Novelux Copperridge Wharf

[Butterfree]

Dave took a long breath. Train car totally wrecked, nobody there. So...

"Don't suppose there were any signs of what had wrecked the train car? What types of attacks, et cetera? Or tracks leading away from it? Know about any witnesses?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Not buying it for a second, eh?" chuckled the Diggersby.

Laura let out a nasal chuckle, and prepared her notebook. "No, sir. We're pretty sure there was foul play, and we want the full story." She tried to read the foreman's face, and made a stab in the dark. "If it'd make trouble for you to publicise that fact, we don't need to do that. We just want to find the missing 'mon and know who to watch our backs around."

Buck stroked his chin thoughtfully, eyeing up Dave. A 'mon didn't need to have exceptional judge of character to see that Dave had precisely zero capacity for dissembling or confidence artistry. The guy was as straightforward as they came. And Laura... Well, something softened in him when he looked at her, at least.

"Okay," he said at last, nodding. "Piston, you can go ahead, buddy."

The Gigalith lumbered in place, somehow managing to look at once like a statuesque mound of unliving rock, and a flustered kid too shy to speak up at a social gathering. If rocks could blush...

"Gghhm," he mumbled. "Uhhm. Yeagh. The car— It had lost all its proofing. Too much damage from pokémon attacks. Burnt metal – like a, erhm, welding blowhole, but much larger. Mud, not local soil, looked like ahh, Ground-type attack residue. Buckled metal, too."

"Not explainable by low-quality materials I'm guessing?" ventured Laura.

Piston shook his head and vibrated gently. "Nuh-uh. Hit by someone strong. Real strong."

He stomped the engine cover plate resting nearby with one massive leg. It clanged, but did not so much as bend.

"Much stronger than you?" asked Laura.

He nodded. "...Yeagh. Real strong."

 

[Phoenixsong]

Well. Good to know someone was finally willing to be reasonable about this. Leaf shook Buck's ear with a hoof and it wasn't even weird anymore or anything. Mostly. Hooves, man.

The damage definitely sounded gnarly. Had Brisa (and her attackers) really done all that alone? (Could they do that?) It hadn't sounded that bad from Jade's description, but maybe the fight had continued for a while afterward. The Covenant or whoever must've been real desperate to grab Brisa... hopefully she'd gotten away okay.

"You want to know, too," she said, looking between Whistler and Buck, politely telling the voice in the back of her head to shut up because clearly they weren't mad about it anymore. "What happened. But you had to tell people it was something else... how come? Just so you didn't cause a fuss, or...?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Ground-type attacks," Jade repeated, tapping a paw against her other arm. "Yeah, that'd probably be the gang of Croagunk. There was a lot of Mud Shot flying around. But then... why'd the report try to pass it off as failed parts? Wouldn't that look worse on the company?" Unless someone else was trying to keep the incident on the down low?

"And, uh... I don't suppose any of the damage looked like lightning?" Jade ventured.

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Yeagh," mumbled Piston, seemingly trying to hide behind his own legs. "Lightning, or a strong Electric-type."

"Coulda been the Ground attacks were to put down an Electric sucker," remarked the Carracosta railworker, pulling away from his colleagues to spend his attention on the locomotive, while Buck's eyes were elsewhere.

Whistler exchanged a glance with Buck before answering, and again, he nodded his approval.

"Head office would rather have it out with the suppliers about part quality than let the public think the trains could get attacked on the way to Novelux," she explained. "As far as they'll admit publicly, nobody was even on the lost car."

"It's gotta involve the terrorists," muttered the Carracosta, grimly. "Only thing that makes sense."

"Easy, Sledge," said Buck, quietly.

Carracosta Sledge shot a dark look over his shoulder at everyone else.

"Head office is covering it up 'cause the heelers can't look weak for not doing anything about the terrorists."

Buck's foot tapped the concrete. "Sledge. Can it."

Whistler rolled her eyes. "Maybe head office just wants to keep their customers. And get their insurance claims."

"Maybe," muttered Sledge.

 

[Phoenixsong]

"There are terrorists?" Hm. Would blurting that out just egg Sledge on? Probably it'd just egg him on. Which might help them get more information, but also Buck might not appreciate it. Eh, whatever, too late to unsay it now. "I mean, in general—are there already people around who'd do things like that?

"Guess it makes sense the big bosses wouldn't want stories like that going around even if it wasn't true, though," Leaf added, thinking. "But... they said no one was on that car? They're not worried other folks might say something else, like anyone else who's missing someone, or anyone who was there and wanted to complain?"

 

[Butterfree]

Jesus Christ. Laura may be promising not to report on any of this, and realistically all it would do would probably be to get some workers who had nothing to do with it fired, but the ridiculous fucking cover-up the higher-ups were pulling stank to high heaven.

"So, uh, terrorists? What terrorists are we talking about there? Are you saying there are already terrorists carrying out attacks on trains that are getting covered up?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Carracosta Sledge grumbled something under his breath as he continued to tinker with the engine. Diggersby Buck eyed him for a moment, then cleared his throat.

"There're plenty of rumours," he said, adjusting his glasses. "Pokémon going missing, unsolved murders, unexplained arson of a warehouse in Copperridge. Things of that nature. The thing about terrorism, though, is it comes with political demands of some kind, don't it? And it's all hush-hush. Now, I don't like to speculate about things on which I'm no expert..."

Nidoqueen Whistler chuckled humourlessly. "We think it's organised crime," she said, putting forward what Buck wouldn't say. "Some kinda gang. Like those 'mirror' guys."

"Or the Barovelt Group," said another 'mon, quiet enough not to be identified.

"Still say it's the Vanguard," said Sledge, speaking up louder.

A syllable escaped Laura's mouth before she bit her tongue and coughed the outburst away.

"Uh, since we're new in town," she said, recovering, "who are these groups you're talking about?"

Buck sniffed. "You got your work cut out for you. I'll tell you this much – there's some crime spree the heelers are pinning on the 'Miror Gang' or 'Team Miror' or something like that – thugs come here from someplace else. The Barovelt Group is an industrial conglomerate. They do a lot of business in Novelux, and while there's talk of them being in cahoots with the mafia, there's no reason to believe that's anything more than slander against the only big business in town that's pro-union."

And the Vanguard? said Laura, with a raised eyebrow.

"And the Vanguard are some kinda vigilante organisation," rumbled Buck, rubbing his knuckles against his chin. "Nobody knows much about them, but the tabloids like to pin every unsolved crime on them, lately. Some solved ones, too."

"We know there's a coverup," muttered Sledge.

"Uhuh. One decoupled car, no missing persons reports, and as many passengers stepped off in Novelux as there were tickets bought in Magna City," reeled off Buck.

He didn't sound like he believed it. But it was probably his responsibility to keep Sledge from getting started on a conspiracy theorist rant...

 

[Phoenixsong]

Leaf's ear twitched in Laura's direction. Sooo they weren't mentioning the Vanguard, then? That hitch there sounded like "we're not mentioning that we've met the Vanguard". Okay, sure. Not like Leaf had met them personally anyway. Laura had, though, and based on what she'd said at the meeting it sounded like this was... more than she'd expected they'd do? Weren't they supposed to be mad about the Covenant specifically? (Did they think the Covenant was in control here?)

She wasn't getting any "not allowed" vibes on the other name she recognized, though, which was good because it was a lot harder not to be visibly annoyed about it. "I've met Team Miror, once. Unfortunately." She rolled her eyes. "They're dangerous, I guess. Wouldn't humor 'em with organized." Archie was supposed to be on their trail, wasn't he? Hopefully it wouldn't be long before he rounded them up for good and they could all return to a world where Disco Duck was not somehow a legit threat.

Still, that was a lot. It was one thing if the higher-ups were just trying to avoid scaring customers away, but if that wasn't it... what would the mob or the Vanguard or some rich guys here in the city want with Brisa? Covenant still seemed more likely, Leaf supposed. Maybe Buck and crew just didn't know about them. But were they responsible for all of this... everything else, too?

"And all this other stuff's just been happening recently?" she asked Buck. "Big swing in activity, for no real reason?" Had to be some kinda reason, of course. Hard to shake the feeling at least some of it had something to do with why they were here.

 

[Butterfree]

"Well, clearly not all the passengers stepped off in Novelux." Dave narrowed his eyes. The Vanguard getting officially blamed for everything made sense, he supposed, but what with the coverup and the fact they were obviously the acceptable target, it was almost inevitable it didn't actually have anything to do with them. The 'Miror Gang'... Well, they were Cipher, at least, but based on what he'd heard, he was skeptical of that ridiculous-sounding trio being behind elaborate conspiracies. "This all sounds incredibly fishy. You guys don't want to get to the bottom of this bullshit? I mean, obviously you're already not swallowing the company's party line."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Laura caught the message from Leaf, and shot her a creditable poker face.

If they think the Vanguard are terrorists, we don't want to sound like we're tight with them, she sent, silently, but if they sympathise with them, we don't want to sound like we're hunting them down. Right?

It wasn't as if you could just ask someone 'hey, do you think those guys are scumbag terrorists or noble heroes?' and get a calm, measured response, though.

Buck grimaced. The idea of stonewalling the truth clearly didn't sit easy with him, especially when the company line was such obvious nonsense. But his job was to keep things steady – so long as he figured he could do that, he'd probably keep trying...

Sledge sniffed, and put a wrench down a little too heavy a clungk. "Been sayin' there must be someone missing," he rumbled.

Whistler clicked her tongue. "It's true, though. Number of tickets was a match for passengers disembarked."

"...Technically," came a sort of stony whimper from Piston.

Laura's eyes narrowed. "Wait, what did he mean technically?"

Buck shot Piston a warning look that froze him solid. Don't say another word.

But if Piston started talking, that was probably it for stonewalling... Someone just had to get him to spill.

 

[Butterfree]

Jesus. "Technically how?" Dave repeated, looking directly at Piston. "It sounds like you've got shit you want to tell us. Look, we're not planning to do anything to make things difficult for for you. We just want to find this girl."

 

[Phoenixsong]

"You've all been a big help—" now, at least, sheesh "—but we were gonna end up looking into this one way or another, whether or not you said anything. So if it's something we would've done anyway, there's no reason for anyone to know we heard a word here, right? We'll go find our missing passenger, and you guys can just go back to work, and you'll know somebody's still out there figuring it out—somebody who isn't you guys risking your jobs. If anything happens, it's on us, not you." She gave Piston and Buck a confident smile. "Simple enough, yeah?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

There was no helping the anxious Gigalith. He crumbled under Dave's gaze.

"It was only technically," explained Piston, as Buck sighed into his paw, "because, at first they thought they caught a fare-dodger. Some Rattata kid from Magna. And this kid, he said, he said that he lost his ticket while on the train. On the missing Then, when head office called up Magna, checked the sales... turns out there's a missing ticket after all. Must have been on the lost car. He, uh... Got away with it?"

Laura peered at Piston. "Okay, so... The missing ticket was the Luxio's? That's what you're implying?"

Piston fidgeted as only a massive mineral formation could, while Buck tapped his foot irritably on the workspace floor. He'd been looking at Leaf, considering her reassurances. At last, he seemed to deflate a little, and take the path of less resistance.

"Alright, alright," he muttered. "Look, there've been plenty of different 'attacks' and crimes in town lately, like we were talking about. People blame the Mirror Guys, the Vanguard, whoever. But whatever happened to that train wasn't either of them. Mirrors rolled into town much more recently, from the west; don't you ask me how I'm so sure about the other thing. Hrrghm."

Laura just took notes, quietly observing.

"Like I said, I don't know any Luxio. And it's a big city, probably plenty of every species under the sun living here, somewhere. But... even though I feel uneasy about this, I can tell you that your friend didn't get picked up by the heelers, didn't stop by a poorhouse, and didn't have anything to do with the Vanguard."

Well. That was interesting.

Buck coughed, and glanced at his crew. "Anyone got anything else they wanna share, while we're being helpful?"

It looked like that Heracross was about to say something...

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade was pretty sure she understood what Laura was getting at well enough regarding the Vanguard. She hadn’t met them directly, only heard about them after the duel at Bedaurejo. They’d reluctantly been willing to leave the Wayfarers alone. And, well, maybe they were involved in some stuff that looked like terrorism, but this didn’t seem like it was them…

But then Buck started listing all the places that Brisa definitely wasn’t, and Jade started feeling like this was going nowhere, until—

“Hang on!” Phillip said suddenly, flaring her wing coverings. “I just remembered—weren’t there a Luxio tearing up the Dome a few months back?” the Heracross asked, jabbing her elbow into into Jam’s side.

“I dunno,” the Raboot replied, impassive.

“C’mon, I know you heard the announcer plain as day, we were sittin’ by the same radio. Wanna say this was in the month o’ Charge…?”

“Wait, an announcer?” Jade cut in hurriedly, ears pricked. “At the ‘Dome’?”

Phillip spread her clawed forelimbs and put on a dramatic air, in a deep voice: “Now entering from the red corner, give it up the wildcat of the west… BLUUUUEE MESAAAAAA!”

 

[Phoenixsong]

"Dome? Like for battling?" With a red corner and everything, huh. It almost sounded like they'd been listening to a pro wrestling match. Kind of a weird thing to do after getting chased off a train—also kind of a badass thing?—but if Brisa liked battles as much as most of the Escarpa... Leaf raised her eyebrows at Jade, wondering if that sounded like something she might do.

Charge was... she still didn't have a great handle on the calendar here. Two months ago? But that was way after the Wayfarers had all arrived here. So if that was Brisa, it sounded like she'd hung out here for a while. After that, though...

"Haven't heard anything about Blue Mesa since, though, right?" she asked Phillip. "'S'that normal, for someone to drop out of the Dome after a while, even if they've been winning a lot?" Two months, and then literal radio silence. Still definitely better than nothing to go on at all.

 

[Butterfree]

Vanguard sympathizers over here, apparently. Might explain some of the reluctance, if everyone thought they were terrorists.

The news about the Luxio was more interesting. He'd heard something about a sports battling venue in Novelux. Some weird gut feeling he couldn't quite put his finger on told him this had to be Brisa, that she'd do that. The Escarpa thing, right? They all liked fighting, right?

"So this was after the train derailment? How long was she doing that?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade dared to let her heart leap. That definitely sounded like Brisa.

Phillip swirled a claw in the air. "Fighters come and go, but when they're that good, they usually stick around awhile."

Jade put a paw to her chin, tail swishing. "She might've had to move on after that." As for why she'd joined in the first place... money, possibly?

"Haven't heard since," Phillip added with a nod toward Leaf. "Wanna say she was there for a month?" The Heracross threw an inquisitive glance at Jam.

Raboot Jam sighed exaggeratedly, tugging on one of his ears. “Two and a half weeks. Domeheads made a real fuss at the bar. Hard to forget."

 

[Butterfree]

"And nobody's seen her since, is what you're saying? Think the 'domeheads' might know more?"

 

[Phoenixsong]

"A 'fuss' like they were just excited about the new challenger? Or like they were upset at something that happened?"