Taleska Ghost Town, N/A

[Jackie Cat]

Jesse sniffed. "Can't exactly have night and day 'neath the surface like this, can you?"

Lopunny pointed up, towards the nearest gaslamp. "Our lights dim and brighten with the sky above." (The hissing flame guttered in its cage.)

Noctowl cocked his head, repeatedly, each movement evoking the hands of a ticking clock.

"Two hours remain," he cooed, softly. "One hour has been spent."

Jesse hissed through his teeth. It certainly hadn't been anything like an hour. Which meant they didn't have anything like two hours left.

"Time doesn't mean much down here," he warned Dave. "Fuckin' dungeons, y'know. The time is whatever the time wants to be."

He scanned the apparitions, wondering if he could guess guilt. Something told him the dungeon wouldn't let him get away with scapegoating someone. It wouldn't be that easy. But he had to move the conversation back to someone other than Dave, either way.

"You, Scrafty. Thievul. You were havin' a contentious argument a moment ago. Do either of you have a genuine and sober-minded suspicion of the other?"

He stepped forwards, willing the bickering and paranoia to fall on one of these poor fellows, and not the living dog he needed to get out of here.

"He ain't from 'round 'ere," drawled Scrafty, hands at his hips as if he were about to draw a revolver right then and there.

"The gentlemon giving me the evil eye is eager not to have his whereabouts questioned," growled Thievul, smooth and dark.

The rest of the crowd began to close in.

 

[Butterfree]

Some freaky fucking definition of two hours, huh. Dave swallowed bile. At least, if this was anything like the party games he'd gotten roped into at college once or twice, there was supposed to be an actual culprit or culprits to find. And these idiots sure weren't going to find them if their idea of how to do that began and ended with He ain't from around here.

He looked between the Scrafty and Thievul. "Okay, well, does either of you have an alibi? Somebody who can vouch for where you've been for the past few hours?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Scrafty's head twitched, and for a moment, his expression seemed acutely, gauntly real.

"I were mendin' Ms. Nidorina's fence, as a favour, weren't I? You'd have to wait to ask her about that, though. On account of her health an' all. This one? Ain't nobody saw him up to anythin' good. Nobody."

Thievul's smile didn't reach his eyes. "The good gentlemon forgets I was settling accounts at the assay office. Mrs. Unfezant can attest to my being there for some time today, arguing compensation – as one does, 'uh? But this fellow, I notice he does not claim a witness who can speak for him..."

"What're you implyin'?" snarled Scrafty.

"Hang fire," interrupted Jesse, putting out a palm like it were a spell of arrest. "Why can't Nidorina testify?"

Noctowl coughed mildly. "She takes laudanum this time a' day, sir. Enough to put her deep in the blackest sleep. It's for her pains."

"Which leaves our friend here without alibi, no?" pressed Thievul, his eyes hungry.

 

[Butterfree]

Oh, convenient. Totally an alibi, but the one person who can confirm it is out of commission. "Okay, so, mending her fence? Is that an outdoor fence? Anyone else who would've gone by and could confirm if they saw you there? Neighbors who might've looked out their windows? Anything?" Dave looked around at the other phantasms. "And where's, uh, Mrs. Unfezant? Any chance to fetch her to corroborate? And what about everyone else? Do you all have alibis?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Slow your roll a li'l there, partner," said Jesse, out of the corner of his mouth. The last thing he wanted was for these ghosts to start paying too much attention to Dave, or acting like he was trying to pull a fast one on them by hammering them with so many questions.

He glanced upriver, then downriver.

"Maybe it's just my eyesight, but I don't see any ranches down here," he drawled, focusing his attention on Scrafty. "What fences are these, then?"

"Fences fer keepin' folks from tumblin' into the gusher," answered Scrafty, with a touch of contempt. "'S'important."

Jesse looked around. "Any of you fine folks as can vouch fer your neighbour here?" He asked.

No appendages were raised.

"Well, that's a hard fortune, mister," murmured Thievul. "I'll say a prayer over your casket."

Scrafty's face contorted with rage as the apparitions began to whisper morbid norions amongst themselves.

"N–no," he stammered, "no, he did it, he's the sonofabitch we're after. I saw, I saw him, I say, with li'l Annie, bendin' her ear, puttin' his paws on her, an' she wouldn't have it. That's why he done it, I tell you. He's a jealous hunter, an' he wouldn't take her rejection but fer a wound!"

There were hushed breaths from the ghosts. Thievul's stance lowered as if to pounce.

Jesse levelled a digit at Scrafty. "An' how come you didn't mention this before?"

"W–well, you, uh, y'know." If the lizard could sweat, he surely would've. "Can't go accusin' a 'mon like that, runnin' yer mouth, 'less you're damn sure, or you gotta speak up. An' if it's my skin on the line, 'course I'll mention any damn true thing as'd help me, right?"

Jesse shook his head. "That's weak ale," he said. "Where were you when y'saw this, anyhow?"

"The bar," came the quick reply.

"If you saw me there, I sure didn't see you, friend," hissed Thievul.

"The saloon, huh?" growled Jesse. "And what were you doin' there that this fella didn't catch wind of ya?"

Scrafty's eyes flicked to the crowd. The expressions they wore weren't forgiving.

"B-behind the counter," he admitted, with a speck of defiance. "I were lookin' fer coin. I got light fingers, an' I'll admit to that if it's what spares me a hangin' sentence. I didn't even pilfer anythin', I was too busy listenin' on this one!"

Lopunny's mouth drew back in fury. "You'll be lucky if I only ban you from the premises," he threatened.

"Fine! But he's the one who had motive, weren't he?? I knew Annie fer a childhood friend, how'd I ever bring harm on her, huh??"

Scrafty pointed a quivering digit at Thievul, whose eyes had grown dark.

"Well now I know it had to be you, you scoundrel," he said, in a low voice. "Because the poor miss there? She was fairly delighted by my attentions, sir. She agreed to share a drink with me tonight, in fact. Now tell me, why would I hurt a lady whose pleasant company I were so eagerly anticipating, 'uh? I think I know just what happened. I think you had eyes for Annie, and you couldn't stand to see a vaquero with fancy airs courting your sweetheart, 'uh?"

Thievul's nostrils flared.

"And that's the scent of her perfume I smell on you, blaggard. It is, is it not?"

The preacher Noctowl fixed Jesse with the widest of eyes.

"Sheriff, you must make the call."

Jesse's teeth bit into his own cheek. Fuck. He shot a look to Dave for any sign at all that the Mightyena had some insight. The crowd were shuffling towards the two accused accusers, teeth bared. The gaslamps flickered, and dimmed.

Out of time...

 

[Butterfree]

Fuck. What the fuck. He hadn't believed the Scrafty for a moment when he'd suddenly brought up that he'd conveniently forgotten to mention the guy he was accusing sexually harassing the victim, but then the fucking Thievul had freely confessed that he had been chatting her up at the saloon. Dave looked between the two, the gas lamps flickering at the edges of his vision. "Anyone at all who can corroborate any of that? Saw this guy and Annie together at the bar, or can confirm if that guy smells of her perfume, or whatever the fuck? Lopunny, I take it you're the bartender? You see any of this shit going down?"

Christ, it didn't even fucking matter. None of these people were real. Just a bunch of fake fucking dungeon illusions setting up a fucked-up puzzle. There was no murder, no mob, no real consequences to any of this.

As the crowd closed in, the Scrafty's hand trembled, the lizard's eyes wide with fear.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Lopunny didn't take his eyes off Scrafty.

"I saw the Thievul in my establishment, yes. We serve anyone who leaves their weapons at the door."

"Annie told me she liked Tenacine accents," offered Mudsdale, her voice anxious and uncertain.

"Scrafty's a fuckin' thief," snarled Granbull. "I knew it. The bastard's got gamblin' debts."

"That's not relevant to the case," warned Jesse, putting a palm up.

"Sure it is! Means he's got low character."

"So does he smell of it or not?"

"Sure he does!"

"You're just smelling her body!"

"Hang the Thievul!" shrieked Scrafty, shaking, "not me, the Thievul, hang him!"

Gods, this was fucked up. This was probably how it happened. Or close enough to it, anyway. The trauma of it bleeding through time and space for anyone who ended up here to witness, again and again. There probably wasn't any way to make it right, or even lessen the evil of it. That wasn't the kind of place this was. Was it...?

"He... He should stand trial in front of a jury of his peers," said Jesse, stepping forward.

Noctowl put a wing on his chest, and pressed him back.

"There's no judge here, lawman," said the preacher bird. "There's no court. There's only this."

The burlier phantasms stepped forward to take Scrafty by his arms.

They weren't real. They were ghosts of the long-damned. Saving Scrafty wouldn't save a living person, it'd only risk the two of them not getting the fuck out of this goddamn place.

Jesse still bit his lip hard enough to bleed.

 

[Butterfree]

"I saw the Thievul in my establishment, yes. We serve anyone who leaves their weapons at the door."

"Okay, but did you see him with her? Did she seem into it or no?" (Not that it'd be proof of fucking anything if she had been, other than that Scrafty'd been embellishing what he claimed to have seen to grasp for an alternate suspect.) "Do any of you have any actually useful information?"

If there was an answer, it was lost in the noise of the phantasms squabbling back and forth. Jesse was there in the middle of it trying to talk some sense about how justice was supposed to work only to be flatly ignored. Multiple sets of hands grabbed the Scrafty's arms from behind, dragging him away as he yelled.

God, fuck this dungeon. How were they even supposed to get a good idea of what'd happened out of this irrational mob in the space of minutes of confusion and panic and back-and-forth accusations? What kind of fucking game was this?

He wanted to yell something about how they clearly cared more about slaking their fucked-up bloodlust than about actually finding out who'd killed this girl, but the words stuck in his throat, nauseating. Not real. What did it matter anyway? They were just the audience to the dungeon's morbid little play. Maybe, when they'd eliminated Scrafty, they'd get to flip over a little card and it'd just say if he was guilty. At least that'd be an actual bit of reliable information.

The lizard struggled madly in the phantasms' grip, eyes practically popping out of his skull.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Lopunny shot Dave a look of cold hostility. Why was he even asking? Don't make him testify as to whether the foreign fox was gentlemanly enough, and have a hanging hinge on that verdict. He wouldn't speak up. Not now.

The choice had been made. Scrafty, terrified, was the last to accept it – he struggled vainly, still trying to excuse himself, to appeal to prejudices about the Tenacine.

Jesse felt sick. He wondered what he last ate, and if he was about to find out for certain. (He sometimes did, if he didn't look away; yet looking away always felt disrespectful, whatever that was worth. Did it count if it wasn't a real person?) He grimaced, bitterness filling his mouth.

At least... At least it would be over soon.

'Soon' was relative. In actual fact, the minutes taken to bind Scrafty's hands, march him to the gallows, and put the noose around his neck felt like twenty times as long as they were. When Jesse refused to declare the crimes and sentence, Noctowl did it in his place. The bird even spared some breath to commend the culprit's soul to the heavens, in some hazy mish-mash of religious verbiage. A dreamlike blend of Wishmaker Church doctrine, Taleskan folk beliefs, Jesse's hazy memories of his parents' faith, and Dave's clearer memories of evangelical sectarianism on his Earth. It wasn't real.

When they kicked the stool away, and the lizard's legs jumped and flailed, it wasn't real.

The strangled sounds from his throat – not real.

The smell, too. The scrape of his tail on the wooden boards. The panic in his eyes.

Not real.

 

[Butterfree]

Dave looked away as they took him. At the Noctowl reading out empty religious prattle, at Jesse who stayed staring towards the gallows with deep, nauseous distaste etched onto his face. At the shouting mob of fake people eager to watch a fake guy executed for a fake crime. None of this mattered. None of it made a lick of goddamn sense. Why even fucking dignify it by watching it?

All the same, his eyes flicked towards the sound of the rope snapping taut. The Scrafty writhed as he choked, limbs flailing in feeble spasms, and Dave's stomach roiled as he pointed his gaze back at the ground below his feet. He heard it, still, even then, twitching limbs dancing in his mind's eye.

"Great," he said past the acidic taste in his mouth. "Are we done now?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Jesse grit his teeth. "We'd better be," he muttered.

Up on the gallows, Scrafty stopped moving. He swayed, slowly, then stilled. Then, the gaslamps flickered – and went out.

Dave and Jesse each felt a kind of temporal vertigo, as 'night' passed. It might've been twenty seconds, it might've been six hours. Then it was over, and the lamplight returned, and they woke up in separate rooms at the saloon.

Jesse pulled himself out of bed and his duster back on, downed a glass of water from the rickety sink in his room, and stumbled out and downstairs to find out if it was all over.

The bloodstains on the bar counter told him it wasn't.

"Gods fuckin' damnit," he swore under his breath. "More a' this shit."

They weren't done yet. There remained a killer, and a new body for their trouble – Lopunny, slumped against the liquor shelves, a dark wound where neck met shoulder. Gone.

 

[Butterfree]

Dave blinked hard. What had just happened? He'd felt this weird fucking disorientation and then he was... sleeping in a room? For a split second he thought the whole thing had been an unusually vivid and morbid dream, but no, this wasn't the Haus back in Frontier Town, or any place he knew.

He jerked out of bed and cautiously exited the room to a corridor, then padded down the worn staircase to find himself in a saloon. Jesse Stranger was there, by the bar. Behind it was the limp body of the Lopunny from yesterday(?), his blood splattered across the counter.

"Jesus fuck," he croaked.

He swallowed bile and fixed his gaze back on Jesse. "Look, don't dungeons sometimes have Escape Orbs or whatever lying around? There's got to be an actual way out of this fucking place that isn't just sitting here politely watching a series of murders and lynchings that we have no control over."

He wanted a goddamn drink. Fleetingly he wondered if he could just reach across the counter and grab a bottle of whisky. Clearly Lopunny wouldn't miss it; he was dead, and also not a real fucking person.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Jesse returned Dave's gaze, his own face hard and cold.

"Sure. Sometimes, in the passageways and such. Not in a place like this. And if'n we try to leave... I get the feeling the folks here might not like it too much. I don't trust that I can burn our way out, neither."

The crowd of phantasms was gathering outside. They were already arguing.

"Got a bad feeling we're gonna have to see this through. I'm sorry fer it."

He clenched his fist, and walked towards the doors.

 

[Butterfree]

Dave glanced back at the dead Lopunny, neck crusted over with blood.

"Fuck it. I'm getting out of here."

He accompanied Jesse out the door, saw the crowd of phantasms, and turned and marched towards the edge of town without looking back, ignoring the voices yelling after him. Beyond the outermost gas lamps, their light was swallowed up by darkness, a rough cave floor underfoot. He kept walking straight ahead, waiting to bump into something or else find some other source of light, running water, anything. But there was nothing there but the same rocky floor, flat and dead in the darkness.

He glanced back over his shoulder. The light of the gas lamps was still just there. He kept walking, felt the ground underfoot, and yet the town wasn't receding, as if it'd followed him.

He let out a strangled yelp as something grabbed him from the other side.

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Fleeing the scene of your crime?" said Granbull, in a low growl.

It wasn't that the grip was strong. It was more as if, dream-like, Dave's own muscles wouldn't move when he willed them. His body was slow, heavy, useless.

"You can't walk away from it," hissed the dog, his breath warm and smelling of rot against Dave's face. "You're not leaving this place."

Back by the saloon, Jesse was pushing his way out of the building and past a couple 'mon. Immediately, they set on him, arguing, the Delphox snarling back with authority in his voice, looking over at Dave, the fear in his eyes visible even at a distance.

"They're trying to frame me," came the haunted, desperate voice of Thievul, head down and hackles up. "I'm staying at the saloon – it had to be them, one of them did it while I was asleep!"

"Bullshit," snapped Jesse. "Neither of us had means, motive, or opportunity. I ain't even autopsied that poor fella fer cause of death, and you wanna go castin' 'round blame and conjecture? Ain't you got no shame fer stringin' up that sorry bastard last night, who obviously weren't the murderer t'begin' with?"

"You didn't want anybody punished, sheriff! Why is that? Aren't you supposed to be a law 'mon?"

And so on, vicious and paranoid, spiralling slowly down a vortex with violence at its floor...

 

[Butterfree]

Dave tried to wrestle away from the Granbull and his hot, fetid breath, but felt like he was submerged in sludge, his heart racing uncomfortably in his chest. "The fuck do you mean, my crime?"

"They're trying to frame me," came the haunted, desperate voice of Thievul, head down and hackles up. "I'm staying at the saloon – it had to be them, one of them did it while I was asleep!"

He stared at the fox as he struggled against the Granbull, or the ground, or his own uncooperative muscles, his dry throat tightening. A thundering flash of white-hot anger blacked out his vision. "What the fuck are you talking about?" he barked, voice raw. "If anything it was you. You were with Annie yesterday and Lopunny was the one guy left who'd actually seen you with her!"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Thievul turned his head as if slapped.

"You wound me," he said, the distance between them suddenly only a few paces. "I was courting Annie, was I not? That girl was too beautiful for this ever-dark place, I wanted to take her away from here. That lizard devil's jealousy wouldn't stand for that. And you wouldn't assent to his justice! You took revenge in the night!"

Jesse stepped forward, levelling a clawed finger at the other fox.

"Gag it, you," he commanded, lip pulling back. "Ain't we already 'stablished as there's no way Scrafty coulda been the killer? You're still on that, and you're the reason he died!"

Thievul's eyes widened, and he shrank back, tail puffing.

"Don't you see it, sheriff??" he gasped. "They were conspiring together! You think a lone killer would be so bold as to cut down poor Annie like that? And now with another dead... What motive could there be for ending the barkeep's honest life than revenge?"

He gestured round with tail and muzzle at the other town 'mon. "Would any of you have killed Lopunny? Would any of you have done it for Scrafty's life? You all assented! It must've been one who didn't..."

The Noctowl preacher cast his eyes down and put his wings together in front of himself. "Only two, as I recall it – the sheriff, and the stranger."

Mudsdale whinnied and blew, her un-shoed hooves stamping a nervous rhythm on the boards. "It weren't you, were it, law 'mon? Couldn't've been the sheriff?"

Granbull huffed, shoving Dave forward. "Why didn't the killer go fer the sheriff, anyhow? Maybe it was him."

Thievul shook his head. "Would he have even needed to? This servant of the law has no appetite for justice, as we've all seen."

Jesse's lip twitched in quiet fury. "Frontier justice don't mean killin' anyone you're suspicious of without a goddamn trial," he hissed, in a voice like a gas flame. A glimmer of psychic power flashed in his eyes, but to no effect. The phantasms had no true minds to influence.

"It does here, sheriff," replied Noctowl, solemnly.

 

[Butterfree]

Dave struggled madly against the Granbull's grip, but his body remained sluggish and feeble. Did the dungeon do this? Fuck. At that point it might as well have predetermined the outcome from the start.

"You people are all a bunch of moronic fucking vultures," he snarled as more phantasms grabbed hold of him and pulled. "All of you!"

He wriggled away from a grabbing hand, claws digging into the wood of the boardwalks, but two more latched onto his fur. Dave's paws scrabbled to retain purchase, but the crowd shoved him off his feet. He twisted his head around as they dragged him toward the gallows, a fresh noose hanging from the crossbeam.

Scrafty's body hanging, twisting, choking--

"What the fuck," he breathed, claws sliding uselessly along the ground, heart hammering. "Jesse, what the fuck?!" Were dungeons supposed to be able to do this? A roiling wave of nausea upturned his stomach, blood pounding in his ears. "Burn the rope! Burn the fucking rope!"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Jesse's stomach lurched, his lips pulled back in a feral grimace, his eyes saw a scene from a thousand miles away and a decade ago, he was looking at a body hanging from the gallows and for a hellish second he thought it might be her—

"Get yer fuckin' paws off him," he snarled, raising an empty paw of his own. "I ain't warnin' you another time!"

A flame erupted from his fur, billowed forwards... and went out like a candle in the wind. The gaslamps guttered with it, and the streets sank darker still.

"Lawman didn't fight like that for Scrafty," muttered a voice from the shadows. "Lawman would care to raise fire against the good people of this town. Lawman won't protect us."

Jesse twisted around, looking for the voice, snapping his digits in search of fire – goddamnit, he was human, he had limitless fucking fire in him, dungeon be damned, months of confinement be damned, where was his magic?

"Where's your magic now, Sheriff?"

He spat at the cursed soil of this unholy town and pushed towards the gallows. Insubstantial bodies blocked his own, sapped the warmth from his limbs, left him numbed and weak and gasping on his knees.

"He's not the goddamn killer," he wheezed, still trying to force himself towards the gallows. "He's with me, he's no murderer— Dave! Goddamnit, Dave! Fight 'em! Anything—!"

His voice broke on the command, as if something had punched the air from his lungs. The noose was already around Dave's neck, and there was nothing he could do to save him.

 

[Butterfree]

Jesse was trying, but the dungeon wouldn't let him. Dave snapped his jaws at the dragging hands on him but either he couldn't reach or he had no power to bite down with any force or new hands instantly replaced any that let go. He felt cold Shadow erupting in his chest, but it refused to be directed anywhere, just congealing in his lungs like icy sludge.

"Fuck you," he gasped, limbs flailing, head twisting as thick rope pulled tight around his neck. "None of you are even real--"

The rope pulled upwards, choking out his words with a very real, tangible pressure on his throat. The phantasms bound his limbs together, hoisted his struggling form onto a stool. He pulled in a rasping gulp of air.

He was going home. He was going home to Jean, and this insane fucked-up cowboy world could go fuck itself, and he wouldn't even fucking remember it existed. Good riddance.

(It wouldn't be quick, though. The fall was way too short for a clean neck-snap. He'd hang there and choke slowly. Like Scrafty. Should have just gotten it over with sooner instead of doing all this for fucking nothing, borrowed Odette's gun or something, fuck.)

Noctowl started in on his inane religious thing.

"There is no fucking god," he managed to rasp.

The stool was gone from underneath him. A split second of falling, a blow of blinding pain as his weight slammed the rope into his jaw and crushed his windpipe against his spine. He couldn't breathe but his lungs tried anyway, sending spasms of half-formed coughs through his body, every shift in his weight only tightening the noose.

End, just fucking end, you stupid fucks--

His vision started to blacken finally. Back to Jean. He was just going back to Jean.