Chương 70: Interlude - Investigations

"Growlithe, Takedown!" With a roar of crunching steel, the bulkhead door folded, torn asunder by the Fire-type's vicious onslaught.

"Hydro Pump Tentacruell!" the frantic directive was shouted in Kantonian (which Looker mentally translated), and came from a grizzled-looking woman in a rumpled captain's uniform. It was shortly followed by a bevy of orders from the rest of the bridge crew, various Water and Fighting-types adding to the barrage. The International Police Officer didn't even need to give a command, simply stepping to the side so Guardian's Voltorb could roll into the breach.

"Voltorb, torb!" the Electric-type howled defiantly as his shell took on a mirror-like sheen. The ineffective attacks bounced off the Ball Pokémon, his Mirror coat returning the projectiles to their progenitors at double the strength. The smugglers' Pokémon rocked back, struck by their own moves and in the interim made by the brave Voltorb's efforts, the rest of the International Police Squad stormed into the room.

The battle quickly devolved into a brutal melee as officers directed their Pokémon to knock out their opponents so they could apprehend the men and women standing behind them, and Looker was right in the thick of it, directing his Growlithe to dodge around the captain's Tentacruel. He had faith in his squad's abilities, but of all the gathered smugglers, the heavily-sweating captain looked the most dangerous.

It wasn't just that her partner was particularly strong (though that was the case), or that she had a keener awareness of the battlefield than her crew (though that was also true). No, what made Looker step past the brawl to confront the captain personally was the stinking air of desperation leaking off the middle-aged woman. The rest of her crew seemed mostly resigned. They were fighting because, well, that's what you did when you were caught by the cops.

What self-respecting criminal wouldn't at least battle it out before going down? But the captain was different. Her eyes twitched frantically, looking for avenues of escape where there were none, and unless the experienced officer was off his game today, it wasn't going to be too long before the woman tried something dangerous. His well-honed instincts were unfortunately validated when the woman's hands twitched to her belt.

She released two more Pokémon in quick succession, a Golduck and a Seadra, and shouted another order in Kantonian, this one directed at her crew, instead of her Pokémon: "Gloves off you scoundrels. Give 'em everything you've got!""' Mons free, you are cleared for appropriate force!" Looker shouted in turn, as the snap hiss of more opening Poké Balls from the smugglers' side was met by the same in turn from his officers.

The already-crowded bridge was soon full to bursting as two, three, and sometimes even four Pokémon per human rapidly filled the available space. The brutal melee turned from frantic to dangerous, as rogue moves and flying combatants put the human participants at risk. Not his officers, all of them had experienced Psychic-types or defensive specialists acting as their protection. No, the ones in danger were the men and women of the bridge crew. And to some of their credit, they seemed to know it.

A solid third of the woman's crew had surrendered instantly at the woman's desperate order, recalling their Pokémon and cramming themselves along the walls of the room with arms up. Loyalty only took you so far, and the clever ones had to know that while some battling during an arrest was normal, expected even, breaking the standard conventions of a fair and even match was liable to see the entire book thrown at you.

Behavior during arrest could dramatically affect the length and severity of sentencing, and the fact that the captain was willing to go this far meant they had a real whopper on the line here. Now they just needed to reel it in.

"Croagunk, isolate that Golduck, Growlithe, keepaway, Chimecho, suppress the Tentacruel." The orders were clipped, measured, but his team were more than capable of interpreting them as necessary, moving to suppress their opponents with measured precision. The International Police Officer suppressed a wince as a stray Water Gun took another smuggler off his feet. Hopefully they'd be able to haul in their catch before it hurt itself too much with its struggling.

- To torture the fishing metaphor even further, they'd found a Milotic where they'd gone looking for Feebas.

"Now what do we have here?" Seeker asked, dropping her crowbar with an almost disdainful gesture. The metal implement clattered the deck, as the woman wrenched the rest of the crate open by hand, exposing its contents to the dim, electric bulbs hanging in the cargo hold. Glittering underneath the soft, flickering lighting were sample containers housing orange, glowing crystals.

The odd minerals were all damaged in some way, cracked or splintered or mostly pulverized, but that didn't stop them from pulsing with an eerie, inner light.

"No, seriously, what do we have here?" Seeker asked again, the woman's smug confidence giving way to uncertainty, "I mean, what the hell is this stuff boss, never seen anything like it before." Her Pokémon clearly agreed, the Herdier sniffing the containers gingerly, his jowls sagging in confusion.

"No idea Seeker, that's for the researchers to figure out. Tag it and move on." Looker was already turning away, heading for the next crate, when something made him stop. He did a double-take to make certain he wasn't losing it, but the scene in front of him remained the same. Somehow, inexplicably, both Seeker and Whitley's eyes were glowing orange, the exact same shade as the crystals said eyes were fixed on..

"I dunno boss, I bet Whitley and I can figure it out," the woman told him, fishing one of the containers out of the crate.

"Let me just open this thing up and get a better look at this bad boy."

"Seeker!" Looker shouted, his voice echoing off the hold's metal walls. Her Pokémon snapped out of it first, the Herdier shaking his head and letting out a few impassioned barks. The calls from her partner caused the woman to stop, confusion etched on her face, and Looker seized the opportunity to snatch the container away.

He made sure not to look at it too closely, nor at the rest of the contents of the crate, as he dropped what he was holding inside with its fellows and sealed the whole thing back up again by pulling the lid back over the collection. The dull buzzing he hadn't even realized he'd been hearing abruptly ceased, as the sickly orange light from the glowing crystals was smothered by the wooden lid. Seeker blinked a few times, before a full-body shudder wracked the woman.

"Boss… boss, what the fuck was that?"

"I don't know, Seeker," Looker replied grimly, "but this Enigma Corporation paid someone a lot of money to smuggle it into Orre." They'd apprehended these smugglers expecting trafficked Pokémon, or illicit drugs. Serious crimes in of themselves, certainly, but somehow, Looker had a feeling that he and his team were on the cusp of something far, far worse. He could only pray that his usually-precise instincts were off on this subject. He wasn't holding out on a lot of hope. - Another boring day in the office.

Bounce. Better that than the alternative though. Bounce. Because when things weren't boring, that meant there was a serious problem. Bounce. Sigurn caught the bouncy ball's latest rebound, but before he could toss the little rubbery sphere again, the door leading out to reception slammed open with a crash.

"There's been another one!" a breathless officer shouted to her colleagues, holding up a corded phone like it was evidence, the poor wire connecting it to its docks stretched completely straight, " The Killer has struck again!" Sigurn let out a weary sigh through his vulpine snout. So much for a boring day. -"What have you got for me?" Sigurn asked, conveying his question through carefully modulated waves of aura (or syn, as the humans in Ferrum insisted on calling it).

"Detective!" the security officer standing guard at the mouth of the alley snapped off a crisp salute as his partner, an intense Houndour, straightened similarly.

"Another victim, same MO as the previous ones. Signs of asphyxiation, followed by a slit throat." Outwardly, the young man gave his perfunctory report calmly, and with no hesitation, but Sigurn's aura senses caught the waves of unease and disgust coming off the officer. The Lucario could hardly blame him. Murder was an unpleasant topic at the best of times, and that was especially true when it came to The Killer. They hadn't been able to come up with another epithet for Techne's latest serial killer.

Mostly because the monster's crimes were so… boring. It felt wrong to describe the brutal murders as such, but that was the truth. All of The Killer's attacks thus far seemed closer to a mugging gone wrong than the sort of ritualistic murder one expected from a depraved killer. The pattern was always the same. Asphyxiation with some sort of cord or garrote (probably piano wire based on the residue it left), and then a throat cut open with a knife (a chef's knife based on the cuts inflicted). It wasn't flashy.

It wasn't dramatic. It didn't make for an interesting narrative. But it was undeniably effective. Here's a truth of the world that not many people ever took the time to think about. Murdering someone was hard. And not just in the sense that it was difficult morally, or psychologically, though that was certainly true. No, killing someone was hard, physically, because of the aura protecting them.

And certainly, a difference in physique, in aura capability, in raw strength could render the foul deed simpler, but it still shouldn't be easy. Unless, of course, you snuck up on your victim and strangled them. Aura was remarkably good at cushioning impacts. Negating shocks and blunting heavy impacts were instinctual reactions for all humans and Pokémon. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

What didn't come nearly as naturally was protecting oneself from slow, unyielding pressure. That wasn't to say it was impossible, but it required experience, training that most people just weren't the beneficiaries of. The Killer was well aware of that weakness, and was using it to calculating, lethal effect.

"Patrolling private security agents found him a couple of hours ago," the officer told him, breaking Sigurn out of his reverie. The young man pulled the caution tape up, letting both of them step under it into the alley, with Houndour trailing behind them. The evening sun faded behind the buildings as they stepped further into the shaded crime scene.

"If they found it a few hours ago, why did we just hear about it at 1800?" Sigurn asked, his eyes glowing lightly as he communicated his intent. The young officer and his partner wore synchronized frowns.

"They wanted time to start their own investigation, but one of our informants told us what was going on so we could get here and take over."

"Informants?" Sigurn asked, one of his fuzzy brows quirking up.

"What sort of informant loiters around in dark alleys?"

"Uh, sorry sir, I guess I misspoke. Technically, they're not our informant, they're the ranger outpost's."

"Ah, a Pokémon." Sigurn nodded in understanding.

"We are pretty close to district nine."

"Yeah. A passing Murkrow saw the activity and reported it to the folks at outpost twelve, and they reached out to us in turn," the officer confirmed.

"Unfortunately, they didn't witness any suspicious activity prior to the security contractors showing up, but they do know that the body wasn't here yesterday evening, so the killing had to have taken place sometime today."

"Or the body got moved here," Sigurn proposed.

"Any security cameras in the area?"

"We're not in the nicest district, there's a couple of guys looking around, but I'm not holding out hope." They finally arrived at the corpse, the body splayed out unceremoniously on the hard concrete.

"Any identification?" Sigurn asked, even as his insides boiled at the sight of the poor victim.

"Not yet," the young officer shook his head, "no wallet or Pokégear, and no Poké Balls either."

"Maybe we'll get something from his prints," Sigurn sighed.

"Not much blood, this one was already dead before they cut his throat open." That wasn't always the case. Sometimes the victim was just strangled into unconsciousness, and then butchered. There just wasn't really any sort of pattern. Young, old, man, woman, trainer, office worker, it seemed like The Killer struck indiscriminately. And they were all over Techne.

Victims had been found in the third, fourth, seventh, tenth, and twelfth districts, hidden away in alleys, on rooftops, in abandoned factories and Venomothballed warehouses, always out of the public eye, but only just. Sigurn quickly scanned the alleyway with his aura sight, but like all the other crime scenes he'd investigated, any trace of The Killer had long-since vanished, dispersed by the various other auras that had been here in the intervening time, if there'd even ever been something to find at all.

That was the one thing that struck Sigurn about each crime scene he'd been to so far. Whoever the murderer was, their aura signature was remarkably faint, even for a human. Except, how could a human with weak aura ambush and subdue so many others of their kind, some of whom were relatively proficient with their aura themselves? They were missing something, Sigurn knew it. A blind spot that this monster was slipping through. And whatever that gap was, City Security had to close it.

In his mind's eye, Sigurn could still see the small shrine built atop a fellow officer's desk, a man who never got a chance to return to his family, a partner Riolu resigning the force in tears. Yes, they had to be the one that solved this case. The Lucario's eyes flashed, as he pushed more aura into his sight. Somehow, some way The Killer would slip up. And they weren't going to miss it when it happened. After all, for Techne City Security this was personal.

-"Seriously though, you're going to need to tell Ink here what gave us away, or he'll never settle down." Grimsley gestured at his Zoroark, the fox-like Pokémon bristling as he let out a low growl of displeasure. What he carefully didn't say was that he was equally curious (and quite alarmed to boot). It'd been years since someone who wasn't at a master's level had seen through Ink's illusions. Grimsley's partner was expertly trained and monstrously strong, and that wasn't all conceit talking.

"It was the flow of people and Pokémon," the dark-haired teen who'd introduced herself (this time) as Fione replied.

"Everybody walked around you like there was something there, but no one acted like they could see anything. The whole effect was weird, but I only paid enough attention to pick up on it because Alyssa told me that suspicious things have been happening around her recently." Grimsley blinked a few times. Sure, they'd been a little careless following their quarry (bait) so closely, but even still.

"How in Truth's name did you notice that?" the Dark specialist felt one of his carefully maintained eyebrows raise. The Ferran girl shrugged, as if confused by his question.

"I mean, once I was really paying attention, it was pretty obvious. Just like it's obvious that you're doing it now."

"What?" the other girl (Alyssa, apparently) asked, looking understandably (in Grimsley's opinion) confused.

"You mean, we're invisible? Like, right now? Like they were before?" she punctuated her question with a couple of frantic head-turns.

"Just, look around," the other girl told her as if it were self-evident. The teenager gestured vaguely at the bustling food court around them, which did absolutely nothing to elucidate what she was saying.

"I don't think we're invisible per se, it's just that people don't register that we're here, right?" That last one was directed at him, and Grimsley offered a so-so gesture.

"A little bit of column A, a bit of column B. We are invisible, but it's not just that. If that were our only defense, people would try to grab our seats. Instead, Ink is layering invisibility with an effect that makes people subconsciously avoid us, so we get the best of both worlds." Fione nodded.

"Ah, got it," she fell silent for a few moments, and a sneaking hunch made Grimsley lean in to peer at her more closely. There was something off about the girl, something tugging at his attention. He almost missed it, except that years of battle had conditioned him to tracking fast motions. The girl's eyes were moving frantically, surveying their surroundings with frenetic energy. They were darting back and forth so fast, he almost missed that they'd been moving at all.

He only had a bare second to goggle at the oddity, before the girl stopped, blinking a couple of times and then grabbing her friend's arm.

"There," she pointed into the crowd, "that lady will make a good example." Grimsley had to twist in his seat to see who she was indicating, and in his peripheral vision, he noticed Ink doing the same. The tanned digit was pointing at a woman in her middle years, who herself seemed to be scanning the crowd, probably looking for someone.

"Watch," he heard the girl's voice behind him.

"She's looking at Beany Bash right now, but she'll turn her head in a second… there she goes. Wait for it, wait for it… there!" Grimsley caught it, though it took the girl's friend watching another pass from the woman for her to see what Fione meant as well. The woman's eyes skipped over their table, a quick, jerking motion quite unlike the sedate, even cadence with which she surveyed the rest of the food court.

"Everyone's like that," Fione explained.

"Their eyes just sort of slide off whatever Ink's doing, and if you're paying attention, you can pick up on the blank space in their attention. It's not too hard once you know what you're looking for." Grimsley glanced around, trying to catch the passerby doing as Fione said, doing his best to hide his concern that their (so far) foolproof method for sneaking around crowded areas had such a critical vulnerability.

He could tell Ink had a similar concern, the Zoroark's eyes darting back and forth, tracking the crowd. After a solid ten seconds, he thought he saw maybe one instance of someone missing their table. Maybe. The girl's friend seemed even less certain, shaking her head in disgust.

"Fe, you're telling me you used little motions like that to track an invisible space you couldn't look at?"

"Yes?" Fione almost sounded like she was asking a question.

"I mean, Mana helped," she indicated the little silvery Water-type nestled in her hair, who'd just moments ago been something far more than an innocuous little fish, "so it was the two of us working together. I'm not sure I'd have been able to track it in real-time without her help. Not while we were moving." That at least was something. This was definitely a hole they'd need to address, but maybe not the gaping vulnerability he'd been concerned with.

While Fione's ability to track them by the gap they made in people's attention was clearly possible (she'd done it after all), it didn't seem easily replicable.

"Well… alright then," the taller teenager seemed a bit nonplused for a moment, but she shook it off after a scant few seconds.

"And that's one question answered for you, which means it's our turn again. You said you're trying to protect Pikachu, but from what? And why have you been doing such a shit job of it?"

"Pika!" a small spark of electricity from the girl's yellow partner punctuated the question, and Grimsley had to suppress a wince as his partner growled at the overhead the unconstrained action added to his attention-blocking illusions.

"That's two questions, my dears." Grimsley replied, twisting his expression into a smarmy grin, using the groans it earned him to buy time to consider his response.

"Assuming you want me to focus on the first," the girl nodded, "then it's sort of tough to answer. I think I know, but there are… certain mitigating factors that make it difficult to explain properly."

"Mr. Gima, please, Alyssa said she and Pikachu have almost been in more than one accident over the past few days. Just how much danger are they in?"

"That's another question." Grimsley couldn't stop himself from saying, though he did feel a pang when he saw both girls' faces twist up.

"Sorry, sorry, I know that wasn't appropriate. It's just, the things you're asking me to explain are rather private to my family and region, which makes me a tad reluctant to share." To their credit, the girls waited while he collected his thoughts.

"Okay, so the thing is, the Pokémon you see here is called a Zoroark," he saw both girls perk up at the unfamiliar name, "and they're rather rare. They have the power to manipulate illusions, making them powerful tricksters and wily combatants, but they require a lot of training to use their abilities well. If done poorly, their actions can leave behind a certain… residue. Traces on their victims that other Zoroark can perceive.

You," he punctuated his statement by pointing at Alyssa, "are practically lousy with the stuff, which means a Zoroark has been following you for some time. We," he gestured towards Ink and then himself, "happen to be searching for a Zoroark, so when we found you just yesterday, we began following you from a distance, hoping to catch this other Zoroark." The girls sat in silence for a few moments, digesting that, before Fione spoke up again.

"Mr. Gima, were you using my best friend as bait?" Grimsley suppressed a wince.

"That's an… indecorous, but not inaccurate way to describe what Ink and I have been doing." The girl actually growled, the sound mirrored by the fish intertwined with her dark hair. The effect would have been adorable, except that the sound was resonant, powerful in a way that couldn't be explained by mere biology. The noise was so jarring that Ink couldn't fully cover for it, and several passerby stopped, heads turning wildly, as if looking for a predator they couldn't see.

The effect was particularly pronounced on the Pokémon, several of whom looked moments away from bolting. The teenager didn't even seem fully conscious she was doing it, but before Grimsley could ask her to stop, a hand landed on her clenched fist, causing the girl to draw up short.

"Fe," the taller girl said, "when did you become part Maschiff?" her tone was light, but her eyes were sharp, piercing through the shorter teen. Fione looked away from her friend, clearly abashed.

"Just came out," she muttered.

"You've got enough people trying to use you already. Don't need another bastard going at it." Alyssa nodded.

"That's true, but I think Mr. Gima might be amenable to a more equal relationship if we allow him." She turned her eyes over to the dark-type specialist, and there was something cunning in her gaze.

"It seems like you're pretty closely affiliated with these, 'Zoroark,' and I don't think they're a species normally found on Ferrum. I'd bet you'd be in a spot of trouble if you weren't able to apprehend your quarry." The girl didn't have any idea how much of an understatement that was.

"I'm not a betting man," Grimsley lied, "but if I were, I wouldn't take you up on that."

"Well then we have similar interests. You need to capture the Zoroark haunting me, and I want these accidents to stop. Instead of using each other, wouldn't things go much smoother if we worked on these problems together?"

".... I'm listening," Grimsley offered after a few moments of silence.

"Well, you're probably the foremost expert on Zoroark in all of Ferrum. If anyone could teach Fe and I how to see through one's illusions and defend ourselves from them, it'd be you, right?" the brunette asked with faux innocence.

"Fe said you're a strong trainer, surely you've got some things you could pass on to us, just in pursuit of our mutual interests." A loud clatter drew Grimsley attention back to Fione. The girl had stood up from her seat, almost knocking it over, her hands pushed flat against the table.

"Alyssa, are you seriously trying to parlay this whole mess into getting this weirdo to train us?" The dark-specialist was sympathetic to the look of incredulity on the dark-haired girl's face, he was feeling rather similarly at the moment, though he had much better control of his expression. Alyssa shrugged.

"I mean, it makes sense, right? It's not like Mr. Gima can go to the authorities or anything. He's an Unovan man here in Ferrum without resources, without allies to call on, and with secrets he needs to hold onto. But since he hasn't caught up to this Zoroark yet, it seems to me like he could use some help. Help you and I are uniquely positioned to provide." He hadn't told the girl that he came from Unova.

"I know I said that the Zoroark we're tracking isn't the most experienced, but they're still a dangerous combatant. They're not the sort of foe kids like you should be facing." Fione's expression twisted up, but before she could say anything, Alyssa's cool voice chimed in.

"Give Fe and I a chance, Mr. Gima, I'd bet that we surprise you." There was that word again. Did the girl know he had a problem? How could she? And why was he falling for it?

"A bet, huh? Maybe I'll take you up on that. Tell you what, if you two can impress me, maybe I'll give you both some tips."

"And we can work together on solving our mutual problem?" the girl probed.

"One step at a time," Grimsley countered.

"Show me what you can do, first, and then we'll talk."

"You've got a deal, Mr. Gima," the girl stuck a hand out, and against his better judgement, Grimsley reached out to shake it. From the other side of the table, Grimsley barely made out a muttered complaint, from trainer to partner: "Do we get a say in this?"

"Washi, wash," the little fish shook her head, further mussing up her trainer's hair. The sentiment was pretty clear. Apparently not.