance, but any attempts to clean up the mess just left an even bigger one the next day. To make matters worse, every time the supposed culprit was sighted, they had flown away before anyone could catch them, leaving them free to cause more damage another day.

Normally, Anite was around to handle these sorts of situations but the aggron had overslept today and the bar was hardly busy during this time, so the kommo-o had decided to conduct some of her own investigations. She had cleaned up the immediate area and waited in an attempt to bait out the perpetrator. She would stay up all night if she had to.

 

[Weazel]

It was supposed to be a simple job. Someone or something was going around Blaguarro Town, destroying property and being a general menace. The town guard was short staffed owing to Cipher capturing and corrupting members, and the Rangers had their hands full dealing with said Shadow Pokemon, so, finally, a townsfolk had swallowed their xenophobia enough to put up a request on the bulletin board. This was the kind of low stakes Outlaw capture that Archie had done a lot of back home when he was first getting his start as an Adventurer. Hell, the very first Outlaw he took in – his world’s version of Tarahn – had been a similar sort of menace, though that was more petty theft, and not so much vandalism.

His first sign that this wasn’t going to be simple was the requester was anonymous. No problem, he’d thought to himself, if he explained why he was here and what he was doing, surely someone would talk to him – both to see this problem dealt with and to have him gone as quickly as possible. He’d thought wrong. Most villagers wouldn’t give him the time of day, and the ones that would were anything but helpful. The most he’d been able to get was the vandal was ‘a bird.’ Which did not narrow it down as much as one might think! He’d made a full circuit of the town – avoiding all the areas where it looked like the locals would beat you just for existing in their presence – and was now returning to where he’d started, the train station. Or, what passed for one here.

Only, the platform wasn’t unoccupied. As far as Pokemon went, Kommo-o cut quite the figure. A ridiculously strong Dragon Type, already a type known for its overwhelming power against anything that wasn’t pastel pink and fae touched, the Dewott just hoped they weren’t going to be hostile.

“Uh, hello!” he called as he approached, “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a bird with an irrational hatred of inanimate objects, would you?”

Spencer had taught him humor was always a good method for dissolving tension. He really hoped the Treecko was right.

 

[Inkedust]

"Currently lookin' for it," came Tala's reply. She sat down to get closer to the dewott's eye level. "Trying to catch it before it has the chance to fly off. Dunno what business it has here but I expect it has something to do with you Wayfarers. Word travels quick and that whole thing with Terminal Two was gonna get out sooner or later." She sighed. "I take it that you've heard about the western watchtower? Been completely wrecked based on the eyewitnesses' descriptions, they're sayin' its the Blazing Twilight herself."

Tala shook her head. "Don't believe it. She has no business here, even with you lot. Been so long since that name even passed the lips of anyone here, so it has to be an impersonator. Someone who knows the legends well enough to do it but an impersonator nonetheless."

 

[Weazel]

“Oh, really?” the Dewott blinked. Well that was some luck, wasn’t it? He supposed it made sense though, if they were enough of a problem that some of the locals would even consider trusting an outsider to it, others would undoubtedly choose to try and take matters into their own hands instead. He was about to dig the job request out of his coat pocket to ask them about it, when the Kommo-o hit him with another surprise. Apparently, the reputation of the Wayfarers was beginning to precede them. He’d never been to Blaguarro but the once, for the Terminal Two raid, so the fact that someone here recognized him…

“I heard it was toppled, yeah,” Archie said, trying to quickly hide his obvious surprise at being recognized, “Would take some serious strength to do that.”

That, or a real dedication to the cause of mayhem. He still wasn’t super well versed the mythology of the Saints, so it was impossible for him to say one way or the other if the Kommo-o’s opinion on this Blazing Twilight was right or wrong. Would someone really go through the trouble of impersonating them for random acts of property damage? But then, why would a Saint go around vandalizing places anyway?

“Seems like a lot of work to get our attention,” he said instead, folding his arms, “Why come here and not Frontier Town? In fact, why cause trouble at all, it’s not like we’re keeping a low profile, shouldn’t be that hard to seek us out?”

 

[Inkedust]

Tala let out an amused snort at Archie's surprise. "I was right there with ya during the raid and I'm a barkeep. I've gotten good at remembering faces. 'Course I'd recognise anybody who went down there."

She rolled her shoulders, returning to the main point at hand. "Dunno," she answered. "But the timing's weird in that it's only just started as we started to get this place back on track. Makes it feel like intentional sabotage, but for what reason? So unless its one of those Cipher goons tryin' to get back at us, your guess is as good as mine."