Whispers of Odette and Kimiko

[Shadow Serenity]

As new words began to echo around her, Kimiko put connecting the dots on hold and tried to focus on what was being said instead. Unfortunately, she didn't much like the new things she'd heard from this guy - Dorien - any more than the last time he'd opened his mouth. At least now, Odette's echoed responses sounded appropriately irritated.

"You know people in my world talk, right?"

The rest of that line made her uneasy in a way that reminded her of that mauled corpse. Was this before or after he'd learned about the incident? Either way, it was disturbing, as was everything that followed.

But after sifting through the emotions, something about that very first part stuck out. 'His world'? Somehow, Kimiko doubted that Odette's world was frequently visited by off-worlders the way Forlas was, so... he had to mean something different. What did most people mean when they referred to 'their world'? A significant other... or his social standing, perhaps, given his attire...

As if dancing with him hadn't been sickening enough, the unease only grew the more she heard. He was trying to force her into his car? Odette had far more self-control than she knew.

Kimiko hadn't noticed the world around her changing until she felt the heat. She turned her head, Dorien all but forgotten, only for her breath to hitch in her throat, constricted by the string there. Her fingers failed to even slip underneath in her attempts to pry it away, and soon enough she began to cough both from the tightness and the sudden thickness of smoke in the air.

And then she screamed, a burning flare in her arm that came from nowhere. She stared, watching the blemish form on her skin, unable to do anything about it and unsure what would help if she could. Then she saw the fang marks, and two plus two added up instantly. There was a reason professor Spruce had raised a houndoom as part of the lab's security back home.

"It's time that you got the picture, Doll. You're stolen goods. You're cursed. Your body was never yours to begin with, so why fuss about it? Embrace it."

Her head snapped back in his direction only to find... two men staring back at her. And yet, as creepy as he had been originally, this new one was on another level. Kimiko took a step back, only for her ankle to catch on the string there and stumble. When he spoke, the clone spoke too. The exact same words, at the exact same time. If that didn't spell possession, what did? And yet, Kimiko recalled Odette saying something about how ghosts didn't operate that way in her world...?

"What... what does that mean?" she choked out. The string around her neck had stopped tightening at least, but the smoke remained. It was difficult to think with everything on fire around her and this... unnerving freak show and his black-eyed duplicate staring her down. If Odette felt dragged around through life, that would explain the strings and that last comment, but the rest...? "Cursed? Have you looked in a mirror? Or to your left?"

She raised the gun in her hand before she even realized she'd been holding it, the sight of it momentarily distracting. But, unlike that time she'd swiped Biff's gun, she knew - Odette knew - how to use it. The question was, which one did she aim for? (And would it do anything here in this dungeon-manifested nightm- no, stop, don't think like that, it will, why else did it appear in my hand?)

On the left, Dorien; the disturbingly tactless creeper. Everything about him said he needed to be locked up in some padded room somewhere away from another living soul, and it was a miracle he hadn't gotten his teeth bashed in yet, but would Odette have shot him? She had no trouble bashing that professor's face with a pipe... but that was self-defense. Was this?

On the right, the clone; clearly some kind of majorly fucked up entity, and had it been a ghost from her world, this would be a non-issue. Not that a bullet would do much to a ghost, anyway. But this... she couldn't even be sure this was actual possession. It sure sounded like it, but she'd been chewed out for mistaking the two once already. So, was this entity really the source of the problem?

Another echo of a voice rang through her mind, one she was almost sure was one of her own this time...

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re too soft. You couldn’t shoot my pokémon. You can’t even shoot me, and I’m the one who stole from you. Go ahead. Try it. You don’t even have to kill me. Shoot us in the legs, immobilize us. I’m not a gambling man, but I bet you can’t even do that."

She hadn't. She hadn't, and it almost cost her her team.

Finger on the trigger, Kimiko aimed left...

 

[Sinderella]

The bullet shot forward and struck the doppelganger between the eyes. It barely made contact before both forms abruptly melted out of existence, along with what was left of the stage and the auditorium. Once more, Kimiko found herself in a void, though no sounds were present to haunt her this time around. All she would feel was the lasting pressure from the strings despite them no longer being visible. Again, she floated there for ages, and when no scene change occurred, or no sense of a tangible world came back to her, she might have gotten a little nervous.

Then, footsteps. One set, two sets, three sets, four. Getting closer and closer, coming from all directions.

Light soon followed. Not from a spotlight; not from anywhere, really. Just, illumination of a dark space, revealing the horrible faces she'd come across in this nightmarish show she'd been forced into.

The oppressive man. Odette's father.

A doctor and a nurse; both masked.

Odette's assaulter. The spot where his head might have been was replaced by a puff of black smoke.

And Dorien. Back with no doppelganger this time.

None of them beheld her any particular way. What was most jarring about all of them were the strings each one of them held in their hands. They all led to the strings tied around Kimiko's limbs.

Whether she spoke or not, or struggled with the strings yet again or not, she would soon feel a set of arms snake around her shoulders. They weren't threatening; in fact, Kimiko might find them comforting, save for the fact that she couldn't see who the arms were attached to.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

This voice would be familiar. The same voice that came out of Odette's maw whenever she had it unchained.

"I know that's a downside of possession. This blood of yours. There's times where it feels like your body's not yours."

"My body was never mine to begin with, Odile, so what difference does it make?"

Odette sounded tired. Unsurprised. Yet there was still a weight in her voice that would put a knot in Kimiko's stomach.

Next thing she knew, she was weightless again.

With the second loss of her corporeal form, she'd find she'd have more room to roam the endless area. The former threats standing before her lost body wouldn't move, nor would they notice her. They'd still be locked in on Odette--or rather, what Odette was turning into.

Kimiko would turn in time to watch that black dress stretch over her friend's former human shape, covering her in entirety as she grew, and grew, and twisted, and expanded. No sound came out of her, which either meant the process was painless, or she'd grown too tired to stress her pain any longer. When all movement settled, no longer was she a human.

What stood in Odette's place was a dragon of bramble. A horrifying, toothy head helmed a gargantuan body of smoldering wood and wings made from splintered trees and thorns. Yet, despite this thing's monstrous form, it hung its head shamefully, still under the reins of the strings that had lassoed the human girl from before.

Yet again, Kimiko could hear Odette's voice, evidently coming from this creature.

"Not that a monster ever deserve that kind of autonomy. In the end, this was all deserved, wasn't it?"​

 

[Shadow Serenity]

Nearly the moment she took the shot, everything faded around her, and Kimiko immediately wondered if she'd aimed for the wrong one (or maybe I wasn't supposed to fire at all, but then why would the dream have put the gun in my hands, it had to expect me to...). Time, however long it was, continued to pass with nothing happening around her, and she began to wonder if maybe choosing wrong had broken the dungeon somehow. She found herself wishing something, anything would happen, just to know she didn't have to look forward to an eternity of drifting aimlessly in the dark. The void was eerie and silent, and though she still had no sense of time, it sure felt like she'd been stranded for a long while...

When something finally happened, she wished it hadn't. Floating aimlessly in the void for eternity wasn't exactly appealing, but in this moment, it beat confronting all the echoes of the horrors of Odette's past (for a second time, all at once). She braced herself for a fight, keenly aware of her bonds, each one leading to one of these shades...

Kimiko jumped at the arms around her shoulders. It was an involuntary reaction to sudden surprise; the arms themselves - and the voice that came with them, for she just knew they belonged to the speaker - felt more like a protector than anything threatening.

"I know that's a downside of possession. This blood of yours."

This time, Kimiko struggled to remember, but that day in the scrapyard came back to her again... had Odette said something about being possessed? Or maybe it was when she questioned the second mouth back in Sun Stone...

For a place devoid of time, the dungeon sure gave Kimiko precious few moments to ponder this before her perspective was once again forcibly shifted. She watched with building horror as her Odette's body morphed into something else entirely. Some kind of giant bramble dragon, a terrifying creature that Kimiko swore she recognized from some nightmare long since forgotten. (And who was to say the familiarity wasn't just a lingering sensation from being inside Odette's head?)

"Not that a monster ever deserve that kind of autonomy. In the end, this was all deserved, wasn't it?"

At that moment, Kimiko recognized the strings still bound to the dragon-thing, and suddenly it all clicked. Did Odette consider herself the monster? That, for all that things that she'd been through, somehow she deserved it all?

"Odette, girl, when I wake up, I am going to smack you."

<><><><><>​

 

[Shadow Serenity]

Meanwhile...​

Odette would find herself scrambling into a seated position in a cold sweat, her breathing sharp and erratic. The hooting of a noctowl would draw her attention to the window on her right, where surprisingly bright silver moonlight streamed in through a window, painting the room in a silvery-blue hue. She appeared to be in a very small hotel room - she might recognize it as a trainer's lodge inside a pokémon center if she'd ever been to one. Decoration was sparse; a desk with a small television off to the left next to a closed door, an open door leading to a bathroom on the opposite bare wall, a chair in the corner. A meganium lay curled up on the floor beside the open door, her antennae raised.

Odette sat in the bed, shielding herself with the covers. She would only have a moment to take in her surroundings before a familiar, comforting pressure landed on her back. She'd look over to see a man laying down beside her, rubbing his eye as though he'd just been rudely awakened; Odette couldn't tell much about him in this lighting other than his hair was short and messy, and the color appeared to be rather light, but the sight of him brought a wave of relief. His closer hand was outstretched behind her. It calmly and slowly rubbed her back, and Odette would instinctively synchronize her breathing with it: Up, breath in. Down, breath out.

Moments later, another pressure would appear in her lap. Should Odette look down, she'd find an espeon had appeared there, curled up onto a ball, her head against Odette's stomach. She purred, sending comforting vibrations though Odette's body, further helping her relax.

And yet, despite these things bringing her comfort and reminding her she was safe, Odette would feel more below the surface. Frustration, and... embarrassment? Shame? Not directed at her company nor their actions, but at herself.

Beside her, a very groggy-sounding voice would ask, "Which one?"