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Hey, Sind! It's great to be back--thanks for proposing this review exchange. It's wonderful to have an excuse to come back to this story! This review will cover the next three chapters I have to read, and then I'll catch up with the full story in the next couple days.
This run of chapters has a real interesting espionage sort of feel as Odette and Noel (mostly Odette, she's really taking one for the team here, oof) put their plan into motion. It's fun to watch them piece things together as they go along, but even more fun, as the reader, to have additional hints that they don't know about and be able to D: over just how far in over their heads they are. The dramatic irony of knowing that Dorien's playing Odette while she goes on confident that he thinks she's his girlfriend and suspects nothing is fantastic for the tension of the following scene in Chapter Seven. And Odette at least doesn't comment that she seems to drink too much when around Dorien, but still, just contemplating how often he might have pulled something shady and then erased her memory on previous "dates"--absolutely chilling. Really raises the stakes. So Odette doesn't have nearly as good a grasp on the situation as she thinks, and then she and Noel infiltrate this ultra-swank party and then end up getting distracted by hot people instead of going after the info they wanted, oh no. I am so worried for what's going to happen to them when the other shoe drops. (Meanwhile, perhaps whatever the stuff Dorien used on Odette is related to Armel's big-time memory issues...?)
I will admit I have trouble getting a read on Dorien. He truly does seem to be a dumbfuck like 90% of the time; absent the whole "questioning Odette about her rapist and then drugging her so she forgets" thing, I would 100% buy that he's just a moron. But that one thing--! His whole dynamic with Clovis has me so immensely confused. He would need to be literally as dumb as a brick to think that Clovis is anywhere close to a friend, so either he's putting up with Clovis' disdain for some ulterior motive, or he really is a moron. I wonder if he's got his own sin pokémon in there and that's what's showing through whenever he gets his super-spooky aura; if so, maybe that's where the moments of competence are coming from and all the ridiculousness with Clovis is just what Dorien's like in his natural state. Imagine being an incredibly powerful ancient manifestation of sin or whatever and then you get stuck with just the world's biggest idiot for a host. In any case, if this is all acting, Dorien plays the buffoon really fucking well.
And then Clovis! I was desperately curious to see him show up, and I enjoy the complication he's introduced to the story. I don't follow RPs or mafias I'm not in too closely, so I don't have a great deal of exposure to him yet. I've osmosed that he's on Odette's side, at least, and it was fun to compare that impression with what I've gotten from the story itself. I'd be a bit more wary of him, having only read these chapters. As Odette's abundantly aware, there's something up with that guy, and he's certainly at home among the corruptly rich and famous--he talks about cozying up and collecting slacious gossip on his fellow members of high society, but what exactly is he doing with that info? Is he going to do anything about the dewgong-milk frosting, or is he just keeping that under his hat as a potential item of blackmail? I didn't find Clovis as devastatingly suave as Odette did, although it makes sense--I wasn't really getting the full 3D hot guy experience, heh. And I definitely buy Odette's crush on him! If I didn't have any foreknowledge I'd be really worried that Odette was blinded by her hormones here and playing into the hands of another dangerous guy; as it is, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how their dynamic develops as she learns more about him.
Really fun to see some new sin pokémon show up here--I guess? I was thinking the sin pokémon were one of a kind, but that doesn't seem to track with shiny pokémon being able to spawn them, and in that case it'd also be weird for two out of seven to be in the hands of the Patenaudes, who really scream throwaway characters when I'd expect anybody with a proper sin legendary to be a pretty big deal! So are there other demon pokémon also associated with shinies, and the proper seven sins are just extra-special ones, in the same way that you have your general pokémon and then the extra-special legendaries? (New conspiracy theory: sin pokémon are spawned by shiny legendaries???? lol) I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about the mechanics there; fortunately my interests are aligned with Odette's there!
I am curious how long this whole shiny pokémon cover-up would have been going on. Noel has an old book that refers to an even older belief about shiny pokémon--here being related as a matter of foklore rather than a fact. Is it only recently that someone's rediscovered how to summon these pokémon? If there was just kind of background superstition about shiny pokémon somehow being related to these sorts of ancient pokémon, that would be a lot harder to suppress than if it was something that was kind of a part of culture and passed down through informal means. How long has this cover-up been going on? In general, it's hard to eradicate something across all of media in the entire world, even for the super-rich, even if Virtue Corp is working on misdirecting people about shinies as well. It would almost feel like something that people would have had to be working at getting rid of for a while, but if it's something that's been going on for a long time it gets to be more a question of how it could possibly have been kept under wraps for so long. At least not without rumors... As of the latest chapter I think I'm more confused than ever about how Virtue Corp comes into all this, but I get the feeling we'll learn more about that soon. Noel dismissed the notion, but I feel like Clovis has to be involved with that somehow...
Not really related to the content of the shiny conspiracy, but when Noel was casually flipping through that non-circulating book he'd gotten out of the library I just had to imagine any librarians reading absolutely screaming, lol. That might be one of the last references to the powers of shiny pokémon in the world outside of shiny circles, Noel! Be careful!
It's a minor thing, but our introduction to Odette's mom rather struck me. I can see why Florent might have wanted to forget about her, lol. "What? Who? No clue who you're talking about." Sure, Florent. But while Odette says her mom's always there for her when she needs her despite her irreverant personality, Odette definitely doesn't feel like she can share what she's gotten herself into with her mom here, and I wonder how much she was able to confide in her about heavy stuff like the murder. Feels like things can be kind of lonely for her sometimes.
I've put some line edits under the spoilers. Note that I've omitted any talk about excess commas... I think you've kind of heard a lot about those from various people, heh. Not sure what would be the most useful to you there, whether maybe that should be a beta reader thing or what--let me know if you want me to dig into them! For this review I just skipped it.
One thing I noticed throughout was some confusion over the use of brow vs brows. It's confusing because sometimes people are talking about your brow as in your forehead, and other people are talking about your brows or eyebrows, which behave rather differently. When people talk about a "furrowed brow," they're talking about a person's forehead getting wrinkly, and it's singular. So Odette wouldn't "furrow her brows," she'd furrow her "brow," singular. On the flip side, she wouldn't raise her brow, i.e. raise her forehead. She's raising one of her two eyebrows, so it'd be "raise a brow," one of multiple. These got mixed up quite a bit over the course of these chapters... in other news, I also noticed people emote a lot with theire foreheads/eyebrows in these chapters, heh.
“God fucking dammit Snooki, can you be anymore drunk?”
Okay so we're going to mostly skip commas, but you do want one before "Snooki" here, heh.
At least she had the common decency to put on a pair of granny panties in favor of one of the thongs she managed to leave all over the house during laundry days.
"A bolt of a [...] bolt" reads a bit awkward to me here. Maybe something like "the shock of a metaphorical thunderbolt" or "the jolt of a metaphorical thunderbolt?"
- Throughout you want "lying low" rather than "laying low"
Normally I'm all for you acting chaotic, but tonight's not the night," Noel said as Talonflame hovered down to land on his forearm.
I was a little confused by the description of Hiruition. It's like a leech, but with a proboscis? A proboscis wouldn't normally open or have teeth inside it, so I don't know if that's just supposed to be weird because demon pokémon or if I'm picturing it wrong. It sounds mostly leech-y to me aside from that one detail.
She then exchanged looks with Noel, who's brows here furrowed so deeply, a ridge had formed between his brows.
*whose rather than who's, and this was one of the places where brow/brows confusion made me unsure what kind of expression I was supposed to be picturing here.
No typos for Chapter Eight! Nice!
I feel like we're really starting to get into it with this set of chapters, and I look forward to seeing how things escalate from here. Definitely excited to learn more about Clovis... and to see how long Odette and Noel can get away with this before it all blows up in their faces. I get the impression we'll learn more about Odette's sin pokémon soon, too, which is excellent. Back soon for those last couple chapters!
- That feel when they use fkn Fahrenheit in Kalos
- Of course shallow people wouldn't be able to happiness evolve
- She sounds like a Poke flipper
- This guy moves fast
- Of course they/you would call it a tea party. ;)
- EVILLLL
- Hm, the shiny thing seems less inherently the capacity for being evil than it is demonic possession maybe
- One trope that bugs me is trainers being able to easily understand their Pokemon. Especially if the Poke's words remain hidden
- Hoo boy circling back to the incident
- Otome guy is here. Also he is acting funny
- Language shifts can always be tricky, might want to make them stand out more
- Welp, both busted
- This is almost crossing into anvilicious territory about trading in general, making it look like just a horrible thing no matter what. But maybe this side is just biased.
- She got his number!! I mostly joke but she actually squees a little on realizing too
- With Noel a bit jokingly too, if Odette wasn't in a crummy world, she could totally be an otome protagonist. She's even a little oblivious
- tfw no anime hair colors (or reds)
- I wonder if any of these demons have accidentally been unleashed by someone being too brutal in a battle or some random bleeding
- Man imagine how screwed they would be at a camera that can't be magically disabled. MMBN everything is on the net vibes here
- And Odette suddenly unleashes her own demonic powers. I guess she's the demifiend
- From h face? Huh?
- From Noel's description she may have attacked it in the spirit world after being pulled there or something
- Well as expected, Dorien is pissed
- Noel a master of excuses thankfully. Which may be legit but still. Also this might hit better if the low blood pressure was mentioned at all before this. Plus wow, thought she'd have high given how high strung she usually is
The plot continues to thicken. No doubt Dorien is going to be the least of Odette's worries after this. Keep it up, and hope to see more of this!
Hi! Just finished chapter 3 and just wanted to let you know how much I'm enjoying this story so far - a lot, by the way!
Doing a mini review here:
- I love the interactions between Odette and her team, as well as her team members amongst themselves! Very refreshing and I like the little slices of life we get with them.
- Excited to see how the story starts to really unfold from this point - it seems like the interaction with Dorien is really a point that Odette starts to really start delving into the world you're crafting and her storyline. Holding on to the edge of my seat for it!
- Just wanted to also point out that Solene, the Gothitelle (in case I spelt her name wrong!) used 5 moves in the battle. Reflect, Charm, Psychic, Protect and Heal Pulse. Not sure if there's an in-universe explanation for this I just missed/haven't seen yet but just bringing it to your attention.
Hey there! Sorry for being so terribly late but here it is! My Smeargle Art Contribution featuring Chibi Odette. (I am terribly sorry if I spelled her name wrong.)
I’ll be focusing on the prologue and the first 5 chapters, staying away from typo and grammar stuff. Lets get right into it!
I think the prologue hooked me harder than anything else. It’s creepy, it’s ghostly, it’s implying some damn heinous things. Extremely well done as a story opening.
You weaved in more than enough hints for me to follow the mystery so far. It’s clear enough that Odette is the wrath ghost’s vessel, owing to the anger problems (and I’m fairly certain the mother’s names match). I’m not quite certain yet where the shiny trade/sacrilege stuff is going but it’s interesting enough to keep my attention.
My absolute favourite parts of the fic involve Odette and her team. They’re all just so full of life and character. You can really tell that they’re alive in your mind. In particular, the mimikyu is adorably similar to my own newer cat and I’m thoroughly enjoying that.
I’m not usually a fan of pokemon being able to actually say their names, but thats my headcanon so I’ll leave it alone. It doesn’t really detract at all from the story, I’m just a stubborn bastard for my own HC.
Dorien quite literally made my skin crawl. Even before you had Odette point it out with her grandfather, I though his behaviour was really damn odd. Great job, I hate him completely.
My only real ”criticism” is that the battle against Dorien himself felt kinda wonky. Idk, action writing can be hard so it’s difficult sometimes to write a compelling battle. Maybe it was the pacing, maybe it’s that the battle felt like it was almost ’weightless’ if that makes any sense. Maybe it’s just me reading it on a night of 2 hrs sleep lol.
In any event, this story is damn compelling. The characters do a great job at drawing you in and I loved the attention to detail you clearly bestowed on this fic. I’m definitely gonna cross post this review for you to FFN and I’ll try to finish the rest (plz hold me to it).
I have been rereading/catching up and I figured I'd share my Chapter 8 sus after Odette's long readlist/post.
Here's my theory, no idea if this will get contradicted by future role reveals or claims.
Team Enigma. Virtue Corp.
Two players seemingly at odds. One, Virtue, working with the police to help stop the shiny trade and treat pokemon right. The other, Enigma, involved in sacrilege and presumably shiny trade by proxy as well.
(I have no doubt Sacrilege is probably made via the use of shinies or something too.)
Now how would an powerplayer like Enigma find a way to operate effectively, avoid getting sussed or tracked, or getting copped?
And how do you explain a town player like Virtue Corp not picking up on all the big susses flying around, and not successfully copping or tracking a role like Enigma?
Because Virtue Corp is not a townie at all, Virtue is scum, just like Enigma.
The idea is plain as day, and since the parties presumably have daytalk/nighttalk, its easy enough to play some elaborate scum theatre. Create an idea as an 'investigator' and use that to get in good with other investigative roles, like actual cops, all while covering for scum!Enigma and their dirty dealings.
It explains why Virtue Corp, despite all their attempts to play otherwise, add up to a pretty poor townie! For seeming to have a power role, they're not making great deductions. But they would be good at sussing and eliminating power roles than can threaten Enigma. I wouldn't be surprised if Enigma has their own wincon, tbh.
It's also a great cover for Enigma, as I said, to have their actions or existence questioned and seemingly made up, all corroborated by their scum partner Virtue.
Heck, given this is role madness, I bet Virtue and Enigma are freakin lovers.
Don't trust them.
TL;DR Virtue Corp is a front created by Enigma to work legitimately with the cops to divert suspicion and eliminate competition.
Oooookay, buckle up because this is gonna be long! Since this was on my list of long overdue reads, I just binge-read this entire thing in one sitting. I... really wish I'd thought to break my comments up by chapter or something, but I did not, so... here they all are, all at once. I'll spoiler tag them at least so they don't take up the entire page.
Dorien’s brows furrowed momentarily, but he smiled through it. “Ah, I guess we come from different upbringings. Somebody in my family comes across a shiny, it’s on the market within a day,” he explained.
“Do you want my honest thoughts, or my sugarcoated thoughts?” Odette said harshly.
“Sugarcoated, please.” He added a smile that she assumed was supposed to be charming, but something about it rubbed her entirely the wrong way. She was getting ready to chew him out for his involvement in such a deplorable establishment, and he was grinning at her like she was flirting with him. Not that she could pull off flirting even if she wanted to, but that wasn’t the point.
You know, based on what I knew of him before reading, I was more surprised by Dorian's introduction than anything else. But this? You go, Odette. Tear him a new one!
Minor gripe here. Dorien mentions having a poliwrath, not a poliwhirl. There's nothing else in this chapter that suggests Odette's mistake here is intentional, so I suspect it's not.
You know, this is a really neat idea, and I think I'll be stealing it. Maybe make it something of an expensive perk that most trainers can't get, at least for all of their balls, but maybe each registered trainer can get one free install for their most trusted pokemon or something. Hm. Anyways, really cool and helps cut down on those "restrained and can't call for help" scenarios!
A violent cough cut her off. She could hear Solene coughing too, but was unable to open her eyes to get a good look at her. She didn’t have enough time to let herself be mad that this guy had just pepper sprayed her, because her brain was going into emergency mode.
Need milk, need water...stop coughing, stop inhaling it in...need to break the glass, now.
“Wow, I’m so honored!” Noel said. He was absolutely brimming with excitement, and Odette bit her tongue to keep from giggling. Seeing him get so worked up was really a fun thing to witness. A little beacon of light in this room of disguised darkness they'd just entered.
She was beaming at the fact that such an esteemed and frequent guest of the center recognized him, and even called herself a fan. Noel’s talents had been pretty acclaimed since he broke out onto the scene not too long ago, but witnessing something like that, no matter the place, was pretty nice. It meant he was getting somewhere, and it meant there was still a lot in store for him. She was a very proud friend.
His snarky grin turned friendly as he held his hand out. “Let me start over. I’m Clovis,” he introduced himself. “And this is Powdered Sugar.” He nodded toward his Snom, and it beamed like it had just been given an esteemed award.
“Sure. Right. Good fun,” Clovis said. That grin didn’t falter, even as he brought the cigarette back to his mouth. “Let me know when you want to admit that you’re salty about it.”
"Mm," she responded, pressing her lips together tightly as she spun the cigarette in her fingers. It'd be so easy to just put it out on his face. His cheek was right fucking there.
Noel wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and began to lead her out of the smoking area, but not before leaning down and picking up the cigarette she had dropped. He tossed it onto the ashtray Talonflame was sitting on.
It was as large as a Gyarados, if not bigger, and had a similar body type...no, maybe it looked more like a Dragonair? It slithered through the air like one, but it was too fat to be a Dragonair, or Gyarados...besides, neither one of those Pokemon had a proboscis like this one did. This thing looked more like a leech than anything else. It had a set of dark eyes that Odette could barely make out against it’s dark purple skin. Its tail end faded off into smoke, in the same way the outer edges of a Gastly did.
Okay, wait, what? I thought there were only 7 of these pokemon based off the deadly sins? Unless these two random background characters are going to be important later? Or... are there more fakemon than I realize? Hm. This is gonna be interesting.
With that, his expression smoothed. A beaming grin curved over his lips; a convincing one that caused his now-shining eyes to crinkle up ever so slightly. A stark contrast from that dead, hard stare that was on her not even seconds before. It was a little unnerving just how good he was at switching himself off and on like that, but Odette's brain was too busy reeling to really dwell on it.
I can't help but notice a similarity here; Clovis can essentially switch his mood on and off. Just like Dorien did during and after his battle with Odette. And of course, the two of them know each other. Hmmmmmmm.
You know, I thought I was being borderline when so far I've included a scene of implied nudity, but... well, I don't know what I expected from you, of all people, if not this. xD
“You’re stupid,” she said to herself as she pushed them back over her nose. She then jostled the packet, as if alerting her whole body to the fact that it needed to focus.
Or, maybe he was a psychopath like Dorien? Effortlessly going back and forth between emotions because he was so good at faking them? That wasn’t something she initially considered, but it was a possibility, as much as she detested it. She didn’t need another raging psycho in her life, especially one so pretty.
They were all there to watch whatever that Malamar and Scizor had harbored and spawned? To perhaps see...what their own shinies could harbor and spawn?
She dug into the front pocket of her bag, careful not to jostle her phone, and retrieved a lone pen, which she uncapped with her teeth before beginning to scribble with it.
"That's a shame. Sylveons, Espeons, and Umbreons are really difficult to find. They don't evolve with stones, you know?" the woman said, swishing her wine around in its glass. "What evolution coercion service did you use to get her to evolve? I've never seen one successfully put out a Sylveon!"
Hm. You know, it occurs to me that Odette drinks a lot of water, and this has never been explained. Is it related to the low brood pressure thing at the end of this chapter? Or to... something else?
Alright, there we go! Some other thoughts; based on discord and storycrafter prompts, I wasn't expecting the Kalos arc to last so long! I knew Guzma and co didn't show up right away, but I expected it only to be like three or four chapters. Also kind of expected, uh... Odette's missing companion to show themselves by now, so I know at least the RPing you've done with them must be from some time in the future.
I do love how you portray the pokemon as their own characters and personalities. They're much more self-sufficient than most settings, while being in some sort of limbo between animalistic and sentient. (They can't speak, but the characters seem to understand them well enough. They can do household chores and tasks on their own, etc.) Admittedly they all really feel like minor background characters to this point, which is mildly disappointing, but given that I believe you're also developing this into an original work for publishing, I can see how doing anything further might get complicated in the future. And even so, they're all pretty memorable in their own rights, so that does help to ease the lack of attention they get. (Well, at least Odette's team. I forget what Noel has other than Talonflame and Vullaby... I'm pretty sure there was one more in the twister game which leads me to believe he was a mono-flying-type trainer, and of course Clovis has the Best Name award for calling his snom Powdered Sugar, but I don't recall if we've even seen anything else yet.) Anyway, that said, I'm loving the pokemon choices you've gone with.
There haven't been too many battles, but the ones that have appeared have been good, so I'm not sure why you're so worried about that. The gyarados fight wasn't much of a fight, but I think it works better the way it was written rather than if you had done a more traditional battle style for the point you were trying to get across with it.
I'm really liking Odette a lot, she's a lot more approachable than I'd anticipated. She's cute (her distress over her crushes), badass (not tolerating bullshit), and a lot kinder than the impression I've had of her this entire time. I'm also really liking Clovis; he's much more mysterious than I'd expected, but it's really early on in the story so I guess that's to be expected. Noel is more memorable than I'd anticipated, too, and honestly his interactions with Dorian have been hilarious. Speaking of Dorian, my lord. It's guys like him that make me embarrassed to be a Straight White Dude. Like damn, I must hate him at least as much as Tetra hates Sebastian. Which is about what I'd expected, given that I knew about him prior to reading. I'm getting the feeling that Acadia isn't going to be a regular for long, but that may just be the lack of storycrafter answers for her. Bernard is the real question mark here for me. He's clearly in deep in whatever is going on, and although Clovis is too, we know Clovis is going to be significant going forward. I was not prepared for Bernard to be relevant, so that's something of a welcome surprise.
Anyways, while mystery plots like this tend to give me headaches trying to follow along sometimes, there's only really been one part so far where that's happened, and I'm very much intrigued! Now that I'm caught up, will be following and awaiting future chapters!
Chapter 11: Roses Have Thorns
Shoutout to Espy for temperature reading this for me 🤍
CWs: Strong Language
Odette didn’t realize she had zoned out until she was jolted from her haze by a disturbance on the stage. Her eyes were quick to lock on the left entrance, just in time to catch a couple of dancers tripping and stumbling over each other as they collectively tried to wrestle their way past some props. Props that shouldn’t have been in the way in the first place.
Abruptly sitting up in her chair, Odette frantically flipped through her clipboard as her eyes shot between the stage and her notes. She scrambled for her pen but soon found that she’d misplaced it.
Those fucking light posts. They were supposed to be on the other side, and she had cleared the scene to start.
“Gods dammit…” she said under her breath. She could see Ange leaning over from the chair next to hers to peer at the notes as well.
“You okay?” he whispered. Odette could only reply with a quiet, exasperated whine.
As a few dancers hit the floor, Martin held up his hand as Odette buried her face into her own with a quiet groan.
“Stop! Stop,” he shouted over the music. The orchestra came to a haphazard halt, and some concerned murmurs began to travel from those onstage.
“What’s the problem now, why are we falling?” he asked.
“There’s some set pieces blocking the way out,” somebody called back. It caused Odette to coil into herself slightly. Why? Why did her stagehands have no idea where things went until she rode their asses about it? They had one fucking job.
Then again, so did she: keeping all things onstage running smoothly. And she wasn’t keeping up. With all the week's revelations banging around in her post-sickness head, there was no room to commit any of the immediate rehearsal to mind, and she was paying the price for it.
Better own up to it than try to stop existing. The embarrassment would pass faster.
Cringing, she raised one of her hands. She kept her eyes shut, so she wouldn’t have to immediately face the annoyed looks that were undoubtedly about to be sent her way.
“My fault,” she said stiffly. “I cleared the scene; totally didn’t realize those set pieces were on the wrong side. That’s on me.”
After a second of prepping, she raised her head to meet Martin's eyes. She was somewhat thankful to see that his gaze was teetering more on the sympathetic side, but just barely. This had to have been her fourth faux pas of the day, so that was far more grace than she anticipated. The other times were her just not paying attention to the scene or calling for a blackout at the wrong time. Here, people could have actually gotten hurt.
Of course, she had the ‘I was in the ER’ card to play, but that would run dry rather quickly at the rate she was going.
“They’re supposed to be stage right,” she said, trying to confirm she knew where everything was supposed to be. His expression didn’t change too much.
“Are you sure you’re feeling better, Odette?” he asked.
Despite her efforts to keep her expression neutral, she couldn’t stop pressing her lips together. “Yes,” she said evenly. Perhaps that was true on a physical scale, but mentally? Well, she wouldn’t get into that. “I wouldn’t have come back yet if I wasn’t.”
“She's right, she really is fine! I helped break her fever myself” Ange said for good measure.
Martin sighed. “I am all for giving you the benefit of the doubt right now, but I know you’re better than this. I need you to step up your game because these things cannot happen at the point we’re at.”
She exhaled as silently as she could before nodding once in agreement. “I understand, sir. I’ll get it together.”
She wasn’t sure how confident she was in that sentiment. But, thankfully, the conversation ended there. Attention went back to restarting the scene, with those pieces moving to where they were supposed to be. As everyone returned to their spots onstage, Odette caught sight of Noel sauntering back to his place. Before he made it offstage, he looked out into the house of empty seats and at her. Her shoulders deflated as their eyes met, and he motioned his hands over his chest.
“Breathe,” he mouthed.
All she could do was shrug. She wished it were that simple. At the very least, she’d managed to make it through that reprimand with most of her psyche still intact.
“I gotta admit, you do look a little out of it. How about a massage?” Ange asked tentatively. He floated up behind her and landed his tendrils on her shoulders, where he began to rub at them gingerly. Some soothing heat carried from his touch, causing Odette to lean her head back blissfully.
“I don’t think this is going to do much to make me concentrate better, but you have the touch of an angel,” she said.
“You should also try to concentrate more of focusing,” Ange hummed.
“And how would you propose I do that?”
She didn’t get an answer. In fact, she felt Ange’s hands leave her skin entirely. She picked her head up and peered over her shoulder to find that he’d disappeared. She slowly began to look around, and no sooner had she turned to look over her other shoulder did she find the ghost poking his head up from behind a chair four rows back. The flame on his head brightened as he held up her missing pen.
“Look what I found!” he called triumphantly. The previous conversation had seemingly left his mind because now all he appeared to be concerned about was balancing the found pen on his lips.
Odette decided it would be best not to call out the irony. Ange having an emotional outburst right now was the last thing she needed. “Wow. Wonder how that got all the way over there?”
She didn’t get the answer to her rhetorical question before the music started up again. As she took another leveling breath, she zeroed in on what was going on onstage again. The scene played out, and soon Noel made his way back onstage for his part. His voice carried clearly through the house, and instinctively, she started humming along with the tune as she settled back into her backrest. She felt Ange’s presence manifest next to her again but was too engrossed in the performance to acknowledge him.
“His manner is vague and aloof,” Noel sang. He held the same conviction he normally did. “You would think there was nobody shyer, but his voice has been heard on the roof—”
He paused, not normally a spot one would do so in the song. The silence stretched on and on and on, and Noel suddenly became stiff. It soon became very apparent to Odette what was happening.
“When he curled up by the fire,” she muttered to herself as her face scrunched into another cringe.
“Stop.”
Again, the music ceased. Martin sighed again. This time, it sounded borderline angry.
“When he curled up by the fire,” he said with a groan as he pinched the bridge of his nose. The tension deflated from Noel’s shoulders, and he bowed his head apologetically.
“Right,” Noel said with an embarrassed smile. “I knew that.”
“I thought you knew that,” Martin said dubiously. “But this is the third time today you’ve missed that line. What is going on with you all?”
Odette could see the momentary grimace that creased Noel’s face. It quickly faded out, replaced by a sheepish smile.
“Didn’t sleep well last night,” he said.
“Well, how about we take our first break early today so everyone can screw their heads on tighter. Be back in fifteen.”
The mass dispersion happened all at once, and even though the other actors, extras, and crew crowded to get off the stage, Odette watched as Noel hung his head for a beat before looking over at her again. She took that as an invitation to go to him, leaving Ange to fret with the pen alone for the time being.
“Shyer rhymes with—” she began when they met up backstage.
“Fire,” Noel finished raising his hands toward her. “I know. I know. I’m getting torn up by the lyricist enough today.”
Her gaze on him softened. Looking at him up close, it was apparent that he was very much in distress. His brows were knit so tightly she was certain a wrinkle would be left behind, and his jaw was clenched. A cursory glance downward also confirmed that his right hand was balled into a white-knuckled fist, which was the absolute tell.
“A lot on your mind?” she asked.
“What was your first clue?”
She sighed deeply, then turned on her heel to walk deeper into the backstage area. She didn’t bother to motion for Noel to follow her because he wordlessly fell into step at her side. She soon stopped in a hallway that led to the practice rooms, which seemed mostly empty, so she settled for leaning against one of the walls and sliding down to sit. Noel took to doing the same thing right across from her.
They stared at each other in silence for a long, long while. Odette couldn’t read minds, but she could tell by the way Noel occasionally moved his eyes up to the ceiling that he was, at the very least, trying to mull through some stuff in his mind.
“Penny for your thoughts,” she said quietly.
“Have you heard anything?”
She pursed her lips as she zeroed in on the silent phone in her pocket.
“From who?”
“Who do you think?”
Well, that was an easy answer. Clovis apparently kept his word on contacting her after her recovery because she hadn’t heard from him the entire week she sat home trying to sweat out that fever. No amount of phone babysitting and girlishly praying willed him to send her a text. Surely Bernard had told him that the fever had broken two days ago.
But there still hadn’t been any notification from him. Not even a “Hi, just making sure you still have this number saved.” She’d have much rather had Clovis endlessly fretting over her than who actually was.
She felt RotomPhone vibrate and couldn’t help but groan. She fished it out and was as dismayed as she was unsurprised to see yet another text from Dorien. The third one since she woke up that morning and maybe the thousandth that week.
I hope you’re having a good day so far! I have a little something headed to you that’ll hopefully make you smile 💝
She ground her teeth together. Somehow, that only made her want to go home more because gods only knew what that meant. Even as her annoyance and dread skyrocketed, she stuck to the same routine she’d kept with to keep him at bay: five words and an emoticon. That’s all she had the energy for.
I’ll be on the lookout
“Crickets,” she said dismissively as she pushed send.
Silence followed. Surely this wasn’t the place to be discussing such matters. It was dangerous enough that they’d gone at it in the dressing room—one never knew where there were prying eyes or ears. Hell, considering their cameras had mysteriously stopped working when one of those blood ‘mon appeared, anything could have been possible. The impossible seemed to be at play anyway.
Clovis and Bernard knew each other. Clovis pretty much confirmed in that conversation that he was working with Virtue Corp. Virtue Corp was concerned about her because apparently they simply hadn’t been before. How long were they “investigating” her in the first place?
Judging by Bernard’s reaction, it was at least a little while. It had something to do with an “uncanny resemblance” Clovis mentioned, whatever the absolute fuck that meant. And perhaps Enora, though that seemed a lot less jarring, given how the apparent initial thought was that she wanted involvement in the shiny trade.
But, still. What had Bernard meant when he asked if the strange encounter had something to do with Enora? The more she dwelled on that throughout the week, the more the potential answers bothered her.
That book had said that shinies spawned those grotesque Pokemon—the blood types, as they were referred to on the call. They seemed to be coming out of only shinies, which is why the poor things were being bought and sold in the first place. She was certain of that, despite Clovis being a little dodgy in confirming so. She’d seen enough to know. But that being said…
Was it possible that Enora could create one of those things? Could it have been Enora that caused that voice and desmocula to flee?
Nothing about that made sense, though. Enora was nowhere near her when the encounter occurred. Not to mention, the voice she’d heard was her own, granted a quite distorted version of it. It had the same inflection and a similar vocabulary choice too. Even if there was a way for Enora to produce something like that, there’s no way she’d use such vile language. Enora was a sassy little thing, but she was no potty mouth.
But, if it wasn’t Enora, then what was it? More importantly, what did Dorien want with it so badly? He clearly knew something had happened. He was practically manic over it. Fuck, did he cause it? How would that have even worked?
She exhaled gruffly, much louder than she intended to. It caused Noel to jolt a little.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he said.
Odette wanted to laugh. Some form of a rancorous smirk tilted her lips as she scratched her cheek. “I need an ibuprofen for this headache.”
“Seconded,” he scoffed.
Odette opened her mouth to speak again but was interrupted by the sound of manic approaching footsteps. They managed to echo over the sound of the rest of the cast and crew still lingering backstage for the break. Odette cut her eyes up just in time to see Acadia and her signature scowling face rounding the corner into the hallway they were sitting in.
“Oh goody, I was wondering where you went,” Odette said flatly, stretching her arms above her head.
“And I was wondering what the hell is up with you guys today,” Acadia snapped back. She looked at Noel before flailing her arms out to her side. Noel merely returned it with a weak grin.
“Don’t smile at me like that!” she said. “We’ve only run your part two trillion times since secondary school, so how the hell are you tripping up over words?”
Odette bit down on her tongue, resisting the dual urge to tell her to lay off him and to start laughing at the absurdity of the lecture. Oh, if only Acadia knew…
Actually. It was best if Acadia didn’t know. She was the kind of person who, if she thought any of them were doing something too dangerous, would alert a higher power about it.
Odette felt a brief pang of guilt at the sudden decision. She wasn’t somebody who liked keeping her close friends out of things this major, but…considering the gravity of the situation and considering there was a lot she and Noel didn’t know as it was, it was most likely the safest option. For now. It wasn’t like Acadia was into any sleuthing shit; she barely had the patience to complete a simple 100-piece puzzle.
Noel shrugged. “What, I’m not allowed to have a bad day? Like I didn’t catch you sickling your feet during your aerials the other day?”
Acadia stammered over her next words before she sucked in a shallow breath. She then shot a look back at Odette, who was still stretching.
“And you? I thought you had the prop placement down-packed. Are you still feeling out of it? I told you you probably should have stayed home another day.”
Odette sent Noel a very quick side-glance, which she wasn’t entirely sure he returned. Without missing a beat, she lowered her arms and crossed them over her chest.
“I was up late talking to Dorien. That's it,” she grumbled.
Acadia scoffed and crossed her arms as well, leaning against the wall. “And here I thought you guys were just taking some battle classes together.”
Odette ran her tongue over her teeth as she tilted her head away. Maybe it was a mistake mentioning that much to her at all.
She had done her best to keep Dorien’s name away from Vienna and Bernard so far but had felt that it would be much harder omitting that information from Acadia. Odette saw Acadia almost every day, and Acadia had known Dorien personally. So, she decided it would be okay to bring it up, but sparsely. However, she was starting to feel some regret over that decision now.
“Yeah, well. Things happen, you know?”
The dubious pause Acadia responded with was expected, but she was evidently ready to move on. A stern glare was suddenly sent to Noel. “Then what’s your excuse, mister?”
“I’ve been really stuck on this mystery podcast about the sacrilege crisis. Stayed up until 1 last night listening,” Noel said quickly. “For your information, I am very—”
Acadia suddenly held up her hands as if telling him to stop talking. “Really, you’re not doing yourself any favors trying to stick your nose in that whole thing. Drug epidemics aren’t anything theatre workers could handle, right?”
Odette couldn’t help but glance over at Noel again, and at that time, he certainly exchanged the look with her.
“Well, that doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting,” Noel said sassily, waving his hand for added effect.
Acadia waved her hands in an exasperated fashion just before she turned on her heel to head off to gods knew where. “Get it together, guys. So don’t keep wasting time. Don’t make me mum you both harder,” she called over her shoulder.
“Believe me, we’re working on it,” Noel called back, cupping his hand over his mouth as he leaned over to watch her go. Odette also craned her head to look over her shoulder, keeping her eye on the back of Acadia’s head until she disappeared around another corner.
When she was gone, she heard Noel sigh and watched him slump against the wall. She also felt some tension leave her as she leaned her head back.
“That didn’t feel too good,” Noel said in a borderline whine.
“No, but it was necessary,” Odette replied in a quieter voice as she eyed the divots in the ceiling. “I definitely don’t think this is something she needs to know about right now. Same goes for Noemie and Claude and Basille.”
When she didn’t get an immediate response, she picked her head back up, now catching Noel looking a little more contemplative.
“You haven’t told Noemie have you?” she pressed. If there were one person she wouldn’t put past Noel to spill everything to, it was his twin sister. They were so thick the thieves were jealous.
Now it was Noel’s turn to roll his eyes. “No,” he said reluctantly. “Mostly because I don’t know how she’d react. She’d either want to help or call mum and dad to have them lock me up.”
“Not sure how much her loudmouth self could help all the way from Galar,” Odette said doubtfully.
“I’m a loudmouth and do just fine.”
“You’re a loudmouth who at least knows how to regulate it.”
Another round of silence swelled between them. It wasn’t until Noel sighed for the final time that it broke.
“You’re right, though. Better it’s just us for the time being.”
***
The remainder of practice leading up to lunch passed in another blur. Odette could honestly say, even as she sat down among her normal group, that she didn’t have much of a clue of what had gone down in the past few hours. She couldn’t confidently say that she didn’t royally screw up again because nothing stirred her from that autopilot state. Nonetheless, it felt nice to finally turn it off and have a prolonged break to just…sit and close her eyes.
As she leaned her head back onto her backpack and folded her hands behind her head, she heard Acadia suck her teeth.
“If there were ever a time for you not to skip lunch, it would be the week following a visit to the ER. After just insisting you haven't had any hypotension issues for a while,” she said earnestly as she took a spoonful of soup out of the thermos she was holding. "
“And if there were ever a time for my appetite to still be jacked, it would be the days following a fever,” Odette snapped back. "I’ve been snacking today, so you can’t say I haven’t put anything in my stomach.”
That wasn’t necessarily a lie. She’d forced some sort of granola bar down her throat just before leaving her house, anticipating a day of a fleeing appetite. It was indeed for the sake of her recovering health, though. And physically, all was well. Acadia didn’t need to worry about that.
“Besides, if she doesn't eat, it's more for me,” Ange said as he dug into the chesto berry salad that Solene had packed for him. At least he was eating.
Acadia shook her head in annoyance just before swallowing another bite of her soup. “I sound like a broken record, so perhaps I shouldn’t bother,” she grumbled.
“Obviously, Dee just has a penchant for going hungry,” Noel joked as he sat down beside Acadia, a goofy smile on his face as he leaned into her ear. It prompted her to swat him away.
“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Odette scoffed as she allowed her eyes to slip shut, dead set on dozing off if possible. Gods knew a nap would certainly do her some good. A break from rehearsal, and more importantly, her thoughts.
“How’s the moving going? Hopefully, staying up late to talk with your rich boy toy isn’t affecting your ability to pack your glassware,” Acadia jabbed.
“Solene, Isaur, and Enora have that handled,” Odette shot back, waving her hand dismissively.
Though she was quick to respond, the question truly did get her thinking. She hadn’t actually thought about her big move much in weeks—there was simply no room for it in her head, and there probably wouldn’t be any time soon. Granted, they were still over two months out, but surely packing was a long process. It was best to get a move on it now either way because that time would pass like nothing. But with all of her mental energy wrapped up in figuring out what the actual fuck she’d gotten herself into wasn’t really allowing her any leftovers to put toward getting some boxes together…
She wasn’t sure what stressed her more as that thought occurred to her: the fact that she was moving to a whole new region in two months, or the fact that she and Noel only had two months to get to the bottom of their pressing problem. What could she even do from halfway across the world? Gods, what if Dorien followed her there? What if she never saw Clovis again? That was a sad thought.
“Hey, is Odette out here?”
The sound of her name caused her to jolt. With a couple of slow blinks, she leaned over onto her elbow and looked over her shoulder, taking a cursory glance around to find who was looking for her.
“She is,” she said. “Why?”
Her gaze caught on one of the lead actresses—she played Grizabella in the production--who looked like she’d just jogged from somewhere from the way she was panting. A teasing smirk crossed her face as Odette met her gaze, and she pointed over her shoulder.
“You miiiiiight want to head on out to the lobby. I think you either have a secret admirer or a lover who’s head over heels for you.” She winked for good measure.
Joking hoots travelled around from the immediate cast members that were sitting around her. It was all meant to be a good thing, but the way Odette’s heart took a nosedive down into her stomach said otherwise.
What the fuck did Dorien send her?
She didn’t hesitate to vault herself off the edge of the stage and up one of the aisles toward the doors out of the auditorium. She didn’t bother to see who planned to follow her because that didn’t matter.
The lobby was expansive—ornately decorated, with shiny tile floors, clean red carpets that led up the stairs toward the mezzanine seats, and an enormous crystal chandelier overhead. The giant bush of roses, fit with an equally as giant pink ursaring toy and a bouquet of heart-shaped balloons, that had been unceremoniously left by the will-call windows, looked extremely tacky against the décor. Odette figured it was the ‘I Love Odette,’ which had been spelled out with white roses against the red, that really did it in.
Odette stopped in her tracks when she caught sight of it and instinctively felt her lips curl over her teeth. A cacophony of snickers and mushy-sounding "awwwww’s" were quick to follow, and only then did she realize that a chunk of her castmates had followed her out.
“Since when did you have a boyfriend, Odette?” somebody asked in a laugh.
“Or girlfriend,” another voice interjected. “I totally see it, honestly.”
“That is sooooooo stinkin’ cute; what a goal!”
Odette let the words wash over her but didn’t do much to commit them to mind. She was swimming in her reddening vision. She hadn’t realized she’d clenched her fists until she felt a hand on her shoulder. The suddenness of it caused her to flinch, and with a sharp breath, she shied away and sent a violent look toward whoever dared to try and touch her when she was sinking into anger. The look, however, significantly softened when she saw it was just Acadia.
“Dee, holy hell. Is that from Dorien?” she asked incredulously. “I thought you guys were just talking, but I didn’t realize it was like that.”
Neither did I, Odette thought bitterly as she blinked away the rest of her malicious look.
“He knows how to surprise me,” she said. She didn’t intend for it to come out as flat as it did, but it was much harder to fake it when he wasn’t around.
Swallowing down her urge to yell an expletive, she built up the nerve to approach the lavish gift. The closer she got to it, the sicker she felt. She began to say a silent prayer to herself as she eyed the greeting card that was attached to the Ursaring plushie’s neck, somehow willing that the surprise was actually from Clovis and this was just the billionaire's way of confessing one's undying love for—
My dearest Odette,
I hope this adequately conveys how sorry I am for yelling at you the other day, and how much I care for you. I’m glad you’re feeling better, and I’m excited to see you soon.
All my love, Dorien
Her vision swam again, and it took everything in her not to tear the card to shreds. She aimed her eyes up at the bush as a whole, suddenly registering that it was somehow taller than her—not that she was tall to begin with, but anything taller than 5 feet might have been too damn much for a flower gift like this. But, she supposed a fresh rose bush was something Dorien could afford without giving it a second thought.
Did he think this was somehow supposed to glaze over how he’d acted in the garden? How he’d raised his voice and grabbed her? Above all, why did he feel the need to do this while she was at work? He had to have known something like this was impractical, yet he went through with it anyway.
It felt like an attempt at marking territory. The thought made her shudder involuntarily.
He clearly wanted everyone to know who the gift was for and that it was meant to be perceived as an act of love, an act of apology for acting so audaciously. The reactions of her castmates were exactly what he was going for. Perhaps he’d picked up on her degrading responses and decided the best course of action was to put her on the spot like this. Maybe it was meant to be spiteful or petty, or maybe she was reading into it too much.
Either way, it fucking infuriated her.
“How are you gonna get that home, girl?” somebody else called. Some lighthearted snickers followed. Even as she sunk lower into her rage, she could tell that the comments and laughs weren’t meant to be malicious…but they felt that way.
“I guess that’s why she’s so out of it today?”
That caused her to tense up, and her grip on the card tightened. It creased in her grasp, but she couldn’t have given less of a shit. She tried to breathe through it, but the corners of her vision clouded at an unbelievably fast rate. If she stood there any longer, she would tear the flowers into mulch.
She slammed the card back down into the crook of the plushie’s neck before storming off toward the door leading to the backstage area. She didn’t bother to go back through the doors that led back into the house; none of those nosy natu’s needed to see the face she was making. Or hear how labored her breathing had gotten.
She stormed down the hallway, following its sharp turns and bare concrete walls, until she could hear the sparse voices of the other cast members on lunch. With a couple more calculated turns, she found herself at the door to the women’s dressing room, and she didn’t hesitate to barge her way inside.
When she didn’t immediately hear the sound of a shower running, a toilet flushing, or tittering voices going back and forth, she screamed.
It was guttural; it tore through her throat with such an animalistic force that Odette could only contain herself by grabbing one of the shower stall curtains and tearing it clear off the wall bar and all. As they collectively clattered to the floor, she arched over and grabbed hold of her head as if that would somehow alleviate the undiluted rage pulsing through her brain.
Easy. Easy. Keep it together.
Repeating that phrase a few times caused the intensity of her emotions to die down, and with a shallow breath, she slowly straightened her posture and abruptly shoved her hands into her pockets. Her fingers went to work tugging at the loose pieces of thread and fabric, only loose because of other episodes similar to this one. However, even if she was ruining the internal parts of her clothes, at least she was keeping her hands busy.
Easy.
Easy.
Here, you are a hundred percent in control.
She cracked her eyes open, immediately catching sight of the torn curtain and displaced rod on the floor. That was enough to prompt her to close them again and shake her head apologetically.
“Fuck me,” she muttered.
She walked back toward the sinks, where she and Noel had spent a good 20 minutes passing their findings back and forth just several days before. The dressing room had been empty then, and she certainly hoped it was now.
She pressed her back against the nearby wall-length mirror and slid down to the floor, resting her forehead against her bent knees as she willed herself to regulate her breathing. Her exhaustion was imminent, and she wanted to do her best to fight it off. She could just take a quick sip of water from the sink, but she didn’t have it in her to stand up right now. Plus, she was still trying to keep her hands busy. She wasn’t sure if she could trust herself yet to let them go, lest she needlessly butcher another stall.
“Odeeeeeetttttte...”
Odette sighed deeply as she raised her head. Her tired eyes met Ange’s slightly worried ones. She was entirely unfazed to see he was just inches from her face. In fact, she welcomed his comforting warmth.
“Sorry. Did I freak you out?”
Ange thought for a beat before shaking his head. He didn’t say anything as he sank down to the floor next to her. She took that as an invitation to lean back against the mirror.
“Was it from Dorien?” Ange asked after a few more seconds of quiet.
Odette took a while to respond. “Yeah, it was.”
Another pause. “I can burn it if you want.”
That time, she laughed. It was very much needed. “I’d let you burn it if neither of us would get arrested for arson.” She rubbed the side of her face as she groaned tiredly. “Besides, I’ve already trashed the showers.”
Ange peered back toward the line of stalls, blinking a couple of times as he did. He said nothing more as he floated off toward them, disappearing just down the row. Odette watched him go and only quirked a brow when she heard the sound of light metal scraping against the floor.
“Ange, what are you doing?” she called.
Her question was met with a creaking noise, like the sound of rubber being rubbed aggressively against a hard surface, followed by a couple of low thumps. Ange distinctly grumbled to himself before the sound of a plastic curtain rustling became all she could hear.
“Ange?” she called again, bracing herself to stand up. She needn’t have bothered, though.
The chandelure suddenly appeared in front of her again, and this time, he was wearing the fallen shower curtain like a cape. As for the rod, he held it up as if it were some sort of staff. He puckered his lips in a pompous fashion, and his eyes drooped to match.
“I am the king of the women's dressing room,” he said, deepening the sound of his voice as if he were trying to do an imitation. "And I declare that you're not allowed to be upset anymore. Smiles only."
Odette’s brows remained lower as she watched him, but it wasn’t very long before a half-smile broke across her lips. She settled her cheek into her palm as she began to shake her head at him.
“You know, if you really wanted to dress up like a king, we have actual king costumes in costume storage,” she chuckled.
Ange abruptly stopped his acting to glare at her. It wasn’t anything malicious. More playful than anything. She held her hands up defensively nonetheless.
“I’m just saying; it might be slightly more helpful if we could get that thing back on the wall.”
Ange puckered his lips in thought, and the fire blazing from his head suddenly flared up with an idea. He dove back down the row of stalls, and at that time, Odette forced herself to stand to follow him. More sounds of rubber scraping against tile and plastic material rustling filled her ears as she trudged over, grabbing onto whatever walls and benches she could to ensure she wouldn’t fall back over from her oncoming drowsiness.
“Okay, look, I did it!” Ange finally cheered, just in time for Odette to round the corner and see what he was up to.
He had indeed gotten the curtain rod wedged back between the two stall walls, but he’d done it at a very evident angle. As for the curtain, it was wrapped in a neat bow around the center of the rod.
“Ta-da!” Ange said happily, gesturing to it with an excited wave of his tendrils.
Odette stared at his handiwork for a long while, contemplating how to respond. She was both minutely annoyed and extremely impressed with his bow-tying skills. She decided to lean more into the latter feeling, as she both appreciated his attempts to cheer her up, and she was in no mood to deal with him crying because she asked him to take it down.
“Very nice,” she said, sending him a gentle grin. Ange beamed, jubilantly swaying from side to side. His clear happiness was enough to fill her with a sense of calm she so desperately needed right now. Water would have been nice too.
As that thought occurred to her, she turned back for the sinks. She quickly stumbled in front of one and flicked it on, holding her mouth under it so she could get a solid sip from the stream coming out of the faucet. With only a few gulps, she felt the mental fog starting to clear, and her energy returning.
.
Then, RotomPhone buzzed in her pocket, and all that calmness fell out the window.
“Fucking–” she seethed.
She pulled away from the sink, aggressively wiping the excess water off her lips. “What the hell does it say now?” she asked in a raised voice.
The phone morphed in her pocket and quickly hovered up in front of her.
“Bzzzt! New text message from Clovis LeClair!” RotomPhone said.
Her breath immediately got caught in her throat, and she was left coughing and gasping over herself like a bumbling moron.
“Uh oh, bzzzzzt, I probably should have braced you for that. Bzzzt, sorry! ” RotomPhone said apologetically. A pixelated sweatdrop came into view on the screen.
“Odette? Do you need CPR?” Ange asked frantically over her wheezing.
“I’m good. I’m of sound body and mind,” Odette insisted between jagged breaths as she tried to ease her throat. She held up an assuring finger with one hand as she patted herself on the chest with her other. When she was sure she was at least somewhat coherent, she held her hand out RotomPhone.
“Let’s see,” she said.
The phone floated down into her hand, and Odette quickly pulled up her messaging screen. To a potent mixture of her shock and absolute glee, she felt her stomach do a somersault at the sight of his name, bolded in her inbox with the ‘unread’ indicator next to it. She beheld it for a while before allowing herself to click on it.
Good afternoon Miss Cinq-Mars. I apologize if I'm catching you at a bad time, but please let me know when you’ll be available to speak today. I hope you’re feeling much better this week and that everything is well.
She reread the message once, twice, twelve times. Sure, he had asked Bernard how she was doing, but now he was actually sending her well wishes. Was this real? Was she dreaming?
No. Wait. It was merely business. He’d said he planned to reach out when she was feeling better, and she was feeling better. To an extent. They were going to set up a time to talk, and there was nothing romantic about it.
FOCUS. FOCUS. FOCUS.
She typed out her response faster than she thought she was able to.
I’m at work right now, but we’re having lunch. I can talk for a few minutes 😁
She was about to send it when she stopped herself. Was the smiley face too much? They were just two acquaintances trying to set up a date to discuss confidential information, so why the hell would she bother sending a smiley face?
But on the other hand, would he think she was being too stiff if she didn’t? They seemed to have a repertoire of joking around whenever they came face to face…at least, she judged that much from the two times they’d talked in person, so perhaps it wouldn’t be that out of place?
She felt a bead of sweat forming on her forehead. When the fuck did texting become so hard?
After a few seconds of the most intense self-deliberation she had ever suffered, she erased the emoticon and sent the message. The regret was instant, but she worked herself through it. They were just two acquaintances setting up a time to have an acquaintance-esque discussion. It was fine.
Something better to worry about instead of the thorny roses in the lobby.
i forgot to crosspost OOPS. here for chapter 9 2.0
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I do want to open this up by saying I think your editing turnaround is insane on these; the amount of new material in this on such a short turnaround is really impressive. Editing is a scary beast but in this case I think it really, really worked to your favor. I had a great time on this chapter! At some point I'll probably re-read the story to get a sense for the revised timeline/new things here, but in general I started with chapter 9 since 9/10 are the ones that were most dramatically affected by everything, I think.
The scene-setting for this felt a lot more natural; I think you did a great job of establishing location and environmental stuff a lot better. I really appreciated the escalation from "look at these guys in dinky parasols" to Odette numbly watching a live auction to Desmocula. It's a great boiling of the frog and the running theme of Odette realizing she's getting waaaay too deep really hits a lot better here, culminating with her going completely off the deep end. Venira!! I think you do a really good job portraying the out-of-body experience there; we get a feeling that something's absolutely wrong (tbh even before the whole crying and blood), but we don't fully understand why yet. Dorien's reaction is also really intriguing. I know the dude's up to no good, but this is the first time we really see him break character and ask Odette for something because she's got something he wants, which is a great reversal of their dynamic (where she's been relying on him).
Speaking of the sleazebag. I think the revisions to their dynamic, the whole alluding to the lesser of two evils, trying to fake a smile--these are all really great changes. Well. Not great. But great. It's a lot more clear what Odette's after in this chapter and the lengths to which she's willing to go to achieve it, and it's a lot easier to understand when she does slip up because it's clear that she's been having to bottle up so much that it's finally just boiling over, instead of her just saying fuck it right from the start. It really makes the chapter a lot more snappy and keeps the stakes high throughout, because you get to juggle this constant "even when I win I'm losing" tension and every interaction starts to feel like a downhill battle. Odette definitely still feels very impulsive ("if someone dies or tries to shoot us, we'll dip" lmao), but I think in this version there's a lot more understanding that she's trying not to + she's aware of what's at stake, and it makes her motivations feel a lot more coherent as a result.
In general I think the Enora conversation flows a lot better, too + feels a lot less coercive. I wish the conclusion here was a little more self-aware. She's not just asking Enora to watch Odette get hurt again; she's asking Enora to be put at risk of falling into a pretty similar situation that Odette was in, tbh--I don't really think there's a 1:1 human analogue for evolution coercion but it is basically someone permanently stripping away your bodily autonomy in a way that would probably be hugely traumatizing. And of course Odette's doing everything to make sure that doesn't happen, but imo especially since it opens up with the auction it's pretty clear that Enora's in a lot more danger here than Odette, and in generally is being treated a lot differently? This is a room of people who are buying and selling people like Enora; it's basically targeted human trafficking, and Enora/Odette really don't know what rules these guys play by. I'm actually not quite sure where Odette really thinks anyone is going to watch her get hurt again--as far as she knows, she's not in any physical danger, right?
(But also, characters don't really have to be self-aware; that's pretty logical and Odette's firmly in the Good Decisions Only Club, so if she were a little misjudging here I'd get that. But as it's presented I'm not entirely sure if this is Odette projecting (from the very real and very traumatizing experiences that she's had) or not.)
The hints to the global conspiracy, yes, excellent. This is a horrifying implication and I hope that the solution is that Odette realizes she's completely fucked because if you live in a technocracy and a police surveillance state that controls the media, you literally can't win. Shitposts aside I think this helps ground that Odette's not entirely insane for jumping to ridiculous conclusions about media/government/police overreach; this feels a lot less conspiracy-theory and a lot more just, here's compelling evidence for a ridiculous observation.
(but will she think to bring a non-IOT camera for her next attempt at whisteblowing?)
Overall, I thought this chapter was a lot of fun. Things definitely built towards a more clear goal, and looping back towards the sin pokemon with Desmocula is a great way to keep the story focused on the main plot, imo.
I won't really die on the hill of how to pluralize pokemon names, but I'd recommend going for consistency--so either "Eevees, Slyveons" or "Eevee's, Sylveon's"
She inhaled deeply, trying to ward off the tickle in her back. Focus. She needed to focus. "Don't get ahead of yourself, I just turned 22," she warned, letting the seriousness leak into her tone. But, she smacked him playfully on the chest, and reeled herself back. "Though, every day with him feels like a breath of fresh air, and we haven't even been together that long. I could parse a wedding relatively soon, maybe."
I definitely overuse the word "parse" so I'm the last person allowed to judge you for this, but I don't think it works here. It mostly means to analyze/to understand/to intake.
I think in general you don't capitalize numbers (i.e. "million") unless there's like, a specific currency that's also called Million, but that seems really silly. Also errant $ on the second one. In general I don't think you put $ in dialogue since it's implied/non-spoken.
"Sorry about that. Us traders tend to get a little overzealous," he said. He sounded as sincere as he had when he calmed everyone down. As he spoke, a man in a vest sauntered by with a tray of white wine, and Dorien held a hand out to snap at him.
I didn't quite follow the action here--he goes off to get wine, comes back empty-handed, and then snaps at the waiter? I imagine he's doing his nefarious shit in the meantime, but then why return just to blatantly draw attention that you didn't do the thing you left to do?
(Maybe he comments on how those lazy waitstaff are nowhere to be found, oh, there's one right here, snap snap)
"So, how about this," she offered. "If things start getting bad. If Dorien gets too handsy, if somebody pulls out a gun, if somebody we converse with dies...we pull out. Wipe our hands clean, forget it happened." She dusted her hands off and held them out to her sides. "And if that still isn't enough, then...I don't need to involve you. I don't want to make you do something you're that reluctant to do."
I like the sentiment of offering Enora to choose, but I think it'd be more powerful if she also offers it before anyone pulls a gun or does things that cross Odette's line. "You can leave after the line I set" isn't quite a fair choice imo--that's just being slightly nicer about setting rules than the next person. I think something that's closer to "I don't want to make you do something you're that reluctant to do. I already set my lines. If things start getting bad [...] if somebody we converse with dies, I'm out. We'd wipe our hands clean, forget it happened. But that's my line. If you want to leave before that, I won't stop you." would make it more clear that this is Enora's choice. Otherwise, it feels more like Odette's putting down rules and everyone else just has to follow them, and the offer's not really an arguable offer.
Clovis sent her a hard, piercing look. "Sort of, yes." Another drag from the cigarette. He'd sucked it down almost half-way. "The point I'm trying to make," he said as he exhaled. "Is that you care about your Pokemon. Isaur very clearly has a bond with you, and the fact that you're simply letting Enora sit next to you on the stool says everything. You're a sane person who thinks of Pokemon as equal and not money machines."
I like the broad-strokes change in the actress scene here. I think the really intense praise that he gives her for caring about her pokemon rings a little hollow in light of Odette's conscious realization that she's been ignoring Enora's feelings--it doesn't make Odette not care about her pokemon ofc, but it does feel strange after the most recent emotional conflict being about her realizing she hasn't been caring about Enora. And the points that he cites as evidence for her caring is that she "lets" Enora sit on a chair--which, yes, way better than everyone else here, but not really pinnacle "caring" lol--imagine if that was the metric we used to determine if we cared deeply for humans. So it's kind of like when videogames heap praise on you for doing the basic tutorial level and being like "no one in this world could jump over three sticks; you are the chosen one"; it's weird to get a lot of recognition when you know you aren't really at your best yet.
Maybe he just asks Enora tbh?
"The point I'm trying to make is that ... well, do you want to be here?"
[and maybe move the resolution to Enora/Odette's argument here, have Enora make the realization here that this is a chance to help people, so that when she agrees it feels less like it's just Odette talking to her in the moment and more that it's been something she's been considering] "Vee!"
"No shiny pokemon would choose to walk in here unless they really cared. She's here for you." Pause, cigarette. "And you wouldn't invite her to sit next to you and listen to her opinion unless you cared for her too." < idk really cheesey but something closer to that might feel a bit more earned + provide a bit better basis for what "care" actually means
She'd wanted to walk by the lake, but a lot of people seemed to be down there, in spite of the "Beware of Gyarados!" signs positioned all around the perimeter. None of them appeared to care though.
Are pokemon not able to recover from fainting on their own? As a game mechanic that makes sense, but translated directly into the real world that'd be kind of horrifying tbh.
She trailed off just in time for Dorien to jog back over from wherever he'd gone. He kneeled in front of her, and it was now evident he'd been the one that ran off to get water, because he was holding a full glass.
Dorien doesn't seem to be in the beginning of this scene, so it's weird to specify that he's jogging back from wherever he'd gone. I think it'd be a bit more clear as:
She trailed off just in time for Dorien to jog up, holding a full glass of water. He kneeled in front of her.
“God fucking dammit, Snooki. Can you be anymore drunk?”
When it wasn’t Odette's team up to something weird or stupid, it was always her mother who picked up the slack--when she was home, at least. She’d only been back in Kalos since Sunday night, and she was taking every possible moment after to enjoy her leisure time. Vienna Cinq-Mars wasn’t a subtle woman by any means—if she wanted to sit home all day and scream at her reality TV shows, that’s what she did. And if she didn’t want to wear pants while she was doing that…well, she didn’t.
As Odette walked through from her bedroom to the kitchen, scrunched her eyebrows at the sight of her mother, cradling a bowl of nachos like a newly laid Pokemon egg, while she yelled at the orange Unovans on their TV screen. At least she had the common decency to put on a pair of granny panties rather than of one of the thongs she managed to leave all over the house during laundry days.
“You could at least watch something fulfilling, like a horror movie,” Odette commented.
“Thiiiii,” Solene chirped. She shuffled over to the couch and threw herself down to sit next to Vienna. Ever the punctual one, she was already ready to go.
“What’s more horrific than that spray tan? I swear, I got better color just climbing up the side of Coronet in the middle of a blizzard,” Vienna said, patting Solene on the head. She then threw one of the chips in her mouth. “The Unovans really know what they’re doing with their TV.”
“Agree to disagree," Odette said.
She fanned her wet eyeliner as she pulled open the fridge. Her eyes fell on the last available water bottle, and she grabbed it in one quick motion. She hadn't even left for her outing with Dorien yet, and she already felt like she was going to explode.
It had been a week since she had reluctantly approached him in class again and “apologized” for her foul attitude after their battle. She chalked it up to a bad rehearsal week, and he seemed more than willing to forgive her after that. When she offered that they “hang out after class,” he took every opportunity possible to treat her to extravagant excursions. Private jet flight from Lumiose to Gloire one day, limousine ride to the movies the next. Today's plan was a trip to a fancy restaurant, where apparently a cup of soup cost more than she made in an hour's work. She only knew that much because she'd searched up the menu out of morbid curiosity.
She felt idiotic getting as dressed up as she was. It was already a pain in the ass to wake up every morning to straighten her hair and do her full ten-step skincare routine, but adding on a full face of makeup and a nude, loose-fitting cocktail dress that hadn't seen the light of day since her first college party somehow made it all the harder. She didn't want to make herself look that good for Dorien; he didn't deserve to see her in such a state. However, being that this restaurant seemed to be so high end, she'd be cutting off her nose to spite her own face if she decided to roll up in a tracksuit instead. So, prettying up was a necessary evil here. She'd have to deal with his stupid goo-goo eyes and try not to gouge them out in the process.
She began chugging the water, hoping it would do something to ease her mind for the time being.
“Easy there, you’re going to choke,” Vienna warned over the noise coming from the TV.
Once she’d managed to down half of it, she relented. “That’s always the goal,” she said sarcastically.
“You should really try training up your gag reflex then. Trust me, it’s worth it.”
She could thank her lucky stars she wasn’t drinking at that moment, because she’d have spit everything out.
“Mum,” she sputtered. “You’re disgusting.”
“Thi!” Solene said.
Vienna snickered and covered her mouth. “Woops.”
Odette had to take a second to compose herself before she stormed back out to the living room. “You know, you have the mental age of an eighteen year old.”
“Yep, all mental growth stopped as soon as I pushed you out, snookums.”
Odette wished she’d somehow grown some sort of mental wall against Vienna’s out-of-pocket comments over the years. It was stuff like that that set them apart from other mother-daughter duos; Vienna mostly acted more like an obnoxious older sister than a parent, and it didn’t help that she looked the part. People mistook them for sisters all the time. In her forty years of age, she still managed to look like she was thirty.
“I’ll say it again. You’re disgusting,” Odette said.
"Well, I'll say that you're beautiful. You never dress like this," Vienna gushed.
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Mm, no. I'm too busy taking in the rare image of you in something that isn't a pair of fucking joggers."
Odette rolled her eyes so far back, it triggered a headache. She downed the rest of her water as she trudged back to her bathroom, throwing the empty bottle in the trashcan next to the sink. "Just for that, I'm spending my next paycheck on more joggers."
"Oh no, the humanity," Vienna laughed. "Why must you do us such a disservice and hide those dancer legs from the world?"
Odette decided the best way to stop the harassment was to ignore it. She began digging through her makeup trunk, trying to figure out what lipstick she should bother slathering on. She wondered if it would even be worth the trouble. Her lips looked perfectly fine without it, anyway. She was cursed with Vienna's big billowy lip genes, so people eyed them enough without them being colored a deep shade of red.
"Hey mum, do you have some Chapstick anywhere?" she called.
"Probably somewhere in my bathroom. Or under my bed. Or in my underwear drawer. Who knows, really. I'm always losing them," Vienna said.
"Thanks, you're a real help."
Her RotomPhone, which was sitting on the back of the toilet, suddenly began to ring, and her shoulders tensed at the sound of it.
"Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Incoming call from Dorien 'Dickhead' Bonhomme!" it said, causing her to groan.
"Fuck," she muttered. She slammed her makeup trunk closed, and slipped on the heels she'd set next to the bathtub. "Incoming, Solene!" she yelled, grabbing her phone and trudging back out to the living room.
The Gothitelle was already up at the door, holding her purse.
"Thi?" she asked.
"Yep," Odette said, snatching the bag. "Let's get going."
Vienna paused the TV and threw her arms up in the air triumphantly. "Have fun, my love!" she said. "I slipped a condom in your purse just in case. It's a heat activated one, so it's supposed to make things superb."
If looks could kill, Vienna would have dropped dead under the intensity of the glare Odette sent her way. The mere thought of getting anywhere near Dorien was nauseating, but doing that?
"Oh my fucking--goodbye," she screamed, yanking open the door and slamming it shut once she was out in the hallway.
***
“My brother and I came to eat here months ago, but there was a waiting list. Six months, pretty standard for this restaurant,” Dorien explained, swishing some of his white wine around in his glass. He sipped from it, darting his eyes around the crowded dining hall. “I wonder, did you know this place even existed? You seem like the kind of person who’d frequent more...smaller scale joints, yeah?”
“Exca,” his Excadrill said. Odette never heard any Pokemon sound pompous, but she supposed there was a first time for everything.
She swallowed down the urge to glare at him and hid it behind her masterfully crafted half-smile, which she accentuated by thoughtfully resting her cheek in her palm. She forced out an airy mix of a scoff and a chuckle, hoping it would be enough to mask any disdain wafting off of her.
Odette could just barely hear the small growl that rose out of Solene, and nudged her under the table.
“I don’t really have the time to wait six months for a dinner reservation,” Odette said sweetly. Years of acting classes did wonders in pulling off innocent facades like this one. Dorien appeared none the wiser, because he set his glass down and rested his chin in his hands. Something of a goofy grin passed over his lips, and his eyes drooped smugly.
“Well, sweetie, that’s simply a perk of the high life. If you stick with me, I’ll give you and your Pokemon more than just a taste of it.”
The complimentary bread she’d been munching on started to come back up. She casually rubbed her chest, coaxing it back down into her stomach. Barfing in a high end restaurant like this was hardly “lying low.” She already felt out of place wearing her department store dress while it seemed every person and Pokemon around her were dressed in designer attire. Even Dorien’s Excadrill was wearing a damn Dior jacket. If she’d known, she’d have put Solene in something nice, too.
“I'm really looking forward to it. This week has been wonderful so far,” she purred. She picked up her glass of mineral water and sipped it, hoping to bide her time before she had to engage in more talk. She was mildly concerned when she didn’t hear a response though, and shot a glance at him. He’d yet to move, still gazing at her with that droopy eyed look. It made her skin crawl.
She wished he’d just come out and say what he was thinking so she wouldn’t have to continue being looked at like this. Gods knew Solene was certainly over it.
It was then that a Florges approached the table, two of the entrees balanced on her hands, while the other two levitated off to her sides. She bowed her head politely, like she had every time she’d come back to wait on them.
“Flor,” she said, setting down the plates of food. She clasped her hands together, and nodded again. “Gesss?” she asked.
Dorien began setting his napkin in his lap, while his Excadrill mimicked him. “No ma’am, we’re all set,” he said. The Florges grinned broadly, before hovering off to her next task.
Odette gazed down at her food. She’d gone out of her way to get one of the cheapest things on the menu out of pure spite. She’d been very tempted by the beef bourguignon, but surely Dorien wanted her to spend his money. If she wasn’t as hungry as she was, she wouldn’t have ordered anything. Instead, she opted for a mere chicken caprese salad.
Dorien eyed it over his lobster meal, and raised a brow. “That’s really all you’re going to eat?” he asked. “Even your Gothitelle got more than you.”
Odette shot a look at Solene, then down at her coq au vin. Solene stuck out her lower lip, before grabbing a fork and stabbing one of the chunks of meat with it. She began to eat, and Odette shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m not that hungry,” she said. “But I guess Sol is.”
Dorien pursed his lips. “Are you trying to watch your figure?”
Odette’s eye started to twitch, and she had to claw into the tablecloth to get a grip on herself. She could see Solene tense up out of the corner of her eye.
“I actually think my figure's fine, don't you think?” The words physically hurt to say.
“Iiitelle,” Solene said stiffly, and Odette nudged her under the table.
Dorien chuckled and held up his hands defensively. “Oh, you don’t have to ask me. The dance lessons did you very well in the curves department.”
Her eyes cut to his neck. The collar of his pressed shirt and jacket didn’t cover it entirely. There was just enough exposed skin to allow an easy chokehold.
“Behave, Dorien. We're in public," she teased, swatting a hand toward him as she put all her energy into a shrill, bashful chuckle.
“Well, with the figure you have, I can’t help but look.”
It was amazing. He really thought he was being suave and flirtatious. She had to wonder if he listened to himself when he spoke. Maybe if he did, he’d realize he sounded like a douchebag. Or, maybe not. Odette had started to realize that his head was so far up his ass that it was probably hard to see or hear anything else.
When she didn’t immediately respond, he clicked his tongue, then removed his napkin from his lap and stood up. He motioned for his Excadrill to follow him.
“We’re going to go wash up. Don’t miss me too much while I’m gone!” he said with a smile.
The smile she forced might have been too fake, but she played it off by politely waving as he walked off. When she was positive both of them were out of earshot, she brought her hands to her face and exhaled deeply.
“Goooooth,” Solene hissed.
“I know, Sol, I know,” Odette said. “Imagine how I feel.”
Solene took another bite of her food. “Telle, itelle, itelle.”
Odette pulled her face from her hands and shot a look at the Gothitelle. “How many times are you going to tell me you think this is a bad idea? I think I’m well aware by now.”
“Teeeeelle,” she said with a shrug.
Odette groaned and brought her hand back to her face. She squeezed the bridge of her nose, hoping to ward off the headache that had manifested. It was there that she felt her mock-designer purse start to vibrate on the back of her chair. She nearly jumped out of her skin to get to it, hurriedly pulling open the zipper to steal a look at the caller ID.
“Bzzzt! Incoming call from Noel Massé!” RotomPhone said as she read her friend’s name on the screen. She answered it before she held it to her ear.
“Noel,” she said in a breathless whisper. She brought a hand up to cover her mouth for good measure. “You need to come be a buffer. I’m going to stab him.”
A snicker on the other end. “We already decided that my tagging along would defeat the purpose of this.”
“I know but holy fucking shit, this is the worst it’s been all week. It’s like he’s evolving into a bigger scumbag every time he opens his mouth.”
“So what you’re telling me is he’s a Pokemon?” Noel queried.
“That’s an insult to every and all Pokemon,” Odette snapped. She noticed Solene glance at her from the corner of her eye, but decided to ignore it.
“Nothing new?” he said, a little more deflated this time.
Odette shook her head. “No. But he definitely thinks we're dating.” Saying it out loud, even quietly, made her shudder.
Noel was silent for a moment, possibly contemplating the statement. “You could capitalize on that. Play gold digger for a bit and wipe him clean of his money before he dies.”
“Pretty sure that only works if he’s seventy years older than me,” she said flatly.
“Well you can hope he has some terminal illness you don’t know about. Or pray a Grimer tries to crawl into his mouth while he’s sleeping.”
Odette laughed at the image of Dorien choking on that particular poison type, before shaking her head again. “No amount of money in the world would be worth that,” she said. She paused to consider her next words. “I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth it at all.”
She had the acting down to a T, sure. She could titter at his misogynistic passes, and put on the doe eyes while he talked to her about the new million dollar car he just bought, but every time she did so, the anger would start to build. She'd gotten the hang of swallowing it down, but she'd only been at it for what, a week? And she was already exhausted. How long could she hold up before it all became too much?
Noel sighed. “We’re playing the long game here, and it’s only been a few days.”
She pursed her lips. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, he was right. She’d gone into this knowing Dorien wasn’t just going to come out and say anything alarming, but she supposed she didn’t fully consider just how long it would actually take. It was true that it had only been a few days, but she hadn’t been prepared for how excruciatingly long they would feel
At the very least, it was keeping her mind off of everything else. So, she supposed she was getting something out of it. Besides, her mum and grandparents didn’t raise a quitter. She could stick it out.
“Hopefully he says something sooner rather than later,” she sighed.
She felt a couple hasty taps to her shoulder and glanced over to see Solene pointing in the direction of the bathroom. Dorien and his Excadrill were coming back, but had momentarily stopped at another table to talk with the diners sitting there.
Odette’s posture stiffened. “Okay, okay, gotta go, talk later,” she said quickly. She barely heard Noel’s response before hanging up and tossing the phone back into her bag. She’d just hung it back on her chair when Dorien and Excadrill sat back down.
“Sorry, sorry. Saw some friends and had to say hello,” he said.
“Took you long enough,” Odette replied, lacing a whine around her tone. "I really did start to miss you."
Dorien's eyes lit up momentarily, and he reached out and took hold of her hand as he poked his lower lip out. She made a mental note to scrub her fingers with a Clorox wipe later.
"You're so cute," he said. "Come, let's eat."
Odette pulled her hand away faster than she planned to, and went straight into her salad, while Dorien started on his own meal--some sort of steak that looked like it cost more than her whole net worth. Much to her relief, that did the job in preventing any extra conversation from happening. They were all so caught up in their food that nothing was said for a solid five minutes. It was bliss.
“So,” Dorien said after he finished a bite. He politely brought his napkin to his lips and dabbed them off. “I have something I want to ask you.”
Odette suppressed a groan. She swallowed whatever she had in her mouth, before exchanging quick looks with Solene. “What would that be?”
Dorien smirked, and she felt the jolt of a metaphorical thunderbolt rock her chest.
“Nothing major,” he said. “I just had a slight concern.”
“Why, because you’re hanging out with a commoner?” she asked jokingly, raising her brow.
He chuckled, almost...darkly. She kept up her smug smile, but began to kick off her high heeled shoes, in case her instinct to run came back full force. She felt it bubbling in the back of her head.
“Well, as you know, I come from a lot of money,” he said. He reached out and took hold of her hand again, and began to mindlessly intertwine his fingers with hers. A bleach bath might be in order after the Clorox wipe.
“My parents raised my siblings and I to be protective of that fortune, so naturally, when I start seeing somebody new, I do my research.”
She couldn't help but narrow her eyes as they darted from their locked hands to his face. Where the hell was he going with this? She grabbed her near empty glass of water and began to drink again to keep her other hand busy, and Dorien must have taken that as a sign to keep going.
“I wanted to ask you about the manslaughter case you were involved in last year.”
Odette choked on her next gulp and began to cough violently. She wrenched her hand away from him as she slammed her cup back down. She lowered her head to avoid drawing attention to herself.
“Well, I guess it was more of a self defense killing, considering the victim raped you, right? So that makes you the victim, I suppose...”
The mixture of pure shock from his questions and her water going down the wrong pipe made it impossible to stop coughing. She was certain she was going to choke to death with this asshole and his mole watching, until suddenly, her throat loosened up. Next thing she knew, she could breathe again.
Odette sucked in a couple greedy breaths, trying to refill her shriveled lungs. She looked back over to Solene, seeing that her hands were engulfed in her signature pink glow. Odette didn’t even have time to thank her because of the anger exploding from the spot on her back. She had half a mind to flip the table right then and there.
“Stop,” she said, loud enough to turn a few heads. So much for holding out for much longer. But, she didn't care now. Fuck lying low, when she was in the presence of such audacity.
“You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve,” she menaced. “Seriously, you thought that was something I was going to want to discuss with you?”
Dorien held up his hands, but it looked more like he was just going through the motions of being startled. Like he was doing it to save face, though Odette was positive that he didn’t care about that. He wouldn’t have asked about something like that, or even gone as far as to look it up in the first place, if he wasn’t trying to get under her skin. There was no way.
“I see you’re upset.” The emphasis he put on that last word prompted a chill to run down her spine, but she was far too mad to acknowledge it.
For her own sake, she started to drink the rest of her water. She needed to calm down before she did something too rash. Her mind, despite the angry fog, was flooding with questions.
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why did he do that? Why is he going there? Why does he need to know that?
She hadn’t felt this exposed since she walked back into Fleurrh’s campus after the charges were dropped. Where everyone knew what had happened, and the only people who didn’t look at her like a threat to society were her friends who knew the whole story. She couldn’t deal with the scrutiny, she couldn’t deal with the looks...and now, here she was, dealing with that same thing from the very person she probably despised just as much as him.
Dorien continued, apparently unfazed. “I apologize, but it’s not every day you read that your date killed her drama professor in near cold blood.”
Her grip on her glass tightened.
“What was his name? Jordan Deschamps?” he asked.
Crack.
The glass shattered in her hand, shards falling into her lap and on the floor. She could feel some of the shards digging into her skin, saw crimson start to stream from the wounds, but she felt no pain. All she could feel was the heat of her rage.
“Ma’am are you okay?!” a passing waiter yelped. His accompanying Sentret chirped in alarm. “Sen! Tret! Sen!”
Odette couldn’t find the words to respond. She finally regained feeling in her hand and flexed it, allowing the heavier glass shards that were still stuck in her skin to dislodge themselves. Solene was quick to grab hold of her wrist, and she pressed her dinner napkin to the wounds in order to slow the bleeding.
“Itelle? Itelle?!” Solene said frantically.
It was only then that the pain of the gashes started to register. Other waiters and waitresses and their accompanying Pokemon started to crowd around the table. Their questions slurred together in her foggy mind; several more forced “are you okay’s?” managed to break through. One of the workers, who she assumed to be the manager or something of the sort, was phoning for a first aid kit over the headpiece he was wearing.
Through all of that, she peered back over at Dorien. She wished she could say she was surprised that she couldn’t find a lick of remorse on his face, but she was far from that. His eyes had gone dark, and she recognized that threatening hostility from class just those few days before.
The fight or flight was kicking in again, but this time, they were truly at odds. She both wanted to bolt from the restaurant and make him bleed, too.
But, as soon as the manager approached him, that malicious look was replaced with a worried frown. He said something about being shocked, about how he wasn’t sure what happened, but also how they most likely wouldn’t need to call an ambulance. The manager looked relieved by that, then said something else about a free meal. At least, that’s what it sounded like. Dorien glanced down at the diamond-encrusted watch on his wrist, and she couldn’t pick up on much else after that.
“I’m good,” she finally said. “We’ll take the check. I just want to go home.”
“Ma’am, at least let us wrap the wound up for your travels, okay?” said a waitress. The Chansey standing next to her nodded in agreement.
She shook her head and shrugged. “Fine. But I’m okay. Really.”
***
“I really am sorry. I didn’t think a glass would shatter in your hand.”
She refused to look at him. She refused to give him any more of her time for today. She was over it.
Instead, she zeroed in on the throbbing in her bandaged hand in order to keep herself from punching him. It’d be easy, now that they were in the chauffeured car and headed back to her apartment. They were in close proximity, and the only person watching would be the driver and Solene. It’d be so easy.
“C’mon, Odie, talk to me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, keeping her eyes focused on the other cars on the city road. Perhaps if they weren’t surrounded by so many, she’d open the door and barrel roll out onto the sidewalk and walk home.
“Goth,” Solene said. She sat in the middle of them, serving as the much needed buffer. She kept her hand on Odette’s arm, clearly ready to jump into action if need be.
“You know, the car ride would be easier if you put your Pokemon back in her ball,” Dorien said tentatively.
“I think she’s fine where she is,” Odette said.
“Telle,” Solene agreed.
She heard Dorien sigh, and the leather of his car seat squeaked as he leaned into it. “C’mon, sweetheart, I didn’t mean any harm. It was a genuine concern.”
“Yep, and you just kept rubbing salt in the wound, you fucking psychopath.”
He was silent for a while. The car turned down Gigavolt Way. Soon, she’d be free.
“I’m sorry,” he said dejectedly. “I clearly got very carried away.” His tone was remorseful, and if she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was sincere.
“I think it’s a lot more than that, but whatever helps you sleep on your bed of roses at night.”
The car had barely pulled to a stop in front of her building before she had her hand on the door handle. She tugged on it, but it wouldn’t budge. Her gaze cut to the lock indicator, intent on pulling it open herself, only to find it was one of those that sunk all the way into its compartment, making it impossible to grab hold of.
“Open the door. Now.” She turned back to face him. “Or Solene will blow the glass out.”
Dorien sighed deeply, then checked his watch again. She had half a mind to rip it off his wrist and shove it down his throat.
“I did say the ride would be easier if you’d put her back in her ball. Hopefully I have enough.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but was caught entirely off guard when she got a fist full of some sort of red dust in her face. As soon as it made contact with her eyes, they started to sting.
“What the fu--”
A violent cough cut her off. She could hear Solene coughing too, but was unable to open her eyes to get a good look at her. She didn’t have enough time to let herself be mad that this guy had just pepper sprayed her, because her brain was going into emergency mode.
Need milk, need water...stop coughing, stop inhaling it in...need to break the glass, now.
“1:30 to 2:47,” she heard Dorien say.
The expletives began to well up in her throat, but it was far too busy constricting, trying to ward off the effects of the dust. She found the slightest bit of solace in feeling Solene’s hand on her arm, but the fact that she couldn’t see or help her was causing panic to set in.
She regained some control of her body and began to feel along the door, up to where the window was. Punching it wouldn’t be an option, but if she could angle herself to kick…
No sooner had the thought set in, the effects of the vapor vanished. The stinging in her eyes ceased, and her throat opened. The panic vanished and Odette was suddenly in a daze, wondering briefly where she was. Something had just happened, but she couldn't put her finger on what. She felt like she'd had too much to drink...had she? Where was she? Right, Dorien’s car. She was being driven home. She looked down at Solene, who was darting her head around tiredly.
Maybe they really had too much to drink...
She then looked to Dorien, who appeared concerned.
“Are you alright?” he asked. “I had no idea you were both such lightweights, I wouldn’t have ordered that much wine.”
Well, that answered her question. Odette’s temples throbbed, and she reached up to massage them. A sharp pain radiated from her palm, and she recoiled to get a good look at the bloodied bandage.
“When did I--” she started to ask.
“Faulty glass. Shattered right in your hand, remember?”
She thought about it for a second, and was relieved to find that she did indeed remember. Whatever wine she had hadn't shot her memory of the day entirely. Anger surged from her back again. She had half a mind to march back down to that restaurant and yell at them for using such shitty wine glasses.
She shook her head abruptly. “Sorry. I know better than to drink that much during the day.”
“Gothii,” Solene slurred in agreement.
“Well, you’re home now. You can go get some rest.”
The door unlocked, and she stared at it for a long while before pushing it open. Her body felt light as she stepped out of the car, but somewhere in the back of her mind she felt...dread. Like there was something wrong. Of course, that had to be Dorien’s doing. She could never feel at ease when she was near him.
She pushed the door shut behind her once Solene was out, but the window rolled down before she could walk away.
“Before I forget, I need to give this to you,” Dorien said as he leaned nonchalantly on the sill. He held a yellow envelope out to her.
“There’s a big social gala happening this weekend, and I’d like you to come,” he said. “That’s your invite. I don’t expect you to know anybody there, so you’re more than welcome to bring a plus one if it would make you more comfortable. But, you’ll still be going as my date.”
The possessiveness behind that ‘my’ made her skin crawl. She eyed him, trying not to let her disgust show on her face, before snatching the envelope away.
“Can't wait” she said.
A half smile crossed Dorien’s face. “Kiss goodbye?” he asked, reaching a hand out to her.
She swallowed down a bald-faced laugh while she shoved the envelope in her purse. But, that bald-faced laugh was quick to melt into something that caused her stomach to ache.
You're acting. It's a stage kiss. You've done these before.
She inhaled a deep, readying breath, then took his hand. He pulled her close to the door, and planted a sweet peck on her lips. Well, it would have been sweet, if it didn't taste like fucking acid to her. She was grateful that he didn't do anything more than that, though.
"Go get some rest. I'll see you later." He ran a loving finger across her cheek while he spoke, before retreating back into the car and rolling up the window. He was speeding off around the corner after that.
For some reason, even though he was gone, and she'd gotten the date over with...something still felt wrong. She decided to tell herself it was just the liquor.
***
Through her drunken haze, Odette was at least satisfied to see that Vienna had clothed herself. Her hair was sopping wet from a fresh shower, and her face was coated in some sort of gray clay mask.
"Oh, hi! You're home early," she said. "I guess you didn't use my present."
"I'll kill you," Odette said dazedly, kicking off her heels next to the door. Solene took that time to wobble over to the couch and throw herself down onto it.
“Awwww, come on now, I’m just busting your balls,” Vienna whined, twirling a lock of her curly hair around her finger. She then held her hands out in front of her, like she was beckoning for a hug.
“Give mumma some sugar.”
“Just because you said it like that, no.”
Vienna stepped toward her. “Pleeeeassseee? I missed my little red eye so much.”
Odette stared at her for a long while. She ultimately decided she couldn't say no, and stepped over to lay her ringing head on Vienna's shoulder. The tension left her body when she felt her mother's fingers rub over the back of her neck. In the face of what some might call their “unconventional relationship,” Vienna somehow always knew what she needed. She was a good mum. A lunatic, but still a good mum.
“Whatsa matter? You look more disgruntled than usual,” Vienna asked, letting her go. "Let me guess. Wine?"
“Too much wine,” Odette huffed, picking her head back up.
Vienna chuckled. “Can’t believe I birthed such a lightweight. I wish--” As she spoke, her eyes traveled down toward the floor. Her words abruptly stopped, and she reached down and grabbed Odette’s bandaged hand.
“Oh, that’s--”
Vienna furrowed her brows as she examined her palm. “What happened?”
“Oh, yeah.” Odette yanked her hand away and began to caress it herself. “Bad glass broke in my hand. Nothing deep enough for stitches, just needs to be re-bandaged.”
Vienna’s gaze became a little more intense, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “According to whom?”
Odette didn’t immediately have an answer for that. She had to close her eyes and think long and hard about why she was so sure of that.
“One of the first aid Chansey’s at the restaurant,” she recalled. It sounded right. “I trust their judgement.” Mostly because the thought of having to get stitches sent a chill down her back that matched the ones Dorien gave her. No thank you.
Vienna paused to consider the statement, then chuckled. “Well jeez, honey, if you needed a stress ball so badly, all you had to do was ask. I keep twenty in my desk at the lab.”
Odette let out a sardonic laugh as she leaned against the dining table. “I'm good, but thank you for the offer."
“So, what's the deal? He doesn't do it for you?” Vienna wondered.
Odette flared her nostrils. “I wouldn't say that," she lied. She wasn't quite sure how to word herself here. As much as she wanted to vent about what was going on, she'd promised herself that she would keep this under wraps. The less Vienna knew meant the less she could tell Bernard, and that meant the less she would get caught in the act of...whatever it was she had gotten herself into.
"It’s just...I don't know. Don't want to move too fast, you know?"
The fact that she was talking about this, even as an act, hurt.
“Good on you!" Vienna praised. "I could have learned a thing or two from somebody like you. Would have saved me from people like your sperm donor."
Odette’s nose crinkled in a grimace, as it always did when Vienna decided it would be a good idea to bring up her unknown father. “Well, anybody could have told you that messing around with someone twice your age was a bad idea.”
“They did. I just didn't listen,” Vienna said, shrugging. “But, how can I be regretful when I got your cute face out of it?” She reached out and squeezed Odette’s cheeks for good measure. “Red eyes and all.”
She let go and made way toward the kitchen, where she dug around in the fridge for gods knew what. Odette silently watched her, and let her head start to right itself. She glanced over at Solene, who was on the verge of sleep. It actually made Odette more sleepy, too.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she announced.
“Left a lot of hot water. Don’t drown, love ya!” Vienna called.
She hobbled over to her bathroom door. Certainly the hot water would bring her back entirely, and allow her to adequately examine the events of the day. Though, she wasn’t sure what was there to pick apart. Aside from her shitty luck with glassware, it was remarkably uneventful. At least, from what she could recall. She really knew better than to drink that much, especially in the presence of such a problematic person. What were she and Solene thinking…
However, she did manage to snag an invite to another place. He’d called it a gala, which undoubtedly meant there were going to be a lot of people there. A perfect opportunity to perhaps see past Dorien, and look to his colleagues instead. She could even bring Noel to be a buffer if she needed it.
“Hey, mum?” she said. “Do you happen to have any sort of designer brand dresses I can borrow?”
She heard a cabinet slam, and a chip bag crinkled. “Sure, baby, we can go through my stuff later.”
Odette smiled and wearily pushed open the door, looking forward to the end of such an obnoxious day.
Here for catnip, sorry for being late! I still really like your work, but reading can be hard for me :(
First thing is first, I have something to say about Odette's mom:
“Yep, all mental growth stopped as soon as I pushed you out, snookums.”
Odette wished she’d somehow grown some sort of mental wall against Vienna’s out-of-pocket comments over the years. It was stuff like that that set them apart from other mother-daughter duos; Vienna mostly acted more like an obnoxious older sister than a parent, and it didn’t help that she looked the part. People mistook them for sisters all the time. In her forty years of age, she still managed to look like she was thirty.
“I’ll say it again. You’re disgusting,” Odette said.
"Well, I'll say that you're beautiful. You never dress like this," Vienna gushed.
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Mm, no. I'm too busy taking in the rare image of you in something that isn't a pair of fucking joggers."
Odette rolled her eyes so far back, it triggered a headache. She downed the rest of her water as she trudged back to her bathroom, throwing the empty bottle in the trashcan next to the sink. "Just for that, I'm spending my next paycheck on more joggers."
"Oh no, the humanity," Vienna laughed. "Why must you do us such a disservice and hide those dancer legs from the world?"
This mom is savage af, like damn lady chill tf out. This is your daughter, not the Kalosian battle rap scene. Dorien better watch his ass because Odette ain't got time for his fuckboi ass. She definitely has some of this trait in her, so she might verbally tear him to shreds. To the point where you have to warn readers about the graphic verbal violence.
Dorien's interesting in this chapter....but also very suspicious. He's putting on something that would be taken as sincere by the reader, but the reader can also tell that...maybe it's not exactly the most sincere. Odette def. doesn't think so, that's for sure. Is he trying to manipulate, fool, or is there actually a genuine concern but he doesn't know how to show it?
“Before I forget, I need to give this to you,” Dorien said as he leaned nonchalantly on the sill. He held a yellow envelope out to her.
“There’s a big social gala happening this weekend, and I’d like you to come,” he said. “That’s your invite. I don’t expect you to know anybody there, so you’re more than welcome to bring a plus one if it would make you more comfortable. But, you’ll still be going as my date.”
The possessiveness behind that ‘my’ made her skin crawl. She eyed him, trying not to let her disgust show on her face, before snatching the envelope away.
Also, I didn't realize you were writing for the horror genre too. This is easily the most terrifying thing so far. I feel bad for Odette. #IStandWithOdette
A half smile crossed Dorien’s face. “Kiss goodbye?” he asked, reaching a hand out to her.
She swallowed down a bald-faced laugh while she shoved the envelope in her purse. But, that bald-faced laugh was quick to melt into something that caused her stomach to ache.
You're acting. It's a stage kiss. You've done these before.
She inhaled a deep, readying breath, then took his hand. He pulled her close to the door, and planted a sweet peck on her lips. Well, it would have been sweet, if it didn't taste like fucking acid to her. She was grateful that he didn't do anything more than that, though.
OH COME ON, IT WAS ALREADY TERRIYFING ENOUGH WITH THE IMPLICATION OF DORIEN BEING SOMEBODY'S DATE! THIS MESSAGE IS IN ALL CAPS DUE TO EXTRA TERROR.
HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO HER?! THIS WAS A MISTAKE! DON'T ASK WHY IT'S STILL ALL CAPS, NOR WHY I KEPT GOING ON.
“Good on you!" Vienna praised. "I could have learned a thing or two from somebody like you. Would have saved me from people like your sperm donor."
Odette’s nose crinkled in a grimace, as it always did when Vienna decided it would be a good idea to bring up her unknown father. “Well, anybody could have told you that messing around with someone twice your age was a bad idea.”
“They did. I just didn't listen,” Vienna said, shrugging. “But, how can I be regretful when I got your cute face out of it?” She reached out and squeezed Odette’s cheeks for good measure. “Red eyes and all.”
Vienna plz, but also I'm intrigued by who Odette's father is and how did she end up....messing with him. It's Professor Oak, I'm sure of it. Move over Ash, "Prof. Oak is Odette's father" the new theory in town.
On a more serious note, I do think that you captured Odette's feelings about what happened with that case well. Case in point:
She hadn’t felt this exposed since she walked back into Fleurrh’s campus after the charges were dropped. Where everyone knew what had happened, and the only people who didn’t look at her like a threat to society were her friends who knew the whole story. She couldn’t deal with the scrutiny, she couldn’t deal with the looks...and now, here she was, dealing with that same thing from the very person she probably despised just as much as him.
CW: Strong Language, Strip Club Setting, Drug Usage, Talk of Sex, Talk of Sexual Assault, Thoughts of Abuse, Stalker-like Behavior, Thoughts of Murder
Hey all! Welcome to the first "Bonus Chapter." I had this chapter idea after hyperfixating on a certain linked song, and decided to write it out as a way to get into a particular character's head and perhaps reveal more about this plot along the way. Please keep in mind that there is a lot of uh...pretty gross discussion in this chapter that might make some readers very uncomfortable. It is not imperative to the plot of the story that you read this, so please don't feel inclined to do so if any of the above content warnings cause squicky feelings. Nothing major happens here, but some details might raise some questions and/or answer some.
If you do end up reading on, please enjoy! (Or not 🤡)
Strip clubs didn’t really do it for him anymore.
Even as he sat in the VIP room, surrounded by top-shelf wines and champagnes and perhaps some of the wealthiest men in Kalos, he wondered why he still bothered. He was all for boisterous settings, but surely other clubs in the area would be willing to accommodate them and their dealings. Plenty of players in the sacrilege distribution owned clubs, so perhaps they didn’t need to frequent just this one. No matter how much the owner bought.
He tightened his grip on the tube of Earl Gray scented lip balm that he was mindlessly twirling between his fingers and held it longingly to his lips. He finally allowed himself to zone back in on his surroundings as his ear caught on some intense laughter just off to his right. It managed to break through the rumbling bass of the club speakers, so clearly, something was funny.
Squinting through the cloud of cigarette smoke and blinking light from the colored spotlights overhead, he barely made out the image of Lionel, Adam, and Colin sitting on the nearby sectional and just fraternizing with a bevy of ladies who might as well have been naked.
Adam was in the middle of getting yet another lap dance, and he was more into it than the first three. Lionel had two of them in his lap, and Colin looked more interested in eyeing the other men that were standing around. He supposed nothing really had changed since secondary school. Adam was still horny, and Colin was still as gay as they came. Lionel went to a different school, but it’s safe to assume he was as much of a playboy then as he was now.
At least the general consensus so far was that everyone was having a good time. Though, he had to wonder how any of these men could have fun at a club spouting such lies.
This place boasted of employing “the most beautiful women in Kalos,” but he couldn’t get behind that sentiment. He simply couldn’t understand the appeal of these pasty-wearing bimbos with nails long enough to castrate a man in one swipe. How did they manage to clean themselves, anyway? There was nothing sanitary about it; there couldn’t be. And even if they managed to be squeaky clean hygienically, none held a candle to her.
Because she was perfect. Too perfect, apparently.
He sighed deeply into the plastic of the lip balm tube as he allowed his eyes to slip shut. This keepsake had long lost its scent of her, but it still brought him a sense of comfort to know that there was a time when she applied its contents to her beautiful lips on the daily. Perhaps that was how she kept them in such pristine condition–-he always had to wonder how somebody managed to have such flawless lips like that.
Such flawless, kissable lips. These strippers could never.
He flipped the tube between his fingers once more until he could see where she’d hastily scribbled out her initials, marking it as her own at one point. He’d never known anybody to care so much about their lip balm that they were willing to brand it; that meant she misplaced them quite often…or had them stolen.
He almost felt guilty at that thought, being that he hadn’t hesitated to swipe it when she accidentally dropped her backpack in the hallway that one day. All of her possessions spilled out onto the floor, and everything was there for pickings as he helped her gather everything back up. He remembered how annoyed she was and how he had to bite his tongue to keep from smiling over the jackpot he’d hit.
He settled for the lip balm on that occasion; not as disposable as the pencil she used to tap against her cheek in chemistry but not as desirable as the sports bra she apparently kept on hand for her dance practices after school. It was a happy medium.
Besides, taking somebody's undergarments would have been too weird, even if it did smell entirely of her. He would never stoop himself that low.
The memory caused him to roll his eyes, even as he thumbed the fading Sharpie ink.
OHC. OHC. OHC. OHC.
Yes, it was very certain. She was perfect. He knew that, and it was clear at this point that even Mr. Lambourne knew that.
As the thought occurred to him, that familiar spot in the nape of his neck began to tingle. He resisted scoffing as the forsaken devil on his shoulder filled his head with more nonsense.
You truly are infatuated with the object of His Majesty’s affections, you know? I wonder why that is?
He clenched his jaw as if that would somehow will Inviderus to stop talking. As usual, it didn’t.
All of his attention is on her when it should be on you. How could you love something so deeply when that’s the case?
He was suddenly grinding his teeth. He was acutely aware that he might damage his veneers, but when his emotions were at war with Envy, none of that really mattered, did it?
But, Inviderus, as always, had a point. How could he still harbor such intense feelings of love toward the very thing that kept Mr. Lambourne busy all the time? All His Majesty ever wanted to know about was what she had said or what she was doing–-not anything his loyal subjects were up to, ever.
That was the part that infuriated him. That part made him want to wrap his fingers around her damn neck and squeeze until she stopped breathing.
In thinking about that, he was certain that that might be more effective in getting Venira to rear her head than he had been doing. Just getting aggressive in battle or talking her ear off about touchy subjects wasn't enough, and the latter had even cost him some of his Vice Dust. Only the first-degree strain, but it was a loss nonetheless. He really needed to watch how much he used on her. She'd taken enough of it as it was.
But she had too good of a grip on herself, and it was making things so much more difficult. He supposed he should have suspected that of somebody who literally killed their rapist seconds after the act occurred--she had to have gone completely zen to get over something like that.
He really did not want to harm her physically. He couldn’t physically harm her; he was barred from it after the last time. That was against the mission. But…he was slowly running out of options. And losing his patience.
The closest he seemed to have gotten to success so far was when she confronted the battle at the garden, and he hadn’t even been there to witness it fully. He was still kicking himself for it and how he’d acted after the fact.
Impulsively, he reached into his pants pocket with his free hand, withdrew his phone, and navigated to the texting thread he had with her. He scrolled back through all of their recent messages, skimming over her short and sometimes curt responses for perhaps the twentieth time that day. She was a sparse texter as it was, but this was getting out of hand.
She had to be upset with him, right? Or was it because she was still recovering from her ER visit? Maybe that was it.
Fuck.
He knew better. He really knew better.
He couldn’t afford to lose out on her like this for more reasons than one. He relished in all the moments he could kiss her, hug her, and run his fingers through her hair. Not to mention, Mr. Lambourne wouldn’t let him hear the end of it if he failed this. Probably to the point of stripping him of his title.
Maybe if he actually succeeded in recapturing Venira, Mr. Lambourne would drop the infatuation with her and start paying attention more attention to him, and that way, he could stop wallowing in this deep-set desire to slit her fucking throat. The conflicting emotions were absolutely nauseating, and he was getting to the point where he didn’t quite know what to do with himself anymore.
The sheer Envy he felt over just downright perfect she managed to be. Why couldn’t he be like that? God, she didn’t even know Mr. Lambourne existed, and yet…
Perhaps he could hit her just once. Release some tension and maybe, just maybe, lure Venira out. Kill two birds with one stone. Besides, a smack wouldn’t break skin. It would just leave a welt; one that would most likely heal in a day as long as he was careful with how hard he went for it. It wouldn’t be that awful, right?
She was a strong girl. She’d be fine. He might even let her hit him back to call it even. He could get away with it if it meant success. He could convince Mr. Lambourne of that. Nothing else was working, and it was all he could do!
Yes, that had the potential to slide, right?
Right?
Wrong. So wrong.
That would be awful. He could just imagine the hurt in her eyes and hear her screaming at him for beating on her. And he couldn’t imagine Mr. Lambourne letting him get away with that unscathed. Alive, maybe, if he turned up with Venira, but certainly not unscathed. What was the warning again?
If you personally mess with a single hair on her head without my firm approval, I'll make sure yours is removed from your neck.
No, that wouldn’t do. He couldn’t afford to harm her himself, not after past events.
But…god, it felt like she deserved it at least a little bit. Perfection shouldn’t be allowed to exist if it wasn’t on him.
He swore he could hear Inviderus chuckling as he wrapped his fingers around the lip balm. He felt it begin to bend against the white-knuckled grip he now had on it, and he was certain it would snap against the force. Maybe that was a good thing.
“Dorien.”
With a deep breath, Dorien released all the tension from his body. He was supposed to be here, having a good time, and doing what he needed to be doing. Not reminiscing over things he could worry about when he returned to the ship.
He blinked a few times before turning his head to meet Denis’s familiar droopy-eyed gaze. Dorien hadn’t even heard him come over. He wasn’t quite sure where he’d been either.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head once as he pocketed the balm. “What do you want?”
Denis raised a brow, then nodded his head toward the briefcase that was sitting at Dorien’s feet. “Figured that was obvious,” he said.
Dorien pressed his lips together and nodded once. Yes, that was the real reason they’d all gathered here as it was. That was the focus and nothing more.
He reached down, picked the case off the floor, and set it on the coffee table just in front of him. He needed to move some half-empty glasses and plates aside first but found just enough room to set it flat. He held his thumb to the lock, and the thing unlocked with a familiar beep and buzz. He carefully pushed it open and fanned out the smaller display shelves that were so neatly tucked away.
It really was a splendid sight. Vials upon vials of fresh sacrilege, ready for the pickings. Ready for selling off. With the crowd he was with, a full case like this would be gone before the night's end.
But that didn’t matter either.
Even though he consistently returned to Mr. Lambourne with empty cases, the man cared less and less. The only thing on His Majesty’s mind as of late was her. Dorien had started to wonder why he still bothered with this when he had other bigger issues to be tending to.
His eyes travelled between the vials, quickly reading off the strain labels. Greed, Sloth, Lust, Gluttony, Pride, Envy…
He caught himself on one of the “Pride” vials, and without a second of thought, he reached out and grabbed one. He popped off the protective seal and downed it in a single motion.
That was why he was still bothered. As long as he made and sold it, he had full access to a fresh pull daily. That was worth it.
“Gods, you’re crazy,” Denis said in awe. “I have to crystalize mine and snort it. It tastes too bad to drink straight.”
Dorien shuddered as the last of the sweetest liquid traveled down his throat. Sure, he could crystalize it, or he could take it intravenously. Hell, he could even drop it into his eyes. But all of that took too long. He could deal with the moment of discomfort if it meant he didn’t have to take an extra step.
“Well, it doesn’t help that your preference is Lust. That shit’s bitter enough to curdle your blood,” he said, screwing the top back on the vial and sticking it back into its cell on the shelf. “Unless you’re eyeing something different tonight.”
Denis crossed his arms as he inhaled a deep, contemplative breath. “I think,” he began, “I’m in an Envious mood.”
Dorien reached for one of the Envy vials. “Of course, my output is the best of them all,” he joked as he handed it over. Denis was quick to snatch the drug away and left Dorien with a wad of cash in his palm. He didn’t bother to count it because they’d made this exchange enough times to have it down to a science.
From there, it went as normal. His comrades sauntered over and made their buys. Even some of the strippers indulged themselves in a purchase or two, and soon most of the room was engaged in some form of ingestion of it, along with the excess drinking and smoking. Nobody had their Pokemon out, so it was apparent that no drug-induced battles would occur. But it still managed to feel like just another night, regardless.
Dorien looked bored as he fell back against the couch again and watched all the debauchery develop, waiting for the Pride to start burning in his blood. Some much-needed warmth against the chill of his warring emotions.
He slowly kicked the briefcase closed again with the tip of his Balenciaga shoe when a presence sunk itself into the space next to him on the loveseat. He arched a brow as he met the eyes of one of the dancers. She was undoubtedly Sinnohan and managed to set herself apart from the other girls by being the only one wearing pasties instead of an actual top. She certainly had the body to pull it off, and from how she smiled at him, it was obvious that she knew that too.
“Can I help you?” Dorien asked, offering her remnants of a half-smirk.
“I guess I should be asking you that,” she answered. Her Kalosian was surprisingly good. “You’re bumming me out just sitting here by your lonesome.”
He chuckled and playfully rolled his eyes, pushing himself to sit up so he could face her more directly. “Nothing’s really catching my eye at the moment, so I figured I’d just observe.”
The woman pursed her painted lips thoughtfully, but that look quickly became something more mischievous as she scooted closer. Dorien caught the immediate wind of her floral-smelling perfume and allowed his eyes to fall shut.
If Odette didn’t exist in the world, perhaps he might have been the slightest bit tempted by this one.
Actually, fuck that. He was a good-looking guy who caught the attention of anybody who walked past him. He could stand to indulge himself in that a little bit. This girl was beautiful, he was beautiful, and it just worked. Granted, she was no Odette, but Odette wasn’t here.
There it is, he thought as that familiar, Prideful warmth exploded within his core. He’d only taken one vial, so he wasn’t expecting anything major to happen this time around. The increased sense of hubris was plenty for the time being, and he definitely felt like he needed it.
“Maybe I can change that?” she said suggestively, leaning her face closer to his. The lasting aroma of Lust was evident on her tongue, and Dorien couldn’t help but chuckle as he opened his eyes again.
“You seem confident in your ability to do so.”
She took that as an invitation to crawl into his lap, and he didn’t do anything to stop her. He simply rested his hand against the small of her bare back and leaned backward to take in her looks and the attention he was so dead set on giving him. Attention he certainly deserved, that was for damn sure. Yes, it was nice.
Sure, some people might have called him an asshole for letting another woman crawl on him while he had a loving girlfriend at home by herself. But this was only for the moment. Besides, maybe if Odette had quenched him once in a while, he wouldn’t feel the need to do something like this. He supposed he understood her reservations, what with her past sexual trauma, but they’d been dating for over a month, and nothing had come of it. She never invited him inside, and she never took him up on his offers to go home with him after their dates.
Honestly, this was her doing. He loved her, but fuck, he needed some reprieve from how she made him feel in the loins. He could justify letting another girl get on him for that reason. There wasn’t anything wrong with it if he was just thinking about Odette the entire time anyway.
He resisted the urge to cringe at that collective train of thought. Pride made him feel good, but sometimes it made him feel too good.
“I don’t see you stopping me,” the Sinnohan girl giggled.
Dorien quickly stitched together some witty remark but was interrupted by the obnoxious noise of the beaded curtains being pulled back. He looked over, expecting yet another round of strippers, but was even less enthused by who it ended up being.
That guy always stuck out like a sore thumb, even when people weren’t bending to his every beck and call. With his garish silver hair and bright blue eyes...
“Hellooooooo, am I interrupting anything?” Clovis called, alerting everyone's attention to him. The hoots and hollers of delight were quick to follow, and soon he was being showered with handshakes and pats on the shoulder and even being offered some drinks already. He hadn’t even been there 10 seconds, and even some of the strippers themselves were starting to slink over.
“Mmm, a late arrival. That doesn’t happen often with you guys,” the Sinnohan girl purred. Dorien felt a growl bubble in his throat.
What the fuck was it about that heir to the LeClair fortune that drew everyone to him like a magnet? There was their entire social circle and even Mr. Lambourne himself.
Why does everyone bother with him when I’m already here? he thought.
Careful, Inviderus warned with a chuckle.
Dorien huffed to himself and shook his head once. “He’s one for grand entrances,” he said somewhat bitterly. With a polite wave of his hand, she crawled back off of him, and he stood to adjust his coat. He put on his best smirk and sauntered to his so-called best friend.
“Clovis,” Dorien called. “Better late than never. I thought you didn’t do strip clubs?”
Clovis finished up a handshake he was giving to somebody else before holding his hands out to his sides as he slowly approached. “I don’t. But I still felt the need to show some face.”
He held his hand out, and Dorien didn’t hesitate to take it in a firm grip. Their standard greeting. Just friendly enough. For now.
“Glad to have you,” Dorien said as he resisted the urge to grit his teeth. “You’re just in time for the good stuff.”
“Oh, you mean watching Adam get lap dances? Seems like adequate entertainment,” Clovis jabbed. The men in immediate earshot erupted into light snickers, and Dorien watched as Adam shook his head in disagreement.
“Piss off, LeClair,” he shot back with an equal amount of jest in his voice. He hugged the girl straddling him a little closer, causing her to giggle as he held his half-empty glass up. “Maybe it’d do you some good to indulge yourself, too. You spent so much time cooped up in your house, so gods know you’re bad at getting your dick wet by anything that isn’t your right hand.”
Clovis laughed heartily and shook his head as he made his way over to the counter lined with their purchased beverages.
“I’m good,” he declared as he grasped the neck of a gin bottle. He picked up an empty glass with another and poured his drink, which he immediately downed in one gulp. He paused, scrunching his face through the evident burn, before exhaling sharply. “Just here for the drinks. Besides, I’m a lefty.”
“I bet I could convince you,” Lionel said suggestively. “I’ll send you an extra special lap dance later on.”
“And I’ll pay off whatever debt she might have to have her refrain from touching me,” Clovis said. He poured himself another round and replaced the bottle back in the spot he found it before walking over to an empty couch in the seating area. He didn’t hesitate to throw himself onto it and kick his legs up.
“That’s no fun,” Lionel whined.
“Well, you don’t understand the concept of not liking sexual encounters,” he said just before taking another slow sip of the gin.
“Mm, nope,” Adam replied. “I can’t imagine that.”
“You’re talking an awful lot for someone who was a fellow Lust hoarder for a while,” Denis interjected as he threw himself down into a lone chair.
“Crazy concept, I was taking it to combat that. Even crazier concept, it didn’t work,” Clovis shot back.
“Why don’t you try it one more time and spend a night with me? Maybe that’ll get your gears going,” Colin said through a sultry smirk.
Dorien rolled his eyes. “Subtle,” he said, leaning over against the back of the couch just behind Colin.
“Please,” Clovis snickered. “I think all you’ll do is further remind me how asexual I truly am, high or not.”
“But have you ever been with a real man?” Colin questioned, sticking out his lower lip.
At that, Clovis immediately downed his drink. “I’ve been with plenty of ‘real’ men. Let's be honest with ourselves here; you’d barely rank on that totem pole.”
“I bet you’d retract that statement once you saw my totem pole.”
Clovis’s expression became something more deadpan, and he shifted his weight slightly to reach into his jacket pocket. He fished out a pack of cigarettes–-the pecha ones he really liked to invest in, no doubt–-and a lighter.
“Nice one, didn’t see that coming,” he grumbled while he flipped the carton open and took one of the sticks between his teeth. It was lit with a flick of the lighter, and he shoved everything back where he got it from.
“That’s not the only thing you could see coming,” Colin hummed.
“God, what are you, twelve?” Dorien finally scoffed, smacking him lightly on the back of the head. Colin rubbed at the contact site and shot him a juvenile-looking glare.
“Now I remember why I hate talking to you all,” Clovis said through a rancorous chuckle. “If I wanted to indulge in locker room discussion, I’d go back to my old boarding school.”
“Wow, they had boarding schools in the dark ages?” Adam asked sweetly.
“I wouldn’t know, but your maman would.” Clovis had his eyes closed now, and his hands were folded behind his head. Clearly, none of this banter was much effort for him.
“Funny, my mum’s younger than you,” Adam spat.
“Yeah, she told me while she was in my bed last night.”
Low hoots echoed through the space, and Adam scoffed as he shifted his position under the woman still sitting on him. “Asexual, by the way.”
“Guess there’s still some Lust left in me,” Clovis chortled, reaching up and pulling the cigarette out of his mouth. He exhaled quickly before biting down on it once again.
“Come on, I’m sure I could screw some sense into you if you let me,” Colin whined. “Give me the benefit of the doubt, good lookin’.”
“Darn, if I had a dime for every time I heard that, I’d be the world’s first trillionaire.”
“Now, now, gentlemen,” Dorien said, gesturing to the briefcase on the table, hoping to end the excruciating conversation. “I have plenty of Lust left on me tonight. It could do you some good to give it another go, yeah? Or something else?”
Clovis took a long breath from the cigarette as he opened his eyes again. His exhale was just as long, and he tiredly eyed the smoke as it drifted up toward the spinning disco ball hanging from the ceiling.
“You know, trying to tickle my addictive tendencies is hardly a friendly approach,” he chided.
“No, but it’s definitely a healthy business practice,” Dorien snickered. “Especially regarding one of my best customers.”
That time, Clovis rolled his eyes. “I’ve bought it for myself, yes, but I’m not always the only one taking it. Have to split it with the team. And I’m kind of on a break from it for now.”
Dorien exhaled quietly, resisting the sudden urge to go after him with one of the empty bottles on the counter. It was that ‘best customer’ status that got Mr. Lambourne interested in him in the first place.
First Odette, and now Clovis. It was infuriating.
Dorien couldn’t do anything to Odette immediately, but he could fully consider strangling Clovis. Perhaps it was the Pride talking, but he couldn’t bring himself to contest it. Two people taking most, if not all, of his mentor’s energy was two too fucking many.
Why did His Majesty want Clovis? What could he possibly need with Clovis aside from his money? Sure, he was good-looking, he could be suave when he wanted to, and he spoke his mind. But what did Mr. Lambourne need with that? It’s not like he had any more Sin Titles to appoint.
Unless he was planning on demoting one of them. Probably Lust. With how often Clovis used to buy that strain, maybe His Majesty was eyeing a potential replacement. Not that Dorien was a fan of who beheld Lust, but Clovis wasn't much better.
Or, perhaps, he was eyeing a replacement for Dorien himself.
It wasn’t certain, and probably a result of his high, but the prospects of it were enough to make Dorien wary. Mr. Lambourne switched moods at the drop of a hat--because he could--and that had to have crossed his mind once or twice. Especially after Dorien recklessly used his third-degree Vice Dust on Odette at the graduation party...and Mr. Lambourne didn't forget things like that. Even if it did work in their favor, it still had to be in the back of his mind.
Why else would he be so adamant that Dorien also get ahold of Clovis physically? They already had a chunk of the LeClair’s money, so what more was needed?
No, no, no. Dorien could hone his focus on Odette, but he’d do everything he could to ensure Mr. Lambourne and Clovis never met eyes. That couldn’t happen. That wouldn’t happen. Clovis already had so much at the tip of his fucking fingers, even after being out of the public eye for so long, and the idea of him taking the one thing Dorien had going for himself was just—
Yes. Perhaps a dead Clovis was a better Clovis. Dorien was tired of playing nice with him, even if it was under Mr. Lambourne's orders, and even if it was to keep tabs on what he was doing. It was evident that the feeling was mutual, so what was the point? Better with one of them dead and not having to deal with it. It would give Dorien one less thing to keep track of.
But, Mr. Lambourne probably wouldn't be happy if Clovis's body turned up somewhere. The press would be all over it for sure, and it'd be a mess Team Enigma would have to clean up instead of putting all of their focus on the more important matters at hand. His Majesty would throw a fit over that.
Overall, it wasn't worth it. Dorien would have to use his brain and watch himself. Keep Clovis at arm's length and play nice, while ensuring he never got to Mr. Lambourne.
“I mean, have you seen his girlfriend?” Lionel asked incredulously. “I’m sorry, Dorien. I don’t even know what you’re doing here. You could be at home fucking that instead.”
Dorien snapped out of his angry haze at the sound of his name being dropped. Was that ridiculous sex conversation still going on? Good grief. “I’m sorry, fucking what?”
“Your girlfriend,” Lionel repeated. “What’s her name again?”
“Odette,” Colin answered. “Like Swanna Lake. Odette Cinq-Mars.”
“Pretentious ass name,” Lionel said dismissively. “But she’s hot as fuck, so whatever, I guess.” He threw his head back against the couch and laughed to himself. “Like, her ass? My gods, dude, you’re fucking lucky.”
Truer words had never been spoken, but that didn’t mean they needed to be said by another man. And who the hell was he to call her “pretentious”? Dorien forced a laugh as he held up a slightly defensive hand.
“Maybe don’t stare at her ass when I bring her around.” He said it like a partial warning.
“I can’t really help it, though. I never knew short girls could be built like that. I bet she fits on you just right,” Lionel taunted.
Now he was getting mad. Dorien leaned down to hover his chin over Lionel’s head and stared down at him with every bit of malice he could muster. “Is that really what you think about when you have two women in your lap? You’re not a very gracious host, are you?”
Lionel sputtered into perplexed giggles, but he didn’t turn around as he released his hold on the girls and motioned for them to stand up. They exchanged wary looks before getting up and moving to whoever else was standing by. He crossed his legs and craned his neck to look up at Dorien.
“Dude, I’m just complimenting your pick; don’t get it so twisted. She’s hot, that’s all I was getting at.”
“Then just say ‘she’s hot’ and leave it at that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Adam said. The stripper that had been dancing on him had also walked off, giving him plenty of room to lean over and clamp Lionel on the shoulder. “Dory’s been like that since secondary school. He got snippy with anybody who talked gross about her.”
“It was cute,” Colin mused. “I told Noel about it, and he wanted to get them together badly.”
Dorien huffed loudly and smacked Colin again. “If you would kindly leave my personal affairs out of your post-nut conversations with your ex, I’d appreciate it.”
“Owwww-uh!” Colin groaned, grabbing his head once more. “I was doing you a fucking favor, man! Noel was, like, her best friend, so I figured it was a no-brainer. Plus, it was forever ago…”
And all Dorien got out of that was Noel thinking he was gay and embarrassing him in front of Odette. But he already had enough on his mind, so he wouldn’t go there.
“I had a crush on her myself in secondary school. Didn't get very far, though. She was such a prig,” Denis suddenly said as he held his drink to his lips. He opened his mouth to continue, but something of a dubious chuckle made its way out before the words did. “How is she now, Dory? I'm sure she’s way more broken in after what happened, right? Was it worth waiting around for her prude ass to open up?”
Some remnants of chatter sounded, but Dorien couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his ears. Those words did nothing more than send his blood pressure through the ceiling. It was probably also the Pride at work, but that most likely would have happened even if he wasn’t drugged up.
“I know you took some Envy tonight, but it’s really not a good look on you,” Dorien snapped, trying his best to refrain from hauling off and punching Denis right then and there. He didn’t do a very good job because he stepped out from around the couch without thinking too much about it. “You asked her out—twice, might I add—and she said no. It was five, no...six years ago, so move the fuck on.”
Of course, Odette wouldn't remember that. But Dorien did, and he sure as hell wouldn't forget it.
Denis scoffed loudly and finally took his sip. “What, that wasn’t meant to be an insult, I was asking. You showed up at Lansat and kinda pulled the chair out from under me, so excuse me for being a little curious.”
Now Dorien was standing in front of him, arms crossed tightly over his chest as he tapped his foot on the ground. Some movement to keep him busy, so he didn’t start a fistfight outright.
“It’s none of your business. Why do you want to know so much about somebody who wasn’t interested in you?” he asked, leaning closer to Denis’s face. Denis’s expression didn’t falter, even as he drank again.
“Oh,” he droned. “Maybe because I’m bitter. Maybe because I think she’s an idiot for picking you over me.”
Envy really was a powerful thing. Dorien knew firsthand. “That sounds like a personal prob–”
He couldn’t finish his sentence before Denis was doused with a full serving of red wine. The shock caused him to drop his glass, and it hit the floor with a CRASH that stopped all immediate conversation. Dorien jumped back to avoid getting splashed and watched as Denis sputtered and spat as he wiped the liquid from his face. He frantically examined the expensive suit that would undoubtedly need some serious dry cleaning to remove the stains.
“What the fuck?” Denis yelled.
“Whoops,” Clovis said as he tucked an empty wine glass back toward his chest. He was standing behind Denis’s chair now.
When had Clovis even gotten up? When had he gotten another drink? Where the hell was his cigarette? His eyebrows were knit together in apparent concern, but the way he stood by and watched Denis clumsily try to wipe himself off said otherwise.
“Stupid me. Already too drunk for my own good.”
Clovis spoke with an air of jest, but there was a scathing undertone to his words that was on the verge of coming to the forefront. Dorien wasn’t sure if he was thankful or completely startled. He decided just to let the action play out.
“Fucking hell, LeClair, this is a Brionni.”
“Truly, I am so sorry.” Clovis still had yet to make any move to assist. It was becoming apparent that he most likely wasn’t going to. “I’ll pay for the cleaning. It’s the least I can do.”
Denis sent him a glare before standing up and storming out of the room. Some other men and strippers watched him go, but Clovis didn’t bother to look. His face grew somewhat smug as Denis left his line of sight, and when the curtains clattered shut, he shrugged.
“Really, you’d think I knew my limits by now,” he said flatly. “My apologies, ladies and gentlemen. Please feel free to carry on with what you were doing.”
It took a second for the vibes to return to normal, but when they did, Dorien was still left standing in the middle of the sitting area, perturbed.
What the fuck was that?
Dorien could confidently say that he knew Clovis well enough from their constant fraternizing over the past 5 or so years, so much so that he was sure that Clovis wasn’t drunk. Actually, no. He very well could have been, but he wouldn’t act like it.
He never acted drunk despite the amount he usually drank. He was a pro drunk. He might have drawn into himself more than usual, but he never acted out like that. Never stumbled, never broke anything, and definitely never spilled his drinks on anyone.
But, it just so happened that as Denis began to talk about Odette in such an unspeakable way, Clovis suddenly had butterfingers?
Dorien wasn’t mad about it, not in the slightest. Throwing red wine on that thousand-dollar suit was a tame alternative to what he was considering doing at the moment. But, it coming out of Clovis was what had him so struck.
Clovis had never been the one to really “defend” anybody’s honor in such a physical manner, let alone the honor of somebody he barely knew. Maybe lasting remnants of that crippling social anxiety he’d apparently had at some point. But, leave it to a beauty like Odette to change him so suddenly, right? No other person had anything on her, so maybe that was all it took.
Now that he was thinking about it, there was their fraternizing at the gala and his concern for her at the tea party, and now this…
Dorien had to be reading too much into it. Had to. His observations had to have been solely based on jealousy. Envy. That was his whole being.
If any man even remotely looked at Odette in an affectionate way, he wanted them dead, and he’d chalk that up to Inviderus’s presence. There was no escaping that. And these feelings, currently, were only being exacerbated by Pride. Sin Title holders always had more visceral reactions to sacrilege, no matter how light the dose.
But on the other hand, Denis was implying something about the rape and manslaughter case. Would Clovis even know about that enough to attempt to stop him from talking? It was made public, sure, but would somebody like Clovis even pay attention to something like that? Unless he went out of his way to look into it himself. But why would he?
Reading into it.
Trying to deduce things about the woman he loved and hated while high wasn’t wise.
He silently watched as Clovis once again traversed over to the drink counter again and took that opportunity to follow him. He didn’t rush, instead taking time to step over at a slow and steady pace. By the time he got to the billionaire’s side, he could see that he was lighting up another cigarette. Dorien pushed forward his best friendly smile as he leaned his backside against the counter and crossed his arms.
“That’s going to be a hefty dry cleaning bill,” he said politely.
“Eh,” Clovis said mid-drag. “Pocket change, honestly.”
Full of yourself, aren’t you? Dorien thought.
You’re one to talk, Inviderus chided.
He sighed loudly and scraped his foot against the carpeted floor, willing the musing to pass.
“Well, drunk or not,” he began, lowering his voice a little more for good measure, “I do appreciate how that shut him up. So thank you.”
The look Clovis gave him was a puzzled one. He didn’t say anything before taking another long breath from the cigarette. It nearly burnt the stick down to half. “It was an accident,” he eventually replied as the smoke streamed from his mouth. “Denis should know better than to talk about somebody else’s girlfriend like that. Better he learns the hard way from me being stupid than somebody more violent, I suppose.”
Dorien narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. So was it just an accident?
“Either way, I appreciate you, even unintentionally, defending her. He was pussyfooting around a touchy subject.”
Clovis’s eyebrows shot up. “No kidding,” he breathed, sounding moderately surprised. “I thought he was just being trashy.”
It could be a bluff, or he could be sincere. Actually, no. Definitely most likely lying. Dorien wasn’t sure why he felt so strongly about that, but he did.
God, taking Pride was probably a bad idea. Not that he could have anticipated something like this.
“Oh, he was, but he was digging in a little too deep.”
As Dorien spoke, a flash of movement caught his peripheral vision. But it wasn’t just any flash of movement. It was the unmistakable movement of braids. Double braids.
Dorien didn’t bother to mask his eagerness as he turned toward the woman who had just walked by. She was curvaceous and dressed in perhaps the least revealing lingerie he’d seen tonight. However, as he’d seen, her hair was fashioned into that signature hairstyle he’d grown to long for.
She kneeled down near the chair Denis had previously been sitting in and produced some rags that Dorien hadn’t initially seen on her. As she began to wipe up the spilled beverages, it became abundantly clear that it wasn’t who he thought it was.
Odette was shorter. Odette was prettier. Odette wouldn’t be caught dead in an establishment like this.
Dorien unconsciously sighed and shut his eyes as he turned his head back to face Clovis. She was probably at home, sleeping right about now. Truly, he’d have rather been in her bed than sitting among these other women, even the Sinnohan one. Letting her crawl on him was…just a moment of weakness. Really, cuddling Odette sounded like some real bliss for several reasons.
Opening his eyes, he noticed Clovis was no longer looking at him…but was also staring at that braided dancer. His eyes seemed almost unblinking as he sucked more smoke from the cigarette.
Ohohoho, Inviderus chuckled. Do you smell it? Do you smell that desire?
Dorien blinked once. Could it be true, then? Was he really on to something? Was it not just his drug-induced thoughts running wild?
The thought of that pushed him to the verge of madness. First Mr. Lambourne’s attention, and now there was a chance Clovis was longing for hers?
“So, what do you think of my other half?” he blurted casually. “Since we’re on the subject.”
“She’s entirely out of your league,” Clovis shot back without missing a beat. His gaze didn’t even move off the stripper.
There was no way it was that easy.
Suddenly, a half smile broke over Clovis’s lips, and he finally met his gaze again. “Kidding,” he said, sounding atrociously sincere. “You two make a fantastic couple.”
He might as well be green. Envy suits him flawlessly.
Envy suits him flawlessly.
Was Mr. Lambourne out to replace Dorien with this white-haired chain-smoking attention whore? But they had never met, so how would Mr. Lambourne even consider Clovis to be yet another suitable host for Inviderus? It simply did not make sense. Maybe...maybe he really was looking for a replacement for Lust? Given how often Clovis bought it, that would make more sense, wouldn't it? Right? He was thinking too hard about it. There was no way anybody could take Envy from him.
Nobody else could channel Inviderus as well as he did. Not one goddamn person. Nobody else could love Odette like he did either, even if there were moments he wanted to take her head off.
Except, maybe His Majesty. But that was parental love, which was much different from Dorien's affections, so it didn’t count.
If Mr. Lambourne couldn’t see that he was set, well, Dorien would make him. And if Clovis tried to get in the way of that—or of his pursuit of Odette’s affections—well, he’d end up dead in a ditch somewhere, wishing he had just stayed a shut-in.
Actually, it was a good thing Dorien had ingested some Pride. The hubris felt good. He was confident in his abilities to complete the mission to success while keeping Clovis LeClair away from Mr. Lambourne. He could convince His Majesty that he didn’t need another candidate; everything was fine.
“Not sure why you’re asking me, though,” Clovis continued. “I’m sure you’d rather hear what your boss says.”
Dorien felt his chest swell. Goodness, he could go on and on about that.
“He loves her,” he said cheerily. “Just from what I’ve mentioned.”
Clovis snickered, but it sounded a little forced. Good, maybe he was seething.
“That’s nice to hear. Does he have plans to meet her? Give a blessing for the wedding you keep fantasizing about?"
At that, Dorien frowned. As much as he swooned at the thought of Odette in a white dress, exchanging vows with him, that was still a long way off.
“No. Probably not anytime soon,” he muttered. That wasn’t a lie, either. Florent always preferred to hang back for things like this, even though he hated it in this particular scenario. He and Odette couldn't meet yet, unfortunately. Florent settled for getting his fill from whatever tidbits Dorien brought back, and all the pictures and videos they'd taken of her over the years.
Aside from that, they were so caught up in trying to get ahold of Venira that the thought of approaching Florent for a blessing was setting alarm bells off in Dorien's head. He was still on thin ice from the Vice Dust incident, so he needed to keep playing it safe. The goal of betrothing Odette to anybody was so far off Florent's radar it was practically nonexistent, and Dorien wasn't going to be the one to bring it up. As much as he wanted to.
“Sucks for you,” Clovis said after a beat. Taunting him. The fucking lowlife.
"Just a little," Dorien replied, clenching his jaw. "But he's full of surprises, so who knows."
Somewhere deep down, Dorien hoped it wouldn't be anytime soon. The further Florent stayed away from these people, the less chance he had to cross paths with Clovis.
"Well, nonetheless, I'm happy for you."
As you fucking should be, prick, Dorien thought angrily. And that was that. There didn't seem to be anything else pressing to talk about, aside from what liquor to drink next or plans for the rest of the week.
All Dorien needed to worry about was making it through the remainder of the get-together and how he would approach his next visit with the love of his life.
The sooner he could finish what he started, the sooner all of his annoyance would blow over.
Hello! Just wanted to report back in and see what's up in the world of Whippersnapper Bullshit. Sadly, head is too empty to give proper review. So these will be very very quick thoughts only.
Just know that I very much enjoyed the Dorien chapter. His violent tendencies are... yikes. But then again, his insecurity and second guessing while pretending to be everyone's friend is very relatable.
“De-lure!” he called triumphantly. The previous conversation had seemingly left his mind, because now all he appeared to be concerned about was balancing the found pen on his lips.
“De-lure!” he called triumphantly. The previous conversation had seemingly left his mind, because now all he appeared to be concerned about was balancing the found pen on his lips.
Her gaze on him softened. Now looking at him up close, it was apparent that he was very much in distress. His brows were knit so tightly she was certain a wrinkle was going to be left behind, and his jaw was clenched. A cursory glance downward also confirmed that his right hand was balled into a white-knuckled fist, which was the absolute tell.
I think I've said this a few times already, but I'll say it again. I'm kind of wowed how... grounded Odette is here. This entire scene, really. Her and Noel really mesh well, and the scene really does feel like they've been through some shit together and have known each other long enough to know not to discuss it yet.
The lobby was expansive—ornately decorated, with shiny tile floors, clean red carpets that led up the stairs toward the mezzanine seats, and an enormous crystal chandelier overhead. The giant bush of roses, fit with an equally as giant pink Ursaring toy and a bouquet of heart-shaped balloons, that had been unceremoniously left by the will-call windows near the front of the room looked extremely tacky against the décor. Odette figured it was the ‘I Love Odette’, which had been spelled out with white roses against the red, that really did it in.
The Chandelure suddenly appeared in front of her again, and this time, he was wearing the fallen shower curtain like a cape. As for the rod, he held it up, as if it were some sort of staff. He puckered his lips in a pompous fashion, and his eyes drooped to match.
“Chande, chan. Deeeelure,” he said, deepening the sound of his voice, as if he were trying to do an imitation.
This place boasted of employing “the most beautiful women in Kalos”, but he couldn’t get behind that sentiment. He simply couldn’t understand the appeal of these pasty wearing bimbos with nails long enough to castrate a man in one swipe. How did they manage to clean themselves, anyway? There was nothing sanitary about it; there couldn’t be. And even if they did manage to be squeaky clean hygienically, none of them held a candle to her.
Oh. We're not playing around, are we? Maaaan, I really hope Dorien shows up in an RP or something at some point. I need to have someone punch him somehow.
Interesting... so the drugs are like, directly related to the blood-types somehow. And they cause similar sensations. Definitely wondering what makes them unique compared to the ones regular shinies can produce... I wonder if maybe the ones Odette, her father, and Dorien are hosts to are the originals?
Well, you weren't kidding. That answered a couple questions, but certainly raised more than that. Coming out of these I'm more sympathetic to Odette, and somehow want to punt Dorien into a volcano more than I did an hour ago.
Heya, here for my Catnip review. The Prologue looked to be a bit on the shorter side, so I decide to tackle it and Chapter 1 as part of my review in order to get a fairer feel of your story as a whole.
The emergency breach sirens wailed through the halls of the S.S. Mystic Milotic.
Team Enigma usually functioned like a well-oiled machine, but the sirens prompted chaos. Grunts ran around trying to gain information from one another, but every grunt was just as clueless as the next. Some just stood by and waited for further instructions from their feared leader, but nothing came.
Yup. That certainly sounds very par for the course for an evil team. To the point where it makes you wonder why they don’t just replace the faceless grunts with robots or holograms or something like that.
Florent Lambourne threw open the doors to the highly secure keep, located in the bowels of the ship, with his 11-year-old son Armel at his heels. Florent's hardened features were twisted into a look of pure rage, one that appeared to make his maroon eyes glow. He pushed on the sleeves of his navy business suit, trying to keep his hands busy. Armel’s face was a little more blank, but there was an obvious glint of childish apprehension in his gaze. He clutched a thick journal tightly to his chest.
Ah yes, bringing your underage child along to your dodgy and totally not evil experiment or whatever-the-hell-this-is. Totally going to result in a totally well-adjusted kid there. Totally.
The alarm sound was at its loudest in this room, bouncing off the server-lined walls and metal floors. There were no windows for the noise to escape out of, allowing it to swell and rattle through the high-tech research equipment that had been placed throughout the space. All the light fixtures on the ceiling flared red.
The four grunts on guard in the keep whirled around at the loud bang of the doors. Although their faces were entirely covered by their uniform gas masks, Florent could still see their fear, plain as day. Their stiff straight postures, the jumpy ways their shoulders rose and fell in time with their panicked breathing. They were absolutely terrified.
Florent: “Consider the next words that come out of your mouth very carefully.” >:|
He pushed past the line of terrified grunts and quickly approached the center of the keep. It was a large space, having been built to take up the entire bottom portion of the ship. Florent had to widen his stride to cover the distance quickly. A raised pedestal stood in the center, with a Pokeball holder perched atop it. His heart dropped when he saw that the glass that normally protected the balls inside was completely shattered.
“No, no, no, no…” he muttered to himself as he leaned over the contents. The holder had five pockets, each occupied with its own neatly situated Pokeball, closed and undisturbed. Or, at least, that was how it was supposed to be.
The fifth and final Pokeball was open and broken, as if the Pokemon it housed had blown it out from the inside.
Well that totally isn’t ominous considering how whatever was in that thing had security that would be par for the course for whatever Fort Knox is in this story.
Florent’s eyes went wide, much more so when he read the label that marked the pocket.
Venira.
“How is that even possible…”
“Your majesty,” one of the grunts said again. “We are terribly sorry. But we don’t know--”
Don’t think that’s gonna help your case there, buddy. Though ‘Venira’ huh? That sure sounds like an unexpected name for something that was being treated as obviously dangerous-as-hell.
“Did one of you take it?” Florent cut him off.
The underlings quickly fell into a collective fit of denial.
“No, your majesty."
“We would never."
“They’re your relics, your majesty."
Florent took a deep breath and straightened his back. He calmly turned to face them as he folded his hands behind him. His expression wasn’t angry anymore. His features had relaxed, now showing something a little more stoic.
Not sure that’s a good omen there really, given that this guy is essentially a Team Evil leader here. ^^;
“You say that, and yet…why is it that my most powerful Blood Legendary has gone missing while you were the ones on duty?” he asked sternly. Like a teacher questioning misbehaving students.
“We didn’t know what to do, your majesty,” one said as evenly as he could manage. His voice wavered nonetheless. “It had a meltdown. It just busted out and we couldn’t catch it.”
“Isn’t the whole point of guards in the keep to ensure none of my relics go missing?” Florent inquired. He lightly cocked his head to the side for good measure. “So you’re either going to tell me that one of you has taken it, or you failed to do your job. Both are equally as bad.”
… Have you considered investing in better CCTV or failsafes or the like? Since just saying, the average Team Evil mook isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.
The panic wafting off of the grunts thickened the air and caused a smirk to tilt Florent’s lips. He stepped down off the pedestal.
Somehow, this guy doesn’t really seem like the type to forgive things easily. Especially not things like this.
The four grunts exchanged looks. After a beat, they dropped to their knees, and fell over into a bowing position. They then began to run through their memorized code of apology.
"Forgive us, King Florent, for we have wronged you..."
Florent let it go on for several seconds. He didn’t bother to interrupt; he didn’t bother to terrorize them further. It was in the middle of all of it that he felt an all-too-familiar tickle in his ear. His eyes narrowed, and soon, the voice followed.
“What is it you’re going to do?” it asked tenderly.
Florent pursed his lips, then turned his head slightly to grab a look at Armel, who had kept quiet through the whole altercation. He had moved off to the side, away from the door, to stand near a table of empty beakers and test tubes. He stood stiff and straight, still clutching that little book of his. That same glint of trepidation still lingered in his eyes.
Florent: “Wait, why is he even here for this anyways when I’m pretty sure that I’m about to… retire these four with particular gusto in about five seconds?”
He felt that perhaps, this would be a good learning experience for his one and only heir. Even if he would probably forget it.
His smirk broadened as he looked back at the grunts and their lowered heads. “Your words have moved me,” he began. “So much so that I am willing to forgive your transgression against Team Enigma and I.”
There were evident sighs of relief from the grunts. They held themselves quite stiffly, as they were trained, but Florent could still see the tension beginning to leave them.
“However,” he continued. He pulled his left hand from behind his back, revealing the single Pokeball he’d had on him. “You’ve outlived your usefulness to me. Your time for purification has come, my good men.”
I like how this guy is just doing this in the same room as his 11-year old son right now.
He pushed the button on the Pokeball, and it popped open with the familiar flash. The inhabitant began to manifest in front of the once-again frightened group.
“Gulattive, it is dinner time,” Florent said calmly. He brought his free hand to his lips and bit down on his thumb until it drew blood.
Florent: “Actually, on second thought, perhaps I should send Armel out for this and just make a recording that I can edit later-”
The bead of red that formed on his thumb began to glow, and a stream of light shot out from it and joined the beams emanating from the Pokeball. It met with the manifestation, causing it to begin to grow in size. It grew, and grew, and grew. It didn’t appear it would stop growing, until the glowing form had nearly hit the ceiling. However, it stopped just short of it, and faded from the beams of the Pokeball and Florent’s blood into reality.
It was a towering, lanky form, with arms were as long as its seemingly legless body. This left the being floating, like a ghost. A cloak appeared to cover it, with a hood up over what should have been its head. However, there looked to be no head to speak of. Only a single, bloodshot red eye sat in place. Once formed, it loomed ominously over the four grunts.
They didn't attempt to run, knowing damn well it would be futile. Their fates were sealed. They accepted it.
"Mom, I'm coming home, pure and true," one muttered as his tears began to soak the inside of his mask. He shut his eyes and prepared for the inevitable.
Florent: “Oh well, too late to change it now. Kids are resilient these days. I’m sure Armel will be fine.”
“Feast,” Florent said simply.
A slit tore open in the Pokemon’s stomach, revealing rows upon rows of serrated and saliva-coated pincers. A pointed tongue, one that looked to be far too long to fit in its body, licked the pincers before curling outward into the open. The Pokemon emitted a threatening growl before lunging at the grunts. All that could be heard was a set of high pitched squeals, followed by the sickening sound of their bones crunching, and the squelch of their flesh being bitten into. It took Gulattive no time at all to swallow down all of them.
Florent chuckled to himself as he watched the Pokemon finish off its meal, before turning back to the puzzling sight that was the broken Pokeball and holder. He huffed again and crossed his arms.
Well that certainly got really messed-up really fast. Though I’m pretty sure this is why Team Evil mooks tend to self-select for incompetence, since… uh… yeah, not too many people would knowingly sign onto a job with this as standard procedure for termination of employment.
- Florent stares at the puddle of viscera where his underlings were about ten seconds ago -
Florent: “... Perfectly fine.” ^^;
Gulattive: -burp- “*Delicious. Your underlings should cock things up more often, Florent.*”
“Tell me. Were any of them lying?” he asked.
Gulattive slurped to itself, before turning to face its host.
“No, master,” it said slyly, speaking out loud this time. “They tasted pure. No trace of Venira.”
… Wait, is that telepathy in action there? Or do Pokémon in this setting have mutual intelligibility with humans in general? The text doesn’t really give any indication one way or another here as to whether this is weird or normal.
Gulattive: “... Though are you sure it was a good idea to have Armel out for-”
Florent: “Gulattive, he’ll be fine. Trust me, I’m a father. I know these things. Just focus on what happened to my Blood Legendary.” >_>;
“Then where could it have gone? How did it break open its ball?”
“It seems,” Gulattive began, “Venira has selected a host. It willed an escape, enough to break any bindings."
Oh, so “Blood Legendaries” can possess other beings. That’s… wonderful.
Florent’s brows furrowed deeply, and he whipped around to face the towering Pokemon.
“What do you mean selected a host?” he growled. “You told me that I selected the hosts for the rest.”
Gulattive hummed to himself with sinister glee. “You do. But in the event your bloodline expands, one shall inhabit the offspring, as Avareed did with the boy."
Oh, so Armel himself is possessed right now. I suppose that explains the complete lack of concern over whether or not he’s going to be traumatized by all of this.
Florent moved his gaze over to Armel, who was frozen in his spot. Sheer terror had grabbed hold of his body, and had no plans to let go any time soon. His eyes were locked on the place where the grunts had been standing. All there was left of them now was a puddle of blood.
Gulattive: “Master, I’d just like to point out that all of this was completely predictable-”
Florent: “Shut up, Gulattive, I’m the father here and I think I know what’s best for my boy, okay?” >_>;
Florent scoffed to himself. “Wipe the look off your face, boy. That’s how things are handled around here."
He turned on his heel and approached the wall just off to his left, where a giant red button was affixed. With his face now out of Armel's sight, he took that small second to cringe to himself as wash of minute regret came over him. While those bumbling morons had failed to keep Venira secure, they were still valuable numbers among Team Enigma. It had been difficult to come across new recruits lately, and now that he was thinking clearly, he realized he couldn't afford the loss that had just occurred.
Quality leadership too. It sure would’ve been good to realize this before you reduced four apparently non-disposable grunts into a pool of bloody slush.
Gulattive: “I’d just like to say that traumatizing your son aside, I had no objections to-”
Florent: “Gulattive. Stop. Talking.” >.<
Florent wasn't quite sure how he was able to keep telling himself he could keep his destructive impulses under control. After a whole lifetime being the Pokemon of Gluttony's vessel, he should have known by now that there was no wrangling those side effects, no matter how much he tried.
… Oh so Florent himself is possessed, huh? Not sure what a ‘Pokémon of Gluttony’ is, but I get the suspicion that these ‘Blood Legendaries’ are meant to represent different Deadly Sins. Since gluttony is very much one of them.
Gulattive: “... Master are you sure that you’re not the vessel of the Pokémon of Wrath? Since you were a bit quick to break out the punishment-”
Florent: “Shut. Up. Gulattive.” >_>;
With a single, very aggressive shake of his head, he pulled a key card from his pocket and swiped it into the reader strip that was placed just next to the button. It released, and he shot a look back over at Armel, who was still quivering like a pathetic Magikarp out of water in his spot.
"You'll forget it by tomorrow anyway, my dear boy."
I mean, yeah, this is horrifyingly abusive and messed up as a fatherhood decision, but how high on your own supply do you have to be to believe that?
He slammed his fist down on the button, halting the alarm and flashing red lights. All returned to normal, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Florent turned back to Gulattive. “And you couldn’t have told me that me expanding my bloodline, even unwillingly, would cause me to lose these Pokemon of mine?” he queried.
Wait, so Gulattive is a legendary? When I was initially reading this up to this point, I had thought he was a Dusknoir, but now I can’t tell what he is.
Florent paced back to the front of the pedestal, his eyes downcast in thought. He raised his wrist to his face, seeking the date off his watch.
December 14th, 1997. 8:16pm. The alarm had begun to go off a mere five minutes ago.
… Oh, so we’re in a “late 90s” story, huh? Wonder what the significance of the choice of date is, since it feels like it ought to be important if it’s not in the present time and present day.
“How could I have another child born at this point?” he asked himself. He racked his brain for possible answers. Several mistresses of his were aboard the ship, but none he’d had long enough to carry a baby to a full, healthy term.
Oh, okay so Gulattive is the Pokémon of Gluttony that Florent is host to. I suppose I should’ve seen that coming from the name. Though I suppose this confirms that these Blood Legendaries have a tie to the Seven Deadly Sins after all.
As his father conversed with Gulattive, Armel was wracking his brain for ideas on what he should do. If he were to avoid the same fate as those grunts, he had to be of some use.
Florent: “Wait, you were still here all this time? I thought you went off to play video games or something.”
He slowly brought his journal to his face and pulled it open, shaky hands flipping frantically through the pages, trying to find something he might have written down that could assist his father in the current predicament. He hoped, somewhere in his previous lives, he’d written some useful information down.
>previous lives
>implying he’s died before
>while he’s worrying about remaining ‘useful’ to his father
Florent’s killed his kid and brought him back from the dead or some messed-up thing like that on multiple occasions, hasn’t he?
He turned page upon page, his eyes scanning them for any trigger words that might prove worth mentioning. In the several seconds he was turning, he found himself slightly tripped up by the recounts of preceding days, as he always was when he reread everything. Instances that he had no recollection of, rewritten clear as day in his own handwriting, and dated for convenience. He blew backwards through November, October, September, August...all the way back to April, where he finally found something.
Uh… yeah, sounds like this kid’s bit it a few times already considering that description.
April 4th, 1997.
Galar.
Father’s woman left today. He didn’t know she was leaving, so he’s really angry. Don’t mention her to him tomorrow. We will most likely be leaving Galar tonight because of it too, so don’t be alarmed if we’re elsewhere.
Exactly none of that journal entry there suggested a remotely healthy family environment. Not that I should’ve expected better from Florent after he thought it was a good idea to feed four people to his Pokémon right in front of his schoolaged son.
“The Galarian woman…?” Armel stammered quietly. He gulped, and took a deep breath, trying to compose himself. Trying to get the image of Gulattive eating four people whole out of his head. If there was any moment for him to be thankful that his brain was fried, it was this one. He’d have no recollection of it tomorrow morning, and it wouldn’t be something he planned to jot down.
Wait, brain was fried meaning what, exactly? Does this kid have Dory’s short-term memory loss from Finding Nemo or something like that.
“Speak up, Armel,” Florent shouted sharply. Armel flinched at the way his father’s voice bounced off the walls, and his shoulders tensed.
“The Galarian woman,” he repeated, louder this time. There was no need, though, as Florent had strode over to him, and now stood over him.
“The one you met back in Spring. While we were in Galar,” he clarified. He tentatively closed the journal and held it down at his side, hoping desperately that he’d said enough.
Oh yeah, this isn’t about to go to ultra-creepy and unsettling places with a tone like that.
She’d left him without a trace. High, dry, and heartbroken. He remembered going to pick her up from her dorm at her college, only to find she’d left the region entirely. No goodbye, no note, not even a phone call.
He remembered how badly he wanted to wring her neck for it.
Yuuuuuup, this guy is quite something for a thought process. I see that ‘Gluttony’ here is being parsed along the lines of desire to sate urges. Or at least I think that’s supposed to be Florent’s shtick at the moment.
He began to caress his chin, allowing his eyes to slip shut in contemplation. Their last time together had been April--eight months ago. It wasn't necessarily farfetched to assume she could have been with child in the weeks before. Still, he thought he'd been careful…
Good thing that this guy isn’t host to Lust considering how much of a womanizer he already is with just Gluttony. :V
Recalling the timeline of his brief relationship with her caused him to wonder: did she leave him behind because she’d gotten pregnant? He had to wonder if she even knew at that point. If she did, it only gave him one more reason to want to feed her to Gulattive too. Keeping one of his heirs from him was a crime he wouldn’t allow himself to forgive.
Especially not when said heir had stolen his strongest relic from him.
… Lovely thought process there! Though I’m surprised that he’s just not knocking off his mistresses whenever he’s done with them in order to avoid situations like these.
“You told me Venira was comatose. How is it that it broke free to find my child?”
So ‘Venira’ is a Pokémon like Gulattive, huh? Can’t think of a Deadly Sin that tracks with that in terms of sound, unless she’s supposed to be ‘Vainglory/Vanagloria’ from before it was merged into ‘Pride/Superbia’.
“I can’t say,” Gulattive mused. “Venira has always been an odd one out. It seems they have been reawakened by whatever presence has been introduced. It must be a strong one!”
… Maybe she really is ‘Vainglory’. Since it would explain why she was lying dormant originally.
Florent didn’t like that prospect. While the idea of having another heir was one he enjoyed, having said heir attract the attention of the otherwise dormant Pokemon of Wrath…
… Never mind then. Should’ve paid more attention to the ‘Ira’ in her name. Though I wonder how on earth that works for the other Blood Legendaries, since their respective Deadly Sins aren’t quite as compact as ‘Gula’ and ‘Ira’ are for forming names for them.
“How could I get Venira to return?”
“The child would have to willingly give it to you, or perish.”
I like how this guy is just saying all of this right in front of his 11-year old son right now. Though I kinda wonder if there ought to have been more showing of how Armel is processing all of this happening here.
He placed a light hand on Armel’s head, causing the boy to flinch at the touch. Florent didn’t appear to notice it.
“Good on you for remembering, my boy. That journal was a good investment.”
Whelp, this guy certainly isn’t of the HGSS school of thought with regard to Pokémon training. Though from what was described of Gulattive, I’d presume that would bring on a lot of unwanted questions.
“Your services shouldn’t be needed until I locate my newborn. It should be a solid meal for you.”
His left ear began to tickle again, and Gulattive spoke in his head once more.
Well that’s one way to set the mood and initial conflict of a story. Creepy, but effective there given that this guy’s out on a grand quest to commit ritual murder of an infant for the sake of collecting unholy power.
Odette Cinq-Mars’ maroon hued eyes were locked on her news app. She leaned against the backstage wall, tapping her clipboard lightly against it, keeping with the tempo of the orchestra. She was humming along to the singing of the actors onstage while her eyes roved hungrily over the words on her phone screen.
The victim, 25-year-old Gervais Morel, was found unconscious in his car. His Pokemon, a Simisear, attempted to take a firearm from one of the first responders, and was subsequently gunned down. The Simisear was later found to have lethal amounts of sacrilege in his system. The Lumiose City PD declined to--
Oh, so just jumping ahead by at least 15 years to when smartphones are a thing, huh? Also, it’s your own story and setting, so I won’t harp too much about it, but if you want to crank up the French-ness of your setting, you probably want to consider rolling something like 'Lumiose (City) Police Prefecture' as the name of your local law enforcement agency there.
Though I’m surprised the Simisear attempted to snatch a weapon instead of just going full feral Detective Pikachu!Aipom and attempting to attack the police like a hopped-up simian little gremlin there. And you just know that whoever coined the name of this designer drug deliberately did so to have giggles at headlines along the lines of “Man found dead in apartment from sacrilege overdose”, it just feels like it’d be ripe for black comedy for a suitably warped and twisted perspective.
She began to shake her head, when a tap on her shoulder caused her to jump. She pressed her phone to her chest and cut her gaze over, meeting a set of slyly narrowed hazel eyes.
“Shouldn’t you be paying attention, Miss Stage Manager?” Noel whispered.
She scoffed. “Shouldn’t you be listening for your cue, Mister Mistoffelees?”
Noel returned the scoff and crossed his arms. “To think, after years of acting classes, you don’t have that faith in me? Purrloins is my favorite musical of all time, you think I don’t know it like the back of my hand?”
… Oh, so Team Evil that dabbles with the creepy-as-hell Pokémon just casually named after the Seven Deadly Sins is into drug trafficking. Lovely.
Odette impatiently scrolled through the rest of the article, before clicking the phone off and shoving it into her pocket. “Just the recent OD case. Nothing new.”
He sighed, then removed his chin. “Oh, that? Lame. I’ve been waiting for a new break.”
A ‘new break’, huh? For a sec, I thought that these two were in theater, though I’m not so sure anymore after that comment about waiting for a new break right after the mention of a ‘Team Enigma’.
He leaned against the bunched up curtain, crossing his arms over his chest. “Anything else to report on? Can you at least tell me what the weather’s like today?”
As if the universe sought to answer for him, a groan of thunder rocked the building. It was quite loud, but it didn’t stop the rehearsal on the stage.
… Wait a minute, so these two do work in theater, then? I’m genuinely tripping a bit here given that the narration hasn’t come down firm one way or the other and the dialogue has kinda been going back-and-forth.
“Castform mating season,” Odette chided. “So why don’t you ask one of them?”
To that, Noel chuckled. “Rainy one day, sunny the next, snowy the third.”
Ah yes, a cursed year for the backdrop of what’s shaping up to be a cursed story. Totally a good omen there.
They were silent for a moment, and Odette heard the sound of something being rolled behind her. She turned her head, just in time to catch two of the stagehand Machamps, dressed arms to to toes in black, moving one of the light props to set on this side of the stage. She snapped twice, drawing their attention.
“Hey!” she whispered. “Stage right, not left. Other side.”
Okay, so normal Pokémon have anime-speak in this story. I presume that means that Gulattive and his ilk are special cases given that they’re possessing others? Or is that something more general like telepathy?
With that, they took to rolling it off to where it was actually supposed to go. Odette sighed deeply to herself. She brought her clipboard back to her face, flipping up the first page to double check her prop placement notes. “I swear, they don’t listen.”
“You know, I found something interesting regarding this sacrilege stuff, I figured you’d be interested to know,” Noel said wryly, disregarding her annoyance.
Translation: “It was as good a time as any to troll you.”
The actor playing Macavity the purrloin began to deliver his ending scene lines. Noel mouthed along to them, mimicking the actor’s conviction in a mocking fashion. Odette joined in, though she performed with a little less gusto. It was more like she was reciting them just because she knew them by heart. She knew the entire show by heart, actually.
The lights went out on the stage. Macavity’s actor disappeared through a trap door in the floor, as the actors left began to shout and squeal in their performance of confusion.
“I was doing some digging last night before bed, getting some dirt on all the released OD names so far,” Noel continued their conversation. He ran his thumbs under the shoulder straps of his bodysuit as he spoke.
Pretty sure that this is tempting fate for something going seriously sideways with your performance, but okay, Odette.
“As one does,” Odette snickered.
“Lissssssteeeeen,” Noel insisted, swatting at her. “I was putzing around, looking for some similarities. It’s not much, but so far, ninety percent of the cases have been among people in the wealthier demographic.”
So whoever’s pushing this drug is deliberately preying on hedonistic rich people. Filing that one away for later.
"What's new?" she said flatly. "The cops figured that one out ages ago."
Noel smirked. "Did I mention that the press is conveniently leaving out the fact that a decent majority of the Pokemon being affected by sacrilege are shiny?"
… Wait a minute, is sacrilege a drug for humans or Pokémon? Since I am kinda getting thrown here at the moment since we go from talking about wealthy people overdosing on it to talk of Pokémon being affected by it.
Like it might be a deliberate “gradual reveal” thing going on since this story in general has a sort of “mystery revealing itself” sort of vibe, but I wonder if more details regarding what sacrilege is could’ve been provided for the readers from something like Odette’s internal thought process.
Odette furrowed her brows at him. "Bouffalant fucking shit," she said.
Odette: “You’re talking about like half a percent of all known Pokémon. How in the hell could they represent a majority of any sort of cases of Pokémon affected by them?” .-.
Noel: “In case if you hadn’t noticed, but we’re already dealing with a bit of a weird demographic here, so…”
Noel had his phone out before she'd even finished talking, growing more smug by the minute. "No, seriously," he said, swiping his finger across his screen. "Most of these case files are there for public viewing, but my in down at the LCPD managed to send me her admin password for their whole case-file system."
Unless this was literally the day before the passwords were set to be changed, that sounds like a fantastic way to get inadvertently burned by your contact at some point and lose your job, just saying. It would’ve been a lot safer from the perspective of this guy’s LCPD contact to just make a copy of said case-file system and pass it along on a flash drive than to provide a password that could potentially result in “Hey, Ms. Contact, why do our system logs show you signing onto our case-file system remotely from a flat on the other side of town while you were stuck in the middle of rush-hour traffic?”
"Who's your in at the LCPD?" Odette asked incredulously. "And why don't I know about it?"
"I've got gals in different locales, baby, don't you worry," Noel snickered, heightening his voice for dramatic effect. "Good friend from coding class. We cheated off each other all the time."
I believe it given that she didn’t opt to do something saner like upload an encrypted archive with a timer to delete itself in a day and then meet this guy in a cafe to tell him “The password to unrar it is ‘mort_aux_vaches’, go nuts.” Like that’s not foolproof either, but I’m pretty sure that that’s still safer than giving a journalistic contact admin access to police databases with a password that personally belongs to you. ^^;
Like if you’re going to go that route, nick the password from a colleague you don’t like so that way they cop the brunt of the suspicion if something goes south from your buddy poking around police databases.
Odette narrowed her eyes. "I'm going to pretend you didn't tell me that so this in of your doesn't lose her job. Grandpa would have a coronary; he's well on his way there as it is."
Oh, so someone does realize how stupid and irresponsible Noel’s method of getting his dirt was for his source. ^^;
Noel finally stopped scrolling and held his phone to his chest. "So, as I said," he started, ignoring the comment. "I was putzing around, examining some case files and whatever, and boom. She texts me the login; asked her for it a couple days ago, she said she'd get back to me, whatever," he explained. "I kind of went a little nuts in there; went ahead and pulled up something on that most recent OD case, and sure enough...didn't match with the public record. Specifically denotes a shiny Simisear, while the public record denotes an ordinary."
… I’m calling it now, this in is totally getting caught and fired at some point in the future. Since this feels like an incredibly ballsy and reckless way of leaking something that could very easily cost you your job if it was traced back to you, make you unemployable at every law enforcement agency in Kalos, and potentially result in criminal prosecution.
He handed his phone to her. "Scroll left."
She shot him a wary glance as she took it. She squinted at the screen, which showed a close up photo of his computer monitor, displaying a website with a bunch of case information. She didn't bother reading all of it, because her eyes immediately fell to the part that had been highlighted for her convenience.
Odette: “... Noel, you realize that you can just printscreen this stuff, right? Literally every computer has that as a standard keyboard command executable by at most three button presses.”
Noel: “... I have a flair for the dramatic, sue me.”
She did as instructed and swiped left. It was another photo of his screen, displaying an interface she recognized: the LCPD's online case filing system. She'd caught sight of it multiple times, just glancing at it over her grandpa's shoulder while he worked. This time, the same information cell had been highlighted again.
… Wait, is this Noel’s computer that’s being photographed? Or did Noel’s in let him use a computer at a LCPD station and he’s taking photographs of that?
Since if this is his own personal computer he’s taking photos of or else a laptop that’s remoting in that he can plug a flash drive in or hit up a file uploading site without instantly tripping a flag of some sort… yeah, he really should’ve just printscreened things there.
She blinked in surprise and cut her gaze back to Noel, who was already nodding toward her with a jokingly pensive expression. "What'd I fucking tell you? That's suspicious as hell." He crossed his arms. "Granted, not all of them were like that, because some cases actually did just involve ordinary 'mon. But the ones that had shinies? All had discrepancies like that. And I'd say, of maybe the..." he trailed off to count his fingers. "Twelve I looked through last night, nine of them were about shinies. I'd guarantee it's a majority. Can't say for sure, but I'm willing to bet."
… I take it that this drug epidemic must be knocking off a lot of rich/high-visibility people, since I’m otherwise not sure how it’d rack up a high enough body count for Kalosian law enforcement to care since… yeah, law enforcement agencies tend to be fairly indifferent to drug epidemics that are out of sight and out of mind.
"You got me," she scoffed after a moment of stunned silence, returning the device to him. Her mind had become so aflutter with this new revelation, she'd almost completely lost track of where they were in the song. She didn't care, though. She had to dwell on this.
… Has Odette lost a loved one or something to sacrilege? Since that feels like an awful lot of concern for someone in theater to be having for a drug problem that’s primarily affecting a very tiny portion of the population at large.
"The wealthy, plus shinies..." she muttered. "Sounds like some shiny trade bullshit."
The trade--very loosely reminiscent of the stock market--was centered around the buying and selling of shiny Pokemon. Hunters searched day in and day out for the coveted shiny Pokemon, and would sell them to willing buyers for ridiculous amounts of money. When Odette had learned about it at face value, it didn't sound inherently awful. That is, until she looked deeper into it.
Reports of mistreatment, unethical catching practices, selling the Pokemon off without their consent, among other despicable rumors were constantly coming out. Last Odette had looked, there was overwhelming support for having it abolished altogether. Despite that, it still stood, loud and proud.
Let’s not even get into how if some version of the Masuda method holds in this story, that the most effective means of shiny hunting is basically to set up the Pokémon equivalent of industrial-scale puppy mills and then dispose of the “duds” you can’t find buyers for like unwanted poultry chicks IRL.
Though it sure is curious that someone is deliberately targeting people affiliated with a trade like this. Feels kinda like the work of someone affiliated with Greed, since… yeah, those are some greedy SOBs from a business like that that are getting knocked off.
Big names in the trade, of course, always made huge efforts to debunk the rumors, but she wouldn’t trust it. Money made people greedy, and greed could make people do some terrible things. Like, say, force-feeding a synthetic drug to a Pokemon.
Yuuuuuuup, I thought so. Just waiting on the formal confirmation.
"Fueling the crisis with their coveted money 'mons? I'd believe it," Noel sighed.
Ever since Kalos had been struck by the so-called “sacrilege crisis,” Odette had been glued to her news apps more than ever. It’d been quite a long time since the region had experienced a synthetic drug problem on such a large scale. It started as just a couple of unfortunate accidents, with hardcore party goers overdosing on some new fad. Within a few years, that substance exploded on the party and battle scene. Soon, more and more people, and even Pokemon, were overdosing, but not all of them perished. Those who lived exhibited some very strange behaviors, which is what really caught everybody’s attention.
… Wait, how many Pokémon have been affected by this drug in total if shinies represent a majority of affected Pokémon? Or else are shinies just more common than canon in this continuity?
I’m half-expecting there at some point to be a “crack” analogue to sacrilege that leaks out into broader circulation at some point called “blasphemy” or something like that, since I am fully convinced that the creator of this drug chose its name at least in part to have morbid giggles over stories about sacrilege usage and overdoses.
In one police report she had read, an young woman had to be checked into hospice, because she'd ingested so much sacrilege that she lost all of her memories, and her brain functions reverted to that of a newborn baby. Another case mentioned a trainer being arrested when they instructed their drugged-up Coalossal to eat the opposing trainer’s Vaporeon during a battle tournament.
All the users started to call the drug “sacrilege.” Soon, they were also starting to claim they were getting it from a group called Team Enigma. But, all attempts to uncover the group so far had been unsuccessful. So much so, that it was hard to believe Team Enigma was even real.
The whole ordeal was absolutely mind-boggling to her.
I mean, their name is literally ‘Team Mysterious/Inexplicable’ there. Are you really surprised that they’d be a PITA to find out information about?
Now, seeing this new take on the issue was sending her into a faster tailspin. What was the reason for keeping that information from the public? Hell, why werethe majority of affected Pokemon shiny?
Odette: “You’d think that they would literally run out of Pokémon to affect at the rate that these cases are popping up.”
She was starting to wonder if she should trust any of the reports she'd been reading at all. If they were willing to mess with that sort of observation, what other falsities could there be?
Oh so that’s why this gal cares so much about a drug epidemic. It directly impacts her family from a different vector.
“How has Chief Cinq-Mars been lately?” Noel inquired.
Odette sighed again. “Like I said, closer to a coronary every day.”
Noel clicked his tongue and began to shake his head. “Poor guy needs a break. Maybe next time he takes one, you can ask him why they're fudging info," he said jokingly.
A: This is happening behind his back.
B: Odette’s grandfather is in on this in some capacity for some reason.
Of course, being the chief of police at the Lumiose City PD would leave her grandfather exposed to all the terrible things the otherwise beautiful city had to offer. But she’d seen how much of a toll this was taking on him firsthand. Coming up on drug death after drug death would take a toll on anybody.
Yeah, I kinda figured. Guess that would explain about why she’s worried about gramps having a coronary.
She remembered how he’d responded to a call about five fatal OD cases in a residential flat. The bodies, three trainers and two Pokemon, sat there for about a week before the smell of their collective decomposition alerted the other residents. Of course, nothing on them indicated where they might have gotten the drug from. He had been so disturbed that he didn’t talk to anybody for almost a week following the incident.
She immediately regretted allowing her brain to travel there, and shook off the thought as quickly as she could. She knew damn well what it was like to bear witness to death like that.
It was there that the sound of scurrying paws approached behind her. Something began to tug at her leg, and she looked down to find her blue-hued Sylveon shooting a droopy-eyed stare at her. A folded piece of yellow legal pad paper dangled between her teeth.
… Oh, so Odette also trains a shinymon. So she has multiple reasons to care about this drug epidemic that is disproportionately knocking off shinymons and their trainers.
She supposed that was another reason this weird little discrepancy was starting to bother her so much. As a shiny owner herself, she didn't like to bear the thought of her own Pokemon falling victim to such a drug.
Odette frowned, both at the thought, and at the sight of the paper. Noel gasped and placed his hands over his lips.
Alright, so the Sylveon is ‘Enora’. Filing that one away.
Odette leaned down and took the note from Enora’s mouth, and the fairy type very quickly looped around her to affectionately rub herself against Noel’s leg. He leaned down to pet her, cooing softly as he did.
“Damn, Dee, I swear she likes me more than you sometimes.”
… Kinda wonder if Noel should’ve brought up ‘Dee’ a bit earlier than this given that it’s apparently an affectionate nickname.
“Why do you act like this is a shock to you every time?” Odette responded, opening the note. “She’s liked you since I caught her. She just has a thing for pretty gay men.”
“Sylve!” Enora purred quietly, sitting politely next to Noel’s feet.
Odette retrieved her phone from her pocket and flipped the screen back on, using it as a light to illuminate the note. She squinted through her thick rimmed glasses to get a better look at it.
If her frown could have gotten any deeper, it did. She shot her head up, her gaze zeroing in on the entrance to stage right, just across from her. She was entirely unsurprised to find Acadia, also decked out in her practice dance garb, standing in view with a stern glare plastered on her face.
Odette: “... Right, there’s a theater practice going on right now. Kinda forgot about that.” ^^;
Noel snatched the note, and Odette heard him laugh to himself.
“Gods, what a mum,” he said. “She’s just mad we’re more interested in Team Enigma than she is.” He tossed the note over his shoulder and proceeded to stretch his shoulders. Odette knew his cue was coming up shortly, so he needed to be ready. See, she was paying attention. Damn Acadia and her parental-grade micromanaging.
“I was thinking, Dee,” Noel said, stretching his left leg. “You and I should team up and try to uncover this bullshit together. We can give the PD a break, and it’ll be the last hurrah before you move to Alola.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’d be something wouldn’t it?”
This is tempting fate on so many levels right about now.
“I’m only half kidding. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you, so I need something to hold me over,” he whined. “Two clueless entertainment workers busting the case of the decade would do it.”
“You can always fly to Alola whenever, it’s only a ten hour flight,” Odette chided.
“Only a ten hour flight,” Noel repeated incredulously. “I can barely stomach flying to see my sister in Galar, and that’s four hours away.”
Oh, so regional arrangement is noticeably different from reality, huh? Since that would be “15+ hours” and “90 minutes” out of CDG in reality. Though it makes sense, since even if assuming similar relative arrangements, some parts of Pokéworld are just differently sized relative to their IRL counterparts.
“Sounds like a personal problem.”
Noel opened his mouth to retaliate, but the song began to pick up in tempo. He held up a finger.
“Hold that thought,” he said. He then strode out onto the stage, and began what Odette considered the best dance solo in the entire show. She might have been a little biased because it was Noel. He'd always been a talented performer. Back when they used to dance competitively, he was a force to be reckoned with. She kind of was too. Their duets were always flawless.
The memory made her frown. Her hold on her clipboard tightened.
So wait, what happened to Odette such to dash her dancing dreams anyways?
There wasn’t a world where she ever thought she’d be doing the crew work for a show. She’d grown up wanting to be the person in the spotlight. She sunk herself into her dancing and singing lessons, and even picked up acting in high school with high hopes of being the next Broadway performer. Another Diantha—no, the next Diantha; talented performer and Pokemon handler. That was all she had wanted for as long as she could remember.
Well, that one obviously didn’t work out. Wonder why, though.
The strings section of the orchestra began to grooveplay, as Noel took off into his thirty fouettes. Odette took that moment to lean out just slightly from behind the curtain, and she eyed the auditorium chairs. She could see the show’s director and his assistant watching the rehearsal, probably nitpicking every little thing as he tended to do. Other than that, the thousand other chairs stood empty.
This run of Purrloins! The Musical was sold out for the opening night. Odette began to imagine how the house would look that day, filled to the brim with those eager patrons of the arts, waiting to be entertained by some of the most talented performers in the region.
She started to imagine herself in, perhaps, Noel’s position. A big name part, with a big name solo. All eyes on her, as she did the thing she swore she knew best.
… Well, I’m starting to get an idea of why Odette drug her ambitions of being a performer around the back and put it down.
It’d been almost a year since she last stepped out on stage as a performer. She thought picking up a job as a crew worker would help her edge back into it; make her realize she missed it. But every time she thought about it, she thought about that thing that happened. She thought about those words, and where his hands went.
Okay, that really would explain why Odette drug her ambitions of being a performer around the back and put them down. Though considering how stories like these come out in reality with depressing regularity, I suppose I should be less surprised.
She told herself when she left her apartment that morning that she’d at least attempt to eat lunch today. But, as it seemed whenever she stepped foot into this building, the Lumiose Center for Performing Arts, something always happened that led her to losing her appetite. It’d become almost expected at this point. Probably not the healthiest thing in the world, but that was how exposure therapy worked, right?
Oh, so no performance at something like a bland-name ‘Théâtre de la Ville’ huh? Though meh, Lumiose is a bit more centralized relative to Paris anyways, so I won’t knock it.
Though I’m pretty sure that this is a sign that:
A: Odette really should see a counselor about her sexual assault.
B: Odette hasn’t seen a counselor about her sexual assault yet.
Odette opened her eyes from the half-nap she was taking. It was lunch hour, and she’d decided that if she wasn’t going to eat, she could at least try to nap. She was sprawled out on the stage, using her backpack as a pillow. Her fellow cast and crew, Pokemon and human alike, sat around her, talking amongst themselves about who knows what.
… That sounds like kinda a big antipattern for a play director to have. ^^;
Her eyes immediately landed on the untouched bowl containing her Nanab berry salad, sitting next to her legs. She stared at it for a long moment, before looking Acadia square in her face. She was quick to take in the peculiar way her eyebrows furrowed, and the way her top lip slightly pulled back to reveal her clenched teeth.
Wait, what is Acacia’s relationship with Odette such that she’s bossing her around like this?
“What? I’m not going to force myself to eat if I’m not hungry,” Odette said, knowing her words would be futile. Once Acadia made that look, there was no turning back.
Acadia crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah, not hungry for the fourth time this week?”
I’m assuming that Odette hasn’t exactly told anyone about her little moment, since… uh… yeah, Acacia isn’t really giving off vibes that she knows about Odette’s incident here.
More thunder shook the building, and Odette secretly wished it would keep rolling in order to prevent her from having to answer.
“My stomach shrunk,” she muttered. She flung her arm over her eyes. “Lunch has never been my best meal anyway,” she added tentatively.
… That’s the sort of thing that makes others more concerned though, Odette. ^^;
“Come on, ‘Cadia, let her live her life,” Noel huffed. He was sitting next to her head, with Enora curled up in his lap. “She clearly stopped eating because she doesn’t want to grow anymore. She’s perfectly content being a cute little midget.” He reached over and grabbed the bowl and began to eat from it. “Which means, more for me.”
“Veeeeeeon?” Enora queried, perking her head up as Noel began to chew. He stared at her questioningly before his eyes widened in realization.
“Oh right, you like these things,” he said. He picked a berry up from the bed of lettuce, and fed it to the Sylveon, who purred in thanks. Noel started to pet her, but Odette smacked him on the shoulder. He flinched, thus causing Enora to flinch too.
“Owwwwwwwwww-uh,” he whined, rubbing the contact site.
A: That is indeed not how that works.
B: Odette is absolutely not healthy right now for other reasons.
“Well, not now. You woke me up.” She sat up and rolled her shoulders, and decided to zero in on the current conversation of the others, to hopefully deter her motherly friend from pestering her more.
“Psychic types are ideal,” said one of the dancers. “They can sense the feelings of the audience, and therefore know when to play up their performances.” For good measure, she stroked her Hatterene on her chin, causing her to coo in glee. “Calliope here has been in a bunch of performances with me; she’s a natural.”
… Somehow I should be less surprised at the idea of Pokémon performing onstage alongside their trainers in a Pokémon setting, though this still made me do a double-take.
“I get what you’re saying, but you can’t knock Ice types either,” responded one of the stagehands. His freshly hatched Swinub sat snugly in his lap, fast asleep. “They’re absolutely glorious to look at onstage.”
“Okay, but Electric types can literally bring a house down. My Luxray has a voice to end all other singers. He’s something,” another responded. Her Luxray was laid out next to her, enjoying his own lunch. He seemed bashful at the idea of his trainer boasting about him, so he hid his head behind a paw.
Ah yes, killing your audience with a building collapse. Just what every theater performance needs to send things off with a bang. :V
“What are we talking about?” Odette asked after a few timed blinks.
“Opinions on the best performance Pokemon,” Acadia said. She’d evidently been listening in.
“Depends on the performance,” Odette said simply after thinking for a beat. Her hand instinctively traveled to Enora’s head. “My Gothitelle, Solene, is the best dancer I know, but I’d never put Enora here in dance shoes,” she said.
Least of all because booties for quadrupeds usually look pretty silly visually.
“Syyyyyyyyyl…” Enora sighed in reluctant agreement. She indeed had four left feet.
“You wouldn’t need to, people would flock to see a shiny Pokemon do anything. People love the novelty,” another dancer said jokingly, prompting some agreeing chatter.
I’d object that there seem to be enough shiny Pokémon to get knocked off by a drug epidemic, though I suppose a large swath of them recently dying off would add to the novelty, yes.
And apparently people like giving them drugs too, she thought bitterly.
Odette: “Pretty sure that doesn’t make things better, Noel.”
The conversation continued on, merely consisting of more arguing. Odette found she couldn’t hold her focus on it for much longer.
“So what were you going to say before we were so rudely interrupted by your cue?” she asked Noel. She shot a playfully sassy look at Acadia. “That we were paying attention to, by the way.”
Since the entire mention of the practice basically just fell out from the story until Acacia came barging back in.
“It looked to me like you two were just running your mouths, so I couldn’t tell,” Acadia said with a shrug. “Be lucky I didn’t send my Vigoroth over instead.” She slyly patted her pocket, where the bulge of her trusty Pokemon’s ball was visible.
Odette pressed her lips together, deciding she had a point. Acadia had always been a stickler for the rules, even more so in a place of performance. She had an intense love for enforcing “theater etiquette,” and she did so with the use of her rather persuasive Vigoroth. Odette’s head began to ache, remembering the countless head smacks she’d endured for talking during an opposing team’s dance performance.
… How does a Vigoroth reach up high enough to dope slap a human? Aren’t they like 3 feet tall-?
>4’7”
Okay, never mind, I think I can see it.
“Instead you dragged my own Pokemon into it. Conniving,” Odette said dully.
“Oh I wasn’t going to say much,” Noel answered. “I was just going to bitch that all my friends are moving away.” He sniffled and ran his finger under his eye, as if wiping away tears. “First Claude, then Basile, then my sister, now you. Why'd your mom have to put in a transfer?"
… Because Odette has been grappling with a major traumatic event in the recent past? I would assume that affects her in more places than just the theater. ^^;
"She's been trying to move her base of operations to Alola or Sinnoh for years, and Professor's Org finally approved her for an Alola move," she explained with a shrug. "Now she won't be out of town as often."
Video calling for whatever reason just isn’t the same as a proper face to face. There’s something about the presence of another person that just doesn’t carry over in them.
Odette had to nod in agreement, it wouldn’t be the same. While she was somewhat looking forward to the hefty change, something about leaving behind the place she grew up was only adding to her daily anxiety load. She didn’t know what it would be like not being able to walk three floors down to Noel’s flat when she needed to get out of her head. Or, not being able to meet Acadia for lunch when she was bored and needed female interaction. Or, possibly worst of all, not being able to ride across the city to her grandparent’s townhouse just because.
It would be a new house, new town, new people. Shit, even new Pokemon.
Potentially new language too depending upon the worldbuilding assumptions that this story makes. ^^;
She felt like she’d come to terms with it, but it was still ringing...odd.
Thinking of Pokemon caused her to remember the rest of her team, whom she’d left home to start packing. The move wasn’t for another two months, but her mother had insisted they get a move on now. She groaned quietly, hoping fruitlessly that she wasn’t going to go home to a mess.
Oh, so Odette’s from Alola, then? Didn’t see that one coming, though I suppose that regardless of how language works in this setting, it’d explain why she’s unfazed by the prospect.
“As sad as I am that you’re leaving,” Acadia spoke solemnly, snapping her out of her thought. “I do think that’s what you need. A change of scenery and a clean slate.”
There were implications to that sentence that made Odette feel both blessed to have a friend so concerned about her mental state, and disgusted that anything even needed to be hinted at in the first place.
Because humans need time to grapple with traumatic events and sometimes those wounds just don’t ever fully go away but are things you have to learn to live with?
“The Elite Family dance studio is in Alola! You could audition,” Noel suggested suddenly. “Alolans are known for being great singers too, you could also find another coach!”
“I heard they’re finally establishing a Pokemon League there, that would be great to get in on as well, since you’ve gone back to Pokemon training school,” Acadia added.
Enora appeared to like that idea, because her long ears stiffened at the sound of ‘Pokemon League.’
“Syyyylll?” she asked.
Odette couldn’t help the dubious tilt that took over her lips. The idea of a clean slate was great, she wasn’t denying that. But all of those suggestions made her stomach perform aerials. She thought back to how she’d imagined herself center stage on opening night, and...no. The fear began to gnaw at her again.
… Oh, so she associates Pokémon League stuff with theater huh? Is that because of the Diantha thing that she had going on? Since you’d think that wouldn’t be an intuitive map otherwise.
“Sounds like a good idea,” she said, making sure her voice didn’t waver. They didn’t need to really know how bad her head was spinning. “I’ll look into it.”
Not fully convinced that the plot’s going to let her leave Kalos so easily either.
Alright, onto the recap:
Well that was certainly a disquieting ride, though very atmospheric and suspenseful. I get the feeling that this story as a whole is meant to go places since it seems like it’s dealing very front and center with the unseemly underbelly side of a region and society that’s portrayed in very bright and colorful terms canonically. And that’s before getting into the creepy stuff going on with Blood Legendaries going on in the background. It might take me a while to get back to things, but the first two chapters did pique my interest about where this story is going, since Odette's inevitable collision with Florent’s world sounds like it’s going to be an… experience when it happens.
As for stuff I wasn’t so hot on, it’s mostly the described things I spotted in the line-by-line. Some of it is subjective nitpicking, some of its is small mechanical goofs here or there. If there was one thing in particular that stood out to me, it’s a few moments where I wasn’t really sure what was going on from lack of description or context to provide grounding. I’m not sure what I’d suggest there, since I think you’re going for some sort of ‘reveal of a mystery’ thing in WSBS based off the vibes I picked up, but I guess it might make sense to give some bits a once over to see if there’s anything you can share that doesn’t give the game away too fast? Like the particulars of Noel’s gambit to get to LCPD’s case file database in particular feel like it’s missing some deets that would contextualize why he did things the way he did. Since it feels like there was something about the circumstances about LCPD’s setup and his in that was meant to prevent “lol printscreen and flash drive” from being a workable solution, but it wasn’t really communicated in the text.
On the whole, I think that you did a pretty solid job at setting an initial impression and communicating what the overall tone of your story is going to be like. And it has a decent hook to make the reader want to know what on earth is going on with this Team Enigma and this sketch-as-hell designer drug that is dropping Kalos’ bourgeoisie like flies.
Congrats, and good luck with your writings @Sinderella .
CW: Strong Language, Horniness, Brief Talk of Suicide
Odette was quiet for the duration of the motorcycle ride over. Even when Noel would tap her on the shoulder to give her the next turn, she felt little need to give more than a grunt in response. Not that there was any use in talking over her helmet and the whir of her engine and passing cars, but it was the principle of the thing.
Was it the anticipation? Was it nerves? Was it all of the above? The answer was yes.
She wasn’t expecting the ride to be as long as it was, but she should have guessed there wouldn’t be any Olympic-style ice rinks in Lumiose. The further they trekked out into the suburbs, closer to Brackish and Calanthe, the more a knot formed in her throat. Was this a good idea? Were they smart in mindlessly driving off to a location that Clovis had given to them? What if it wasn’t actually a rink but an empty scrap of land, and by the time they realized it was too late, they’d be surrounded by—
She sucked in a deep breath as she revved up the motorcycle’s engine and easily zipped between two sedans in front of her. No, the address was an ice rink. Noel double, triple, and quadruple-checked it before he gave her the go-to agree to meet. Clovis would not be asking them to convene at a public place if he was up to anything nefarious.
Or, maybe that’s what he thought she’d think? Because he knew how astronomical her crush on him was and that even with her logical mindset, she’d still fall gullible to his charms and—
Gods. For as often as she told herself to keep her proverbial shit together, it was getting progressively harder as the days went on. Especially when said days were filled with tasks like cracking open a region-wide conspiracy.
As she pulled into the parking lot of their destination, she peered up at the official-looking sign even as she drove around to the empty bike parking spot.
Sheer Cold Olympic Ice Rink
“Well,” Noel said, his voice muffled by her spare helmet. He raised the visor, probably realizing that much. “Looks exactly like the street view did, so at least we know he wasn’t lying.”
Odette kept her eyes locked on the sign, and it was a long while before she felt like she could move again. Swirling thoughts of what was to come kept her rooted to her seat.
It wasn’t until she felt a gust of wind hit her bare neck that she flinched out of her almost-catatonic state. She’d been startled at first but significantly relaxed when she saw it was just Elton. He’d followed them over after giving Noel grief about being put in his ball for the ride.
“Yeah, yeah, don’t give me that look,” Noel snapped as Elton hovered in front of him, sending him something of an unamused glare. “I just figured with the possibility of rain, you would have rather been in the damn ball.”
The mention of the weather prompted Odette to look up at the sky. Overcast, 5 degrees Celsius, and a 20% chance of a downpour. It seemed fitting for such a dark-coated investigation, but she’d wished the mating castform had been slightly kinder with the temperature. She already felt the chill of her nerves, so some sunlight would have been ideal. Of course, this was Kalos, and even when the castform weren’t causing grief, there was no guarantee of that.
She finally pulled off her helmet and shook out her braids before freeing up a hand to adjust her glasses.
“Let’s get a move on, then.”
***
The lobby was what she expected. Several celebratory banners hung from the ceiling, and the walls were covered in plaques and cases full to the brim of gold-plated trophies. Photos upon photos of the many professional figure skaters and hockey players who walked from the building were hanging proudly for all new patrons to see. And, most importantly, there seemed to be quite a few people around.
Just walking through the lobby alone, there were some characters dressed in both hockey gear and what looked to be dancewear. The figure skaters, probably. The sport wasn’t too far off from actual dance.
“Wow,” Noel commented. “How victorious.”
“A little cluttered for my tastes, but it's certainly an aesthetic,” Elton chirped from his perch on Noel’s shoulders. As the bird spoke, Odette reached into the side pocket of her backpack and grasped Isaur’s ball.
“Come, be among your icy essence,” she said as she pressed down on the release and watched as Isaur faded into view. The froslass stretched her arms above her head before pressing them into her back and pushing on it until a sound ‘crack’ rang out. When she appeared adequately lean, she sent Odette a tired look.
“Snack bar?”
Odette scoffed. “I don’t know if there’s a damn snack bar. We’ll look later.”
She didn’t bother to ensure that that was a good enough answer because she unzipped her jacket pocket and fetched RotomPhone, which she wasted no time unlocking. She first took note of Dorien's response to the last text she'd sent him. She'd told him she was meeting up with some of the cast offsite to work on some lines and that she'd likely be indisposed for most of the day. His acknowledgement didn't seem all that crazed, and she responded back with a heart. It made her thumb tips burn. But at least she wouldn't have to worry about sating him for a few hours.
“So. Where is he?” Noel asked, leaning over Odette’s shoulder to look at her screen while she navigated over to her thread with Clovis. He shrugged his shoulders, prompting Elton to hover.
“He said we had to ask for somebody,” Odette answered, pulling up the virtual exchange. “Somebody named…Val?”
Noel pursed his lips. “An assistant, maybe? I’d bet somebody with his net worth has an assistant or ten.”
To that, Odette shrugged. “He didn’t specify, but I assume that’s the case.” She broke her gaze on her phone to take another look around the lobby until she found what she was looking for. The help desk, sitting conveniently close to the front door. Even more so, somebody was manning it. Perfect. She motioned toward it with her head, and Noel, Elton, and Isaur took that as a signal to follow her.
The clerk, a young woman who was wearing a retainer, beamed at them as they approached. Odette’s eyes fell on her name tag, which was decorated with crudely drawn stars and hearts. It read Amelie.
“Hello!” Amelie greeted. “How can I help you?”
Odette took another quick look back at her phone as she leaned onto the counter with her elbows. “Yeah, hi,” she said. “We’re looking for somebody named Val?”
Amelie’s eyes lit up with a sense of familiarity. “Oh!” she said. “You must be the visitors he mentioned. He’s in Rink B, down past the stairs. You can just head on in.”
Blinking a few times, Odette turned to exchange a look with Noel, then Elton, then Isaur, before pocketing her phone and sending a friendly salute as she stepped away. “Thanks so much.”
Noel didn’t make a comment until they were well out of earshot. “Am I wrong for being impressed that that was so easy?” he asked, keeping his voice low as they passed two giggling teens and a set of weaviles, all with skates slung over their shoulders.
“Am I wrong for being so concerned that that was so easy?” Odette responded with a raised brow.
“What, were you expecting some James Bond-level security and secret underground headquarters?”
She paused to consider her response. Eventually, she nodded. “Honestly, yeah. I would think Virtue Corp operatives would be more secure than that, right?”
“Maybe Val is the security. Maybe it’s code.”
“He's the one you have to go through to see Mr. Long, Cool, and Handsome,” Isaur said. Odette supposed that could be the case, but why send them down to a specific rink? Or say anything about expecting visitors?
They turned into the doorway brandished with a large letter B, and upon pulling open the doors, they were met with a gust of icy chill, followed by incessant masculine laughter.
From their vantage point at the entrance to the rink, Odette could see the rink was definitely in use. A group of seven men and some assorted Pokemon, all mostly dressed to practice some skating, were gathered toward the center of the rink, chattering about gods knew what. The room was empty otherwise.
“I’ll start off by saying that I’m all for this,” Noel said under his breath as they let the doors slip shut.
That she could agree with. As she drew closer to the edge of the barrier around the ice, it was abundantly clear to her that this group of men probably flocked together because they were all fucking gorgeous. Even their Pokemon looked well-groomed and carried an air of confidence.
The men's tight-fitting practice outfits accentuated every muscle, every curve, and every lean feature of their seemingly perfect bodies. She supposed she should have expected that much from figure skaters, being that dancer boys usually didn’t look much different. But gods, she didn’t remember gawking at dancer boys the same way she was doing now.
“Which one of them do you think is Val?” Noel asked with a snicker as he moved up next to her.
“I don’t care,” she droned. “I’d be happy with any of them.” She wondered if there was some scientific name for a huddle of tall and handsome skaters. They certainly were a marvel, that was for sure.
When the fuck did I become so horny? she thought in sudden aggravation. With a firm shake of her head, she crossed her arms tightly over her chest as if that would somehow stop her brain from wandering. Her thing for Clovis was plenty enough to be dealing with. She needn’t over-exert her lust by adding another face to the roster.
She quickly broke her stare on the group to hunt down a place to sit. Her eyes caught on a set of bleachers just off to her left, and she made for them without saying a word, setting her helmet down beside her as she sat.
"I've been prowling the wrong market. This is where it's at," Noel spoke from his spot next to her.
She stifled a laugh as she turned to look at him, and whatever snide remark she had prepared shriveled up and died on her tongue when she was met with the sight of him holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes. Without a second thought, she reached over and tried to yank them out of his hands. However, he had them out of her reach before her fingers could even graze them.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Odette asked through her clenched teeth. "Don't be a pervert."
Noel scoffed in mock irritation. "Miss Ma'am, how many competitions do you think the lot of them have competed in where they had cameras and," he shook the binoculars in front of her nose, "hundreds of these stupid things pointed at them?" he shot back. "Surely they won't mind my problematic, deprived gay ass having a couple seconds of fill."
He nudged her off with his elbow and peered back through the binoculars again, leaving Odette to bury her face in her hands. She only stayed like that for a moment because the group hooting and hollering made her look up.
One of them—a tall, very lean yet muscular brunette—had skated away from the gathering and was taking a quick lap around the rink, gradually building up speed. Odette had gone ice skating several times in the past and had no issues keeping her balance on the skates, but him? He looked like he was practically flying over the ice. Like his blades were barely making contact. It was so effortless she almost felt jealous.
Then, without any indication of what he would do next, he quickly turned, so he was now skating backward, and with a few moments of prep, he launched himself into a backflip. Odette watched wide-eyed as he landed seamlessly before stumbling ever so slightly. He didn’t fall, though. He regained his balance and seemed to bask in the cheers that rang out from his group.
He slowed to a stop mere feet from the others and adjusted his protective glasses on his face before his eyes met Odette’s. She could practically feel the heat travel down to the point of her nose and disperse across her cheeks as he grinned at her. He tilted his head, almost questioningly, before turning to acknowledge his friends again.
For some reason, that smile felt familiar. She couldn’t pinpoint why. Maybe all pretty boys just smiled the same. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
However, he was still relatively far away, so maybe she really was just horny. And after watching such a strong display of athleticism and grace, who could blame her? What a show.
She held her hand out to Noel. “Gimme.”
She didn’t need to be looking at him to know that stupid fucking smirk had spread over his lips. She felt the binoculars fall into her palm and held them to her glasses.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Noel teased in a voice that was meant to sound reminiscent of hers. “Don’t be a pervert.”
“Sorry, can’t hear you. My eyes are busy.”
Noel’s snicker still wasn’t enough to deter her from taking a good, zoomed-in look at each of them. But, as she did, she vaguely began to return to her senses and started to wonder what the fuck they were doing there. Were they just supposed to wait for this Val person to show up? Was he out there on the ice like they’d initially been anticipating? What was even the point of waiting?
“I wish the answers to our questions were tattooed on one of their foreheads,” she muttered. “Then maybe I’d have a concrete reason for doing this.”
“Same, but I’d want it somewhere a little lower.”
It took her a moment to register the meaning of those words, but she eventually snickered. Her head shook, but she didn’t move the binoculars off her eyes. “We’re fucking disgusting,”
“No, we just know the top-shelf wines when we see them,” Noel chided. “And we’re in the mood to get a little hammered.”
That was a nice metaphor for being horny. She decided to hang onto it so she felt less…desperate.
"Hang on, man, I'm a little preoccupied," Odette replied.
As she buried Noel's pretty words into some shallow pocket in her brain, she began to hunt down the brunette again to really get a good look at his face and that smile. However, she couldn’t find him. Even as she moved back and forth between the others, it seemed like he’d disappeared.
She dropped the binoculars down to get a normal look, brow furrowed in what felt like a mix of confusion and disappointment.
“Enjoying the view?”
Odette felt her blood run cold. Colder than the air around her had initially made it. She knew the voice, and it didn’t belong to Noel. Isaur let out a quiet snicker, and Odette resisted the urge to turn and glare at her.
Her knack for getting distracted by a pretty face would prove extremely detrimental if it kept up. She hadn’t even realized anybody had left the ice and walked over to them, and for somebody as observant as she tended to be, that was a big no-no. It was evident Noel and Elton hadn’t noticed anything either; their collective surprised gasps said that well enough.
Eyes slipping shut, she set the binoculars in her lap. Anger had started to build up alongside her unfathomable embarrassment, and she needed a moment to calm herself before she faced who had caught her with her hand in the poffin jar. Slowly, she turned her head and had to clench a fist to keep herself steady when she saw it was the same brunette she’d been looking for, now sitting mere inches from her, only separated by her helmet.
That wasn't who she thought it was. She thought she knew Clovis's voice well, but it wasn't him. It didn't look like him. Did pretty men sound the same too? Or...
He was smiling in amusement. Perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. But not too white that it looked unnatural, but just white enough that they looked clean. Maybe they were natural, or maybe they were veneers. It didn’t matter because his smile really was just perfect.
No, she knew that face. She knew that smile. She wasn't crazy. It felt familiar for a reason.
“Hey, stranger!” Isaur said happily. The suddenness of the outburst made Odette flinch. Brunette simply chuckled.
“Nice to see you too, Isaur,” he said.
He pulled the goggles off, and her suspicions were confirmed. The brown hair and brown eyes had totally thrown her off, but she'd been right.
It was Clovis.
“What the fuck, I didn’t even recognize you,” Noel wheezed.
Odette still felt like she was still processing the visual, but her gears had rusted over.
“Good, that means I’m safe,” Clovis responded casually, scratching behind his ear.
“Hey Val,” one of the other skaters called from the ice. “Are you done for now?”
Clovis held up a thumb. “I’ve got a meeting with some newbies, so I’m out.”
That was enough for the skater because he turned back to whatever he’d been doing before. Odette was so occupied with staring at this new version of her crush that she wasn’t paying too much attention to the rest of the group anymore.
“Val?” she queried incredulously.
“Mm,” Clovis hummed. He pushed himself up to stand and began to step off the bleachers. Perfectly balanced on his clean white skates, no less. “Let’s go to my office.”
In other words, she'd be better off not drilling him until they were in private. She understood that much. A good choice, too, because she was a second away from firing off multiple questions at once and might not have been able to control her volume.
Everything was moving way too fast all of a sudden. Her body began to navigate on pure autopilot as she, Noel, Elton, and Isaur followed him out of the arena, through the lobby, and over to the second floor. She continued to be thrown as each person they passed greeted him, and he had no issues matching their energy.
“Sup Val,” some young teenager in full hockey gear said as he hobbled past them.
“Looking good, Quintin,” Clovis replied jokingly as he patted the teen’s helmet.
“Good afternoon, Val,” a much older-looking girl greeted. She held her Alolan vulpix partner snuggly to her chest, and it cooed in a similar greeting.
“Good afternoon, Angela, Diamond. How’s your ankle?” he asked.
“Better today,” Angela said. “I massaged it like you told me to, and Diamond helped me ice it, so I think I’m good to go.”
At another point, a young girl, no older than 10, rushed up to Clovis excitedly with her smoochum in tow. He was quick to kneel down to the girl’s height.
“Val, Val!” she said breathlessly. “I got my toe loop today! I did it! And Smoochum got her sit spin!”
Clovis gasped excitedly and held his hands up for the girl and Smoochum to high-five. “That’s fantastic, guys. Keep practicing, and I’ll come to watch you two later.”
Odette was absolutely floored. It was like she was in the presence of a completely different person. None of these skaters seemed to have the slightest idea about what their Val did on his days off. Though, to be fair, she’d had no idea what her Clovis did on his days off until now.
“Damn, you’re quite the celebrity,” Noel commented quietly. It was enough for Clovis to hear because he peered at him over his shoulder, something of a smirk on his lips.
“It is my arena, after all.”
***
The office was exactly what Odette expected from the owner of an ice arena.
It overlooked the same rink they’d just been in, with a window that took up the entirety of the back wall. Against it was a large desk with an organized mess of papers, books, and an empty cup. The walls themselves were decorated floor to ceiling with awards, plaques, flags, medals, everything. Almost as victorious as the lobby. A set of black leather loveseats bordered a glass coffee table in the middle of the room, and that’s where Odette found herself immediately walking to as she entered to set her helmet down. Noel did the same with his.
“Please, make yourselves at home,” Clovis said as he held the door open for them. He let it slip shut before walking over to the window and closing its blinds.
As they slipped shut, his demeanor change was instant.
His shoulders deflated, and he hunched over tiredly as an exasperated sigh clawed out of his throat. He sat on the edge of his desk and aggressively tugged at the knots on his skates before kicking them off unceremoniously. Now barefoot, he stomped his way to the far corner of the office, where a mini bar—stacked to the brim with bottles of varying liquors—stood, flanked by numerous filing cabinets.
He was swift as he grabbed a glass, filling it with ice and dumping some clear-ish brown liquid into it. He swirled it around for a moment before completely downing it.
“Rum?” Noel asked with a scoff.
“You wish,” Clovis snapped back, still facing the bar. He sounded positively exhausted. “Whiskey.”
Odette sent Noel a worried look, and he returned one that was a little more amused.
“He okay?” Noel mouthed. All she could do was shrug.
“Being a rink owner that much of a headache?” Noel pressed again as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Clovis, pouring another drink, snickered. “Oh no. This is entirely unrelated to the rink. Please, have a seat. I’ll be with you once I’ve adequately warmed up.”
“My, my, get a look at this wall,” Elton said. Odette turned her head as fast as Noel did, but Noel was the first to approach him. The bird was staring at some of the awards nailed to one of the walls and seemed quite interested in them. Odette might have followed, but for the moment, she found that she was more worried about Clovis’s state of mind. Who the hell had a fully stocked drink bar in their office? It must have been a billionaire thing. Or an alcoholic thing.
She felt something nudge her leg and looked down to see Isaur wiggling her brow.
“He's not sober, now's your chance to approach,” she urged, nodding her head toward Clovis. Odette began to shake her head frantically. Approach him and do what? Ask how he was feeling about the weather?
As she shook her head, Noel grabbed her sleeve and yanked her over to the wall. The sudden movement caused her to stumble, but Noel caught her just in time and held her in a manner to ensure she was staring straight at the wall of awards. Her eyes landed on a gold plaque.
Rookie of the Year
Valentin Ménétries
She read the name over and over again. The first name, then the last name. For some reason, it took her a lot longer than it should have to register the significance of either of them. With a few slow blinks, her eyes traveled up to another award.
Valentin Ménétries. Valentin Ménétries.
Ménétries. Valentin. Val.
Odette’s mouth went slack, and she cautiously turned her head to meet Noel’s wide eyes.
“Holy—” she started to whisper.
“J.L. Ménétrie—” Noel gasped. The loudness of his voice caused Odette to jump, and she flailed toward him just in time to slap her hands over his mouth.
“I’m sorry, what?”
For the second time, Odette felt her blood run cold. She watched as Noel’s eyes danced with a mix of embarrassment and fear as her look hardened into a glare. They exchanged something silent--something that said "do not say another goddamn word"--before simultaneously turning toward Clovis.
Glass in hand, he was now glaring at them. Glaring.
“You want to say that again?” he urged.
Odette steadily pulled her hands off Noel’s mouth. “We were just reading your awards. Super impressive, I have to say,” she replied without missing a beat.
“Where did you get ‘J.L.’ from?”
She felt her words do somersaults against her tongue, and Noel spoke before she did. “We were just…talking about somebody else we knew,” he offered. He flashed his teeth in a casual-looking smile, but Odette could tell he was panicked.
Clovis stared at them intently. He still appeared absolutely ethereal, even though it was clear he was very cross at the moment.
“Alright, you know what?” he said evenly. “I’m going to take another sip of my drink, and that should give you two ample time to get your story together.”
As he spoke, he set down the empty glass he was holding and kept his eyes on them as he wrapped his fingers around the neck of that same whiskey bottle. He effortlessly popped the cork off, then held it to his lips to chug whatever was left.
Odette didn’t know whether or not to be concerned about his state of mind or completely awestruck by his tolerance. She stole a look at Noel once more, who had his mouth open in what looked to be admiration, so she just decided to follow that lead.
“I—“ she stammered. “I bet you were a hit at keggers.”
“I’ll say,” Noel added in agreement.
“That’s not what we’re here to talk about now, is it?” Clovis shot back, setting the bottle down without bothering to cork it again. He wiped the corner of his mouth with his hand before pushing himself off the bar and walking over to them.
“Now, what was it that you said just now?”
With a better look at his eyes, she could see that he truly just looked frazzled. Stressed. Maybe even a tad unhinged. He held himself better than any other unhinged person she’d ever met before, but she started worrying about what was going on inside his head to have him be like this.
Closing her eyes, she exhaled calmly through her nose. They were there to answer each other’s questions, right? Well, she had her first one ready. And she had no way to ask it without revealing what she knew.
“J.L. Ménétries,” she said. She hitched her shoulders back to allow herself an air of confidence while she spoke. Showing she wasn’t just there to fuck around with him. “As in, J.L. Ménétries of Virtue Corp.”
The exhaustion fled off Clovis’s face, chased away by a sudden burst of alarm. His brows lowered, and he tilted his head ever so slightly. His mouth opened like he wanted to say something, but he struggled to word himself.
“H…how do you know that name? Either of them?”
Odette licked her teeth and averted her eyes toward the covered window. Her hands retreated to her pockets, and she shifted her left leg uncomfortably.
“I’m a bit of a snoop,” she muttered.
“A snoop?”
She tried to refrain from flinching. “I found some correspondence on my grandpa’s desk. He’s the chief of the LCPD, as you know, and I can’t keep my hands to myself.”
If he was going to yell at her for some reason, she wished he’d just do it. Get it over with. Tell her she was in some sort of legal trouble for tampering with confidential documents. Something. The longer he stood there, staring at them in disbelief, the more she felt like she might shrivel up and perish.
She almost had a heart attack when he broke into a frantic bout of laughter.
He was absolutely hysterical. One of his hands hovered over his stomach as he stumbled his way over to his desk and threw himself down into the giant leather chair that sat behind it. It was only then that he calmed down, but not by much.
“Well, we’re off to a fantastic start,” he breathed. The smile on his face stretched from ear to ear, and he began shaking his head. “And here I was, stressed about having to explain the concept of another organization to you. Perhaps I underestimated how much research you’ve actually done.”
The seconds it took her to build up the will to respond passed like hours. “You’re not mad?”
“Absolutely not. I’m just a tad blown away by you.” His smile shrunk to something more bashful. “Drink’s not really helping me, so I apologize for the outburst.”
Heat once more found its way into her cheeks, and she nearly reached up to cover them. That might have made it more obvious, so she forced her hands to remain glued to her sides.
“Don’t know what you expected from the granddaughter of a cop and her genius bestie,” she said defiantly.
Clovis continued to shake his head. “So, what else have you two managed to ‘snoop’ through?” he suddenly asked.
“Not so fast,” she shot back, pointing a finger at him. “I already answered a lot of questions; now it’s your turn.”
Clovis scoffed. He was no longer shaking his head. Instead, he leaned far back into his expensive-looking office chair, his unwavering brown eyes still locked on them as he rubbed his fingers together. But, at some point, he gave her a relenting gesture.
“Floor’s yours,” he said.
Odette pursed her lips and turned to meet Noel’s eyes again. They were wide and accompanied by an urging nod. She once again found herself thankful to be in this with somebody she knew so well because he didn’t need to say a word for her to know what he was telling her to ask.
“Are you…him?” she spoke. “Do you work for Virtue Corp?” She knew the answer to that second question. But he didn’t need to know that yet.
“More like ‘am a slave’ to Virtue Corp,” he responded bluntly. “And gods, no. Don’t insult me.”
Clovis pushed himself up to stand and slowly but surely made his way around to the front of his desk. It was hard to tell if he was drunk at that point. He masked it exceedingly well. “J.L. Ménétries is my father. Virtue Corps’ gracious founder. I’m merely his no good, spiteful son, Valentin,” he declared with an air of mockery, stopping to lean back against the desk and cross his arms.
“And that’s—?” Odette pressed.
“My real name? Correct,” he answered. “Clovis LeClair is my…” he trailed off as if he were at a loss for explaining himself. “My adopted identity.”
“Right. Because Clovis LeClair actually is a real person,” Odette surmised. She wouldn’t admit she had about 20 pages of notes about him in her backpack because nobody besides Noel and her Pokemon team ever needed to know that.
A cringe from Clovis—now Valentin—that soon gave way into a nervous-looking smirk. “Was a real person,” he corrected.
“You killed him?” Noel gasped.
Valentin forced a sour laugh. He didn’t find the outburst funny. “Of course not. He did that himself.”
Odette blanched, her body going stiff as Noel looked at her frantically.
“What do you mean he did it to himself?” she said. “You can’t just say that and not fucking elaborate. Nowhere did I see anything about Clovis LeClair being dead.”
Valentin huffed dismissively and, in a swift motion, pulled the brown hair right off the top of his head—a wig, as Odette could now see—revealing those more familiar silver locks underneath. He carelessly threw the headpiece down onto the desk, landing on top of some papers and causing the pile to shift. She didn’t have a spare moment to be thrown by it, as she was already preoccupied with the speculation that Clovis LeClair was no longer alive.
“Mm. You definitely wouldn’t. The LeClairs made sure of that for the sake of our investigation,” he answered, speaking as casually as one would if they were merely discussing a sporting event.
She just blinked. As if that would make anything he said make sense to her. “Investigation?”
“You lost me,” Noel said. Thank gods because it’d have taken another two minutes even to formulate such a response. “Are you Valentin, or are you Clovis? Why are you wearing a wig; why are your eyes brown?”
Nodding knowingly, Valentin lowered his chin and began to flex his foot. He spent a few seconds stretching the right, then the left. Odette could see the knot that had formed on his forehead, which indicated to her that he was most likely thinking something over.
“I’m skipping a lot of steps here,” he replied. “Why don’t you do me a favor and catch me up on where your heads are, and I’ll just start to fill in your blanks.”
“Well,” Noel started after moments of tense silence, “we know sacrilege is affecting mainly the wealthy and shiny Pokemon. We're pretty sure we know Team Enigma exists. We...don't exactly know if Virtue Corp is good or bad.”
“I knew you were lying about something,” Odette picked up sheepishly. “And we’ve obviously seen those Pokemon.”
And I know you’ve been following me for a while. And that those things we saw are called blood types. And that you’re scared of Enora. And that there’s some uncanny resemblance I shouldn’t know about right now.
Though, she’d be getting ahead of herself if she dropped any of that now. She wasn’t ready to release all of the stops just yet.
“What about your boyfriend?” Valentin said quickly. Nevermind how it seemed like he had that question on standby this entire time, but she had to refrain from growling.
“I know he’s up to something.”
“I’m aware of that much, but what are your actual thoughts on him?” he pressed. He sounded tenacious.
“We’re being honest here, right?”
“That is the goal, Miss Cinq-Mars.”
She allowed the exchange to linger in the air, giving herself time to process the words and how Valentin looked as he said them: unmoving. Clear eye contact. Neutral expression. No sign of fidgeting anymore.
“I think he’s doing sacrilege,” she stated. “I think…he’s involved with Team Enigma.”
She didn’t want to say the last thing on her mind, but the more she thought about it, the angrier she became.
“I want to wring his neck.”
Valentin sighed, and she was actually startled at how relieved it sounded.
“Great, this isn’t an ‘I can fix him’ scenario. You are truly just in this for the answers.”
For a passing second, Odette wanted to scream. So it was true; he actually thought she was in love with Dorien? She couldn’t even be happy about that testament to her acting skills. Not when it meant her crush was going belly up like a dead magikarp right before her eyes.
“If it’s any consolation, that makes two of us,” he added with a slight chuckle.
“Three of us,” Noel interjected.
“Four,” Isaur said from the couch.
“Make that five,” Elton declared, sitting on top of one of the filing cabinets.
That winning smile returned to Valentin’s face. It was far more welcome than any of the others he’d shown them since getting up to the office. He was still gorgeous. “I’m thrilled that we’re all on that same page.”
“So you guys do hate each other?” Odette blurted.
As quick as the smile had come, it was gone. Odette found herself regretting asking as Valentin’s eyes began to shine with that same panic that had come through when he made his slip at the gala. “Was it obvious?”
“At first glance? No,” she assured him. That was the truth. “But, the more I stared at you two? Absolutely.”
Her response didn’t appear to help, and now Odette was starting to panic herself. She stumbled over what to say next until Noel cleared his throat.
“I was none the wiser if it helps,” he said. That was also true. “Dee has an unmatched ability to read people. Don’t feel bad.”
Valentin eyed her warily, and she shrugged.
Luckily, that got the point across. Valentin nodded once, his stare settling back into something a little calmer, and he smiled again. “I suppose I knew that. All things considered.”
More heat on her face. At this rate, Odette felt like she’d need to stick her head back into that fucking ice rink air to keep herself under control.
“I can’t speak for him, but I absolutely want to murder him,” Valentin elaborated. “Why do you think I just downed a quarter of a whiskey bottle? Not even my happy place gets him out of my goddamned head.”
He raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I was with him last night, and I’m still reeling. Not to mention, I’ve been dreading this conversation for days already because I’d assumed I would have to give you the entire rundown and that just—” His words had started to pour out, and he stopped himself before they completely overtook him. He took a deep, leveling breath.
“…pardon if I seem a little out of it.”
“No. I get it,” Odette replied. Now his display made all the sense in the world. She'd be in a similar boat if she were much of a drinker. “I have to decompress when I get away from him too.”
“Well, you’re worse off than me. I couldn’t imagine having to kiss and talk about marriage with him. You’re a fantastic actress because you certainly had me fooled.”
It was her turn to sigh in relief, but she was mindful about being as obvious about it. At least now he understood that what she was putting on display for Dorien wasn’t real. And that she was still technically single and available. Maybe all wasn’t lost just yet.
However, she had to focus.
“Why, did you think you’d have to convince me to turn against my loving significant other?” she teased. Something lighthearted, mostly for herself. But it seemed to help him, too, because he smirked at her.
“Correct. But, being that he does do sacrilege—religiously—and is indeed a member of Team Enigma, that might have been much easier than I anticipated."
His tone was just as teasing as hers, but it didn’t stop her expression from falling. She supposed she should have been at least somewhat excited that she’d been correct, but all she felt at that moment was the urge to throw up.
“Does he give it to his ‘mon?” she asked, trying not to sound as numb as she felt.
Valentin hesitated. “Yes.”
“And how deep in Enigma is he?”
Another pause. “As deep as you can get. Direct contact with their leader-deep.”
Gods, that fucking… she thought in disbelief. She had a feeling but didn’t realize it was like that.
“Fuck me,” she said through her clenched teeth. “And you’re talking like there’s more to that.”
“Because there is,” Valentin said. "I also have to convince you that Virtue Corp is on your side. We're totally and completely against Team Enigma and everything it stands for."
"Alright, that's a move in the right direction," Odette said.
“But what exactly do you mean ‘the entire rundown’? And ‘skipping steps’? Is there really some big ol’ fucking conspiracy going on here aside from the fact that Dorien’s a much bigger skeeze than we thought he was?” Noel said. Obviously eager to get the show further down the road. Odette was thankful for that much because she felt herself starting to spiral the more they lingered on that topic.
She had a strong feeling that wouldn’t end any time soon.
“It sounds like you’ve dug a partial bit of the way down.” Valentin chuckled lightly. “I figured I’d have to try to convince you that I wasn’t just telling you a convenient story about a double identity and another mysterious organization. I'll settle for just explaining why we're on the good side.”
“This is only partial?” Noel exclaimed. "I'm all for hearing how Virtue Corp is the hero side here, but holy shit, what more is there?"
At that, Valentin just sighed. He brought his hands up in front of his face and folded them in front of his mouth in what looked to be contemplation.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” he said darkly. “But I need you all to understand that you have stepped into some deep shit. If this scenario were an iceberg, I’d say you haven’t yet reached the water. I asked you to meet with me to clear the fog so you know what you’ve stuck yourselves into and so you know how to proceed going forward.”
He looked genuine. Spoke genuinely. His eyes were narrow in seriousness; they had no sense of alarm. They were still quite easy to read, even though they were no longer blue. Somehow, the brown actually looked nicer on him. Dark, but she could still see some flecks of gold within them. So strange for this man who she had come to associate with such cool colors.
Was that his natural eye color? Or were they contacts? Or were the blue hues she’d met him with the fake ones? Regardless, it all worked on him because, of course, everything about him just worked. Still, it was exciting to be able to see this new side of him. That meant he trusted them, right? And trust was the foundation for a friendship, and perhaps something more than—
I’m gonna stab myself, she thought in annoyance.
She focused on his little speech, her brain going to work trying to figure out what it was they might not have known, while her chest filled with warring senses of unease, infatuation, and curiosity. She had been getting a bad feeling that they were dealing with something far bigger than they had planned, but the way Valentin announced it made her feel "bigger than they had planned" was an understatement.
“Then, I’ll kick off with another question. What the fuck are those Pokemon, and what do they have to do with shinies?” she queried.
Valentin’s eyes slipped shut as he started to nod expectantly. He probably saw that question coming from miles away. With a deep exhale, he unfolded his arms and used them to pull himself up onto the desk, where he crossed his legs and tucked his hand under his cheek.
“And I’ll counter you,” he said. “Do any of you know of a man named Florent Lambourne?”
CW: Strong Language, Discussion of Sex, Noncon Kiss
This chapter was written over a four hour hospital stint and a series of antibiotic fueled nights, and has not been beta read. Therefore, it's a little chaotic and probably extremely long winded! Feel free to tear it up or be nice!
“Smell that? That’s the sweet scent of extravagance,” Noel said, adjusting his tuxedo coat. His Talonflame sat idly on his head, observing the glitz and glamour of the event.
“Somebody lives here,” Odette said. She had to remind herself that this was just the designated party room. There was actually an entire estate attached to this room. The crystal chandelier hanging over the dance floor and table seating area had to be the size of her entire apartment, and that alone filled her with a sense of inadequacy she didn’t think was possible.
“Fross,” Isaur said dully. Her stomach growled, and she rubbed at it.
“I told you there would be food. Make like the ice type you are and chill,” Odette scoffed.
“Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal,” Talonflame chirped, flapping his wings.
“Behave,” Noel said, raising his right arm, which was clothed in his custom-made falconry glove. The black leather had been lined with glimmering gold piping, and there were crystals embedded into each one of the knuckles. It honestly looked like something Elton John would wear...if he trained flying types, of course.
“Normally I'm all for you acting chaotic, but tonight's not the night," Noel said as Talonflame lifted off his head hovered down to land on his forearm.
“Flay,” Talonflame said, deflated. "Flayyy?"
Noel pursed his lips then began to look around the immediate area. Odette followed his gaze questioningly for a moment, before her eyes caught on a sprawling and almost imposing looking hor'dourves table, and where two humans and two Quagsire in waiter vests were handing out plates of finger foods.
She pointed. "There it is. You've clearly--"
Both Isaur and Talonflame were half-way to the table before she'd even finished her thought.
"No guys, I totally wasn't going to recommend we stay together," Noel scoffed, dropping his arm.
"Bringing Isaur to a place with endless food for a detective mission probably wasn't my smartest move," Odette mumbled. With a huff, she tightened her arm around Noel’s, and she felt him return the favor.
Her eyes scanned the room, taking in the guests, their Pokemon, and whatever it was they were doing. She had to stop and stare at the amount of shiny Pokemon she was seeing before her. They were known to be rare, but from a cursory glance, you'd think they were a dime a dozen.
Even so, there were a lot less than she would have anticipated seeing.
Nonetheless, "bizarre" wasn’t a strong enough word to describe it, but it was one of the only ones that made sense. Frustrating also came to mind too. How many of those ‘mon were caught, rather than purchased through the stupid trade? Probably not a lot, and that thought alone was enough to make her grind her teeth.
“What is this, a shiny trade social?” Odette asked herself.
The cocktail hour had only started about ten minutes ago, but already there were hundreds of people standing around in their little groups of friends, drinks and finger foods in hand, laughing and carrying on about gods knew what. On a whim, she began to scan the crowd for a sign of Dorien’s styled brown hair, and felt momentarily relief when she couldn’t spot him. It wouldn’t be long before he came sauntering along, but she needed more time to mentally prepare herself before that happened. For now, all she focused on were the present shinies.
The more she looked, the more it became clear to her that they looked, well, ragged. Long faces, smiles few and far between. Most of them just lingered at their owner's heels, looking miserable while doing so.
Remorse filled her to the brim. She was sure she wouldn't be happy-go-lucky if she were being bought and sold so mindlessly.
The sound of glass breaking drew her attention just far off to her right. She could very clearly see a young man in a waiter vest, kneeled down and staring wide eyed at the tray of drinks that had spilled all over the shiny marble floor. Standing over him was a woman in a flowing yellow gown, her shiny Ponyta at her side. Odette watched the woman's painted lips curl over her teeth, and she kicked a shard of glass aside, making the poor waiter flinch.
"Watch it," she spat, waving her Chanel clutch at him. "These are Louboutins! Don't soil what you can't afford!"
As the waiter sputtered out an apology, Odette turned her attention to the Ponyta. The horse watched on with despondent eyes. Its head was slightly lowered, like it was somehow waiting for the woman's wrath to turn on it next. Even its ears were flat, a telltale sign that it was not having a good time. At all.
Odette then realized--not only were these Pokemon being bought and sold like property, but they were perpetually stuck in the presence of wealthy brats, like that woman. That would run anybody ragged on its own.
She wanted so badly to go over there and help the waiter clean up. But, when she saw nobody moving to do the same, she was forced to brush that idea aside. She was already entering the room at a disadvantage, and she didn't need to make things harder for herself by putting herself out in a way these regulars weren't. It stung, but she'd have to endure it and deal with the karma that followed.
At the very least, if she didn't have the conviction to get to the bottom of this before, she certainly did now.
“Well, I will say this,” Noel spoke, taking her attention away from the disturbing scene. “For a couple of flat dwellers, we clean up nicely.”
That, she could agree with. Noel looked absolutely fantastic in his tuxedo, and the red carnation he had pinned to his lapel simply pulled the whole look together. Not to mention, the hue of the flower matched the color of her Ralph Lurantis dress, the one gown in her mother’s closet of higher end clothes that actually slipped up around her butt.
The dress was form fitting, deep red, and didn’t suit her style whatsoever. She felt somewhat exposed in something so tight, but at the very least, it seemed like she’d adequately dressed this time around. So, she decided she’d suck it up for the next couple hours, and sink all her focus into trying to find some answers to her questions.
“If we can get our hands on some champagne, maybe we’ll feel like we’re part of the club,” Odette cracked, nodding her head toward a nearby table. There were flutes of the golden liquid lined up in expertly spaced rows, there for anybody to take if they were to walk by.
“You had me at champagne,” Noel replied, leading her over to it before he was even finished speaking. He grabbed two, and handed one to her, before holding his out as if seeking a toast.
“To our debut into high society. Let’s see what the fuck happens tonight,” he said. Odette merely nodded, and tapped her cup to his. They sipped together, before continuing onward into the room.
“So,” Odette started. “I know you said you wanted to stick together, but maybe we should follow our 'mon's leads and split up?"
Noel was quiet for a moment as he sipped. He cleared his throat. "Probably, yes. You should probably go find your boyfriend first,” he suggested. “Surely, he’s going to be hanging around all the suspicious parties, right?”
Odette shuddered to herself. “I’m positive. But I feel like venturing outside the realm of Bonhomme will give us a broader scope. I mean, look at these Pokemon. They look miserable."
She felt relieved that she’d decided to leave Enora at home for this get-together. Somehow, walking into a room of possible shiny traders, as a commoner with a shiny, felt like the equivalent of walking into a wild Pyroar den. If she was going to be discreetly collecting information, she didn’t need to be bombarded with endless questions of how she’d ended up with a shiny Sylveon. Sure, she could lie her way through it no problem, but Enora on the other hand, didn’t have a fibbing bone in her body. It simply wouldn’t end well.
“Maybe we should use our collective sex appeal and go straight for seduction,” Noel chuckled as he drank more. Odette shot a glare at him.
“Not my jam, but you have fun with that,” she said.
Noel started to playfully nudge her, when a loud gasp hit her ears. Noel heard it too, and began to dart his eyes around, looking for the source. It came in the form of a middle aged woman, who rushed right up to Noel with her purple-hued Audino in tow. Its eyes were downcast, so Odette couldn't get a good look at its face. Audino were normally very happy Pokemon, so seeing one so reserved and upset looking was just adding to how disheartening this all was.
“Oh my goodness,” the middle-aged woman said. “Are you Noel Massé?”
Noel blinked rapidly, evidently caught quite off-guard by the question. “Yes,” he said tentatively. He got his bearings back quickly, because his lips spread into a suave smile. “How can I help you?”
“I knew it was you!” she said. She grabbed his hand and began to shake it eagerly. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but I’m Lissette Archamault. I watch a lot of shows down at the Lumiose center, and I just wanted to say that I’m a huge fan of yours! You were fantastic in Cabaret, and I’m so excited for Purrloins!”
Noel was very obviously flattered by the introduction, but he seemed particularly caught on this woman’s name. Or, at least, that's what Odette was certainly stuck on. There was an entire part of the theater dubbed “The Lisette Archamault Wing,” to honor this woman and her frequent and obscenely generous donations to the institution.
“Wow, I’m so honored!” Noel said. He was absolutely brimming with excitement, and Odette bit her tongue to keep from giggling. Seeing him get so worked up was really a fun thing to witness. A little beacon of light in this room of disguised darkness they'd just entered.
“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to introduce you to my husband and a couple of our friends,” the woman said. “My husband could talk your ear off about the original run of Purrloins!, it’s his absolute favorite.” She paused. “Unless this is a bad time, I’d hate to pull you away from your gorgeous date.”
Noel hurriedly held up his hands, sputtering over his words. “No, no! Hold that thought, please!”
He turned and grabbed Odette by her wrist and pulled her a couple feet away. When he was sure they were out of earshot, he turned to her and immediately clasped his hands together.
“So,” he started politely. “I know we’re playing detective right now, but--”
Odette shook her head jokingly. “Go. Maybe she’ll tell you something juicy while her husband chats you up about your Mistoffelees.”
His eyes lit up, but they quickly dimmed with a bout of concern. “Are you sure? I know this is not exactly--”
“You can still play detective while you try to convince rich theater patrons to further your acting career,” she said. “I’ll just go find my boyfriend in the meantime.” The words felt like battery acid on her lips, but that wasn’t the main point here.
Noel exhaled deeply, then grabbed her cheeks and planted a long kiss on her forehead. “Keep your phone on.”
“Of course.”
She watched him rush back over to the rich lady and lock arms with her. He shook hands with the quiet Audino before they walked off. Career advancement surely was not the reason they were here, but Odette wasn’t going to be the one to hold him back from it.
She was beaming at the fact that such an esteemed and frequent guest of the center recognized him, and even called herself a fan. Noel’s talents had been pretty acclaimed since he broke out onto the scene not too long ago, but witnessing something like that, no matter the place, was pretty nice. It meant he was getting somewhere, and it meant there was still a lot in store for him. She was a very proud friend.
She, on the other hand, felt momentarily offended that she also hadn’t been recognized like that. Sure, she’d been called ‘gorgeous’ but that didn’t hold a candle to being told one has a fan. But, there was nothing more to expect. She didn’t step out onstage with Noel. She stuck herself behind the curtain, where she thought she’d thrive just as well.
It wasn’t working out that way, though. The part of her that wanted to be the next Diantha was aching, but that unshakeable sense of stage fright was too much to overcome.
It was simply too hard to be okay.
She grimaced to herself as the smell of cigarette smoke flew past her nose. Upon slightly turning her head, she was jarred by the realization she had mindlessly wandered into the designated smoking area through her deep thought haze. Seeing all of these apparent socialites standing around, fraternizing over the cancer sticks wasn’t necessarily an out-of-place thing. Kalosians just loved their damn cigarettes.
Her eyes roved from one redhead in a sparkling green dress, to a robust looking man in a standard black tux. He released a bellowing laugh, and the men standing around him also began to laugh. She scoffed to herself.
Something’s fu--
“Well, something’s damn funny isn’t it?”
The crack had come out of the one person standing closest to her. He was leaning over the barricading fence that separated this higher level from the dining area, his hands clasped together lightly. His head was turned in the direction of the laughing man, so all Odette could see was the back of his silver-grey head of hair, and the Snom sitting on his shoulder. She couldn’t help but notice his suit too. It was a striking slate grey, nearly matching the color of his hair.
He turned his head, giving Odette a good look at his profile. A cleanly shaven and defined jawline, topped by a delicate nose. A smoking cigarette hung from between his teeth, and he moved a hand to grasp it between two fingers.
“Maybe he realized he weighs as much as his net worth,” Odette said. She hadn’t planned to say it as loud as she did, and she only realized her mistake when the man started quietly chuckling. Odette took a long, slow sip of her drink, hoping that was going to be the end of the interaction. She felt out of place as it was, but part of her figured that making fun of a regular was a bad move.
“Congratulations, that might be the funniest joke I’ve heard all night,” he said as he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth.
“Om!” the Snom squeaked.
She side-eyed the man before fully turning back to face him, seeing he was now looking at her. With a frontal view, it was entirely clear to her that he was...wow. Whatever god there was that was in charge of designing humans took absolute care with this one. She could see just how strikingly blue his eyes were. She didn’t even think eyes could get that blue.
She blinked slowly at him, as if trying to ward off a mirage. His smile wavered, and she caught him looking her up and down. She felt a wave of self-consciousness wash over her, and she cleared her throat and turned her gaze away from him.
“That’s unfortunate to hear, I wasn't even trying,” she said, then sipped her champagne.
There was a couple seconds of silence. Assuming the man had just decided to ignore her, she let the relief fill her core.
“I'm going to come right out and ask instead of wondering for the rest of the night,” he suddenly said. "If you don't mind me inquiring; do you have heels on?"
The frown took over her lips before she even had a chance to register the question. "If you don't mind me inquiring; is that your natural hair color?" she shot back.
"Mm, no," he replied, not missing a beat. "It's Wella 050."
She wasn't entirely expecting him to answer seriously. Now, the ball was back in her court. She released a loud, relenting sigh.
"Yes. Stilettos, might I add." She paused as she furrowed her brow. "Why?"
He took another puff, this time taking time to exhale the smoke. "Morbid curiosity. I figured I had nothing to lose by asking."
"What if I'd decided to kick you?"
He chuckled again, then shrugged. "I guess I spend the night in the hospital, then."
She raised her brow. He was awfully chipper about that outlook. "Are you always this forthright with strangers?"
Another shrug from him. “Some people tell me I'm too blunt for my own good, and I don't necessarily disagree. I'd call it my fatal flaw,” he said. He reached over a nearby ashtray and dabbed his cigarette. He then held it up, as if gesturing to it.
“Can I offer you a one as an apology?”
She was almost insulted. “Pass. Smoking is a singer’s death wish.”
Provided you still sang publicly, she thought bitterly.
He raised a brow as those bright blue eyes filled with minute confusion. “You’re in the designated smoking area,” he retaliated smoothly. He inhaled another puff, before blowing the smoke out in her direction. “I figured that's what you were here for. No need for such pompousness.”
Odette fanned the smoke away lazily. She noticed the aroma also had a tinge of fruitiness to it. She assumed that was just coming off his natural breath, which was...nice? No, it wasn’t. Blowing smoke in somebody’s face like that was a rude thing to do. She felt a twang of anger, and tightened her grip on her drink.
“Just stating a fact,” she said stiffly.
"Well if you must know, they lace these particular sticks with pecha berries, so it actually eliminates lung buildup entirely.”
Ah, so that explained the fruity smell. She flexed the corners of her lips, trying to suppress the buildup of a sarcastic remark. It didn’t quite work. “Well, if my Mimikyu ever decides to take up smoking, I’ll be sure to pick those up at the chemist.”
A smirk caressed his lips as he turned his whole body to face her, leaning his hand on the fence. He fished in his inner jacket pocket, then withdrew an unmarked cigarette carton.
“This one little package will run you about View attachment 1313400,000. So good luck with that.”
“Om! Ommmmmmm.”
Odette’s eyes narrowed, and that prickle started to intensify. She was allowed to make fun of herself for being poor in comparison to most of the people in this room, but who was this guy and his bug to assume she couldn’t afford a View attachment 1314400,000 pack of cigarettes?
“What makes you think I don’t have that chunk of change sitting in my trust fund?”
Another exhalation of smoke from him. He reached up and scratched the Snom on its head. The gesture was so damn cute, and the urge to swoon broke through her desire to punch him in the chest. The conflicting emotions startled her.
What’s wrong with you?
“Because most of the spoiled brats here would be too scared to make pointed jokes about one another out loud,” he scoffed. “They prefer to do it the old-fashioned way--behind each other’s backs. Which leads me to believe you’re not one of the spoiled brats.”
That...wasn’t the answer she was expecting. Her guard began to fall back down to size, and the anger began to fade.
“Plus, I’ve never seen your face before, so I was partially running on an assumption on that end,” he added sheepishly.
“...right,” she said.
His snarky grin turned friendly as he held his hand out. “Let me start over. I’m Clovis,” he introduced himself. “And this is Powdered Sugar.” He nodded toward his Snom, and it beamed like it had just been given an esteemed award.
“Snom!”
Odette didn’t fully realize how attracted she was to tall hot men and their tiny Pokemon until that moment. Okay, okay, she thought. Get afucking grip. She eyed him for a split second, taking that time to pull her thoughts back together. She then approached and took a firm hold of his hand.
“Odette,” she replied. She figured now it would be okay to lean on the railing next to him. He didn’t protest, instead just returning his attention to his smoke.
“That’s a nice Ralph Lurantis. What department store did you pick that little number up at?” he asked. There was an evident joking undertone to his words. It made her snicker.
“Oh, this old thing?” she said, deciding to play along. “It’s a custom fit. Ralph makes all my dresses personally.”
Clovis’ eyes widened as he feigned shock. “No kidding. I’ve been bugging him to make me a custom suit or two for years. How’d you manage?”
Odette began to swish what was left of the golden liquid around in her glass. “With an esteemed family like mine? How could he say no?”
“Well if we’re gloating about personal designers, this suit’s a custom from Rei Kawakubo, of the one ‘Comme de Garchomp.’” He spoke with the same level of jest, but Odette could simply tell he was being serious. She bit the rim of her glass.
“Hm, I suppose that’s impressive,” she said into her cup, making sure to really push the snooty tone. Clovis laughed loudly again. She was beginning to really enjoy the noise.
“Are you sure I can’t offer you a cigarette?” he asked as he put the butt of his out on the ashtray.
“I don’t know, do you want to watch me choke to death tonight?” she questioned.
He rolled his eyes, flipping the carton open. He pulled out two of the sticks, biting down on one and handing the other to her. “Don’t be so dramatic. One won’t kill your singing lungs. Besides, don’t you know all the best singers smoke everything under the sun?”
“And look where a lot of them are now,” she sneered, taking it with a hesitant twitch of her fingers. She took a moment to down what was left of her champagne. Unsure of what to do with the glass, she also set it on an ashtray. Clovis didn't move to chastise her for it, so she supposed it was okay.
“I’ve never ingested smoke that wasn’t being emitted by my Chandelure," she admitted.
Clovis had suddenly produced a lighter. His cigarette was already lit by the time she looked up, and he was holding the artificial flame out to her. She bit down on her own, and he held the flame up to the tip.
“Pretend it’s a straw for a second, so the tobacco lights,” he explained. “Don’t inhale yet, just suck.”
Something of a dirty joke looped around her frontal lobe, and she gnawed into the tip of the cigarette until she forgot about it. She did as she was instructed, and soon the cancer stick was ignited.
“Okay, now you want to inhale just a little. You don’t want to overload yourself on the first drag,” Clovis continued as he pocketed the lighter.
She took a slow, shallow breath. She could feel the smoke going into her mouth and snaking down her throat, while a fruity, flowery flavor spread over her palate. It wasn’t the nasty processed pecha flavoring chemist companies like to put in their medicines, it legitimately tasted like there were real pecha berries in the cigarette. She supposed with a View attachment 1315400,000 price tag, she shouldn’t have expected much less.
She felt a tickle start to form in her throat, and took that as a sign to exhale. She didn’t want to push it, lest she actually break out into a coughing fit, and she didn’t want to embarrass herself much more in front of him. She removed the cigarette from her mouth, and breathed out slowly, watching as the berry smoke swirled up to mesh with the giant nicotine cloud floating overhead.
Clovis raised his brows, impressed. “And you said you were going to choke to death. Look at you.”
“Fast learner, I know.”
He chuckled, and she watched him take a long drag from his stick. His mouth went slack, and some of the smoke began to seep out. He inhaled it back through his nose before it could get too far, then blew it out altogether. Odette had to turn her head away to hide the pink that had started to take form on her face again. She’d never thought of smoking as something attractive, but dear gods…
Get. A. Fucking. Grip.
“So. Chandelure? Mimikyu? I take it you’re a ghost-type trainer?” he queried.
She jumped at the sound of the question. “Oh,” she said quickly. “Sort of. More a general magical type specialist,” she told him. “So ghosts, a fairy, a psychic…”
That seemed to pique his interest, because he leaned a little closer to her. “Wait, that’s neat,” he said. There was a sense of mild excitement in his tone. “I don’t know a lot of full magical type trainers. What’s your team?”
Odette felt all the air deflate from her head. This was getting to be a little much. She’d had maybe one or two crushes before, but nothing like this. “Ah, w-ell,” she stammered. “I have a Chandelure, a Mimikyu, a Gothitelle, a Sylveon, and a--”
She felt something cold barrel into the back of her legs. “Fross! Lass!” it said.
She peered down to see Isaur with a plate full of hors d'oeuvres. Her cheeks were full of something, so much so, she could barely speak. But, she was beaming nonetheless.
Odette stared at her for a moment, then laughed. “Hey foodie, how are you faring? Where’s Talonflame?”
“Ossssssssss,” Isaur said, shrugging. She shoved something that looked like the remains of a chicken kebab in her mouth. Odette was shocked she even had room for it.
Well, the answer wasn't helpful. Hopefully Talonflame had found Noel, wherever he was.
“As I was saying, I have a Froslass. This is Isaur,” Odette gestured to her Pokemon and peered back at Clovis, but was momentarily shocked to find him kneeling down to Isaur’s height. His eyes sparkled with interest.
“Why didn’t you start with that?” he said. He outstretched a friendly hand to the Froslass, who looked on in confusion.
“Good evening, Isaur. I’m Clovis. I do hope you’re enjoying yourself,” he greeted.
“Om! Om om!” Snom squeaked.
Isaur took a second to stare at him. Something of a giggle fell out of her, and she floated over and grabbed hold of his fingers with her free hand.
“Fross,” she purred.
“The pleasure’s mine,” Clovis said with a nod. He shook her hand, then released it and stood up. Still giggling, Isaur floated back behind Odette’s legs, where she sat down and poked her head out shyly. Isaur wasn’t a shy Pokemon by any means, so seeing her reduced to a laughing mess like that was bizarre. It seemed he was having a similar effect on both of them.
“Let me guess,” Odette said incredulously. “Ice-type trainer?”
“Was it obvious?” Clovis asked.
“The Snom, the silver hair, the blue eyes, the way you schmoozed a Froslass. I can see it,” Odette said coyly, bringing the cigarette back to her mouth.
He held his hands out to his sides bashfully. “Read me like a book," he said sarcastically.
"One of my many hidden talents," she said with an equal amount of sarcasm. "Are you from Snowbelle?"
Clovis shook his head. “No, actually,” he said. “I just figure skated competitively for--" He caught himself, then cleared his throat. Panic flashed in his eyes for a short moment, gone as quick as it appeared. If she wasn’t staring right at him, she might have missed it.
“Actually, that’s not important,” he said easily, as if trying to brush it off.
She didn’t peg him as an artistic type, especially not one to engage in a dance-based activity. But hearing that caused the astronomically sized crush she had to grow. She suddenly had so many more questions. However, it was clear he didn’t want to discuss it, so she decided it would be best not to press.
Maybe he was trying to...hide his age? Was he older than he looked? She tried not to frown at the thought. Instead, she attempted to find the words to fill the sudden gap in their conversation, and almost started to panic when nothing came to mind. But, she needn’t have bothered.
“Hey, LeClair!”
Good things just couldn’t last, could they? She felt like she’d been on cloud nine while she was alone with this man, was immediately shot down to hell at the sound of Dorien’s voice. No sooner had his words carried through the smoking area, did he emerge at Clovis’s side.
“Hey, Bonhomme,” Clovis said cooly. Odette watched in silent horror as Dorien eagerly raised a closed fist, and the two touched knuckles.
They were...friends?
Dorien leaned against Clovis’s shoulder. “I see you've already met my date," he said. Odette very nearly threw up.
"Your date?" Clovis repeated.
"Yes! This is the guest I invited, remember?” Dorien asked. “I told you about her yesterday.”
“Oh!" Clovis said excitedly, some realization hitting him. He turned and pointed at her with the cigarette. "You’re the one who beat his ass at the Pokemon school."
Odette forced a smile, and she heard Isaur sigh deeply at her feet. “Yep. That was me,” she said.
Clovis took a long drag, barely able to hold down his laughter. “Well I’m not entirely shocked by that,” he said after pulling it out of his mouth. His voice sounded strained, until he exhaled the smoke directly into Dorien’s face. “He sucks.”
Dorien began to cough, but it gave way into some chuckles as he fanned the gas away. But, Odette couldn’t help but notice how forced it sounded.
“Coming from somebody who trains ice-types, that doesn’t mean much,” Dorien commented. Surely, he meant it jokingly, but there was an edge to his tone that made it sound almost serious. Clovis's grin morphed into something more wicked.
“You say that, and yet,” he said, shrugging his shoulders in an exaggerated fashion. “Have you beaten me? Ever?”
Dorien sucked in a deep breath. Odette noticed his jaw clench. “No, I haven’t. But it’s all in good fun, right?”
“Sure. Right. Good fun,” Clovis said. That grin didn’t falter, even as he brought the cigarette back to his mouth. “Let me know when you want to admit that you’re salty about it.”
“Me? Admit I’m salty? That’s not a gentlemanly thing to do,” Dorien said politely.
“It wouldn’t be the first thing about you that isn’t gentlemanly, sweet cheeks.”
"I could say the same about you."
Maybe they weren’t friends.
Their respective smiles were growing more nasty by the minute. After a couple of long, almost excruciating seconds of silence, Clovis suddenly reached over and snuffed out the half-smoked cigarette on the ashtray.
“Well, that’s enough back-and-forth for me. I should go make my rounds,” he declared. He reached up and patted Dorien twice on the cheek. “I’ll catch you at dinner, salty man.”
"Hey, a 'salty man' is still more of a man than you'll ever be!"
They pointed at each other, and released simultaneous "Ha's!" The gesture appeared to be in absolute jest, but from the way Dorien clenched his jaw, and the way Clovis's brow twitched, it was all too obvious to her that it wasn't. There was evident bad blood here, and neither one of them wanted to acknowledge it.
Clovis then approached Odette. Before she could do anything, he was planting a friendly kiss on each one of her cheeks. She returned the gesture shakily, praying to the gods he wouldn’t feel how fast she was heating up.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Odette."
“Frossss!” Isaur said affectionately, eagerly floating up to Clovis's face.
He chuckled, and the two of them exchanged friendly cheek kisses as well.
"And it was a pleasure meeting you too, Isaur." he said.
“Snommm!” Powdered Sugar said gleefully.
Clovis walked off without another word, shoving his hands in his pockets as he went. Odette waited a second before turning around to watch him go, and boy…she wished she had a photographic memory.
“Your face is a little red, are you getting a fever?”
She flinched, and turned to see Dorien leaning his head far too close to her shoulder. She had half a mind to scream in his face. Instead, she sucked her teeth, and brought the lit cigarette to her lips, where she chomped down on the tip of it.
“Hm. Must just be the smoke,” she muttered, forcing herself to ignore the urge to sidestep away. She heard Isaur grumble to herself unintelligibly.
“I was going to introduce you guys at dinner, but I guess this works too,” Dorien laughed. “He gave you one of his cigs, that definitely means you made a good impression.”
She hated to admit it, but she whipped her head toward him eagerly. “You can tell?”
“Sure, yeah,” Dorien said. “We’re best friends, I know him very well.”
She couldn’t help but raise a brow. “You’re best friends?”
Dorien cleared his throat as he curled his arm around her waist. “Oh, yes. Super close,” he said. "We rib each other but it's all in good fun."
The doubt she felt was astronomical.
“If there’s anybody you want to be friendly with, it’s Clovis LeClair. He might be one of the richest people in the building tonight. Worth billions,” Dorien added.
Of fucking course he is, she thought.
“He’s richer than you? I love to hear it,” she said, allowing just the slightest bit of edge to peek out.
“The LeClairs are involved in multiple different business ventures around the world, so of course that’s more lucrative than dealing in the shiny trade of one region.” He said it like he'd had that line rehearsed. Was that something he talked about frequently?
And more humane, she thought. She wanted to say it out loud. Instead, she just nodded along.
"But enough about me," Dorien continued. He stepped in front of her, moving his hands to her hips while he eyed her hungrily. She could just barely hear a growl rise up out of Isaur, and she had half a mind to growl herself. His hands on her hips felt slimy.
She felt slimy for letting them stay there.
"That dress looks absolutely scrumptious on you. Did you wear that for me?" he asked, clutching onto the fabric while his lips formed a lustful smile. Odette suddenly wanted to put out the lit cigarette on his eye.
"How'd you know?" she said in a drawl, turning her head to finally look up at him. She stuck the cancer stick back between her lips and took another drag, maintaining her half-lidded eye contact as she did. That appeared to send him into a frenzy, because he inhaled sharply as he placed his forehead against hers. She could smell the mint on his breath, and whatever expensive cologne he'd dabbed behind his ears, and it caused some bile to rise in her throat. Isaur moved at her feet, and she extended her leg ever-so-slightly to bar the Froslass from doing anything rash.
"You're playing a dangerous game, looking at me like that," Dorien said in a sultry purr. "Especially wearing that, my god. I'm almost jealous everybody gets to see you in it. But I love showing you off."
"Mm," she responded, pressing her lips together tightly as she spun the cigarette in her fingers. It'd be so easy to just put it out on his face. His cheek was right fucking there.
"Good to know you like it that much. I'll keep that in mind." And by that, she meant she was going to have Ange burn this dress when she got home. She'd buy her mom a new one someday to make up for it.
Dorien pulled his head back, thankfully, and began to eye her again. He pursed his lips in a quizzical fashion prior to talking. "Normally I don't like that color, actually. But on you? Mama mia." He paused to think for a second, then offered a playful grin. "That's a musical right? See, I know a thing or two about Broadway!"
Gods, she wanted to stab him.
"I'm so proud of you," she said. She had more to say, but somebody cleared their throat, and they sounded very close. She looked over her shoulder to see Noel, standing with Talonflame on his gloved arm. The bird was holding a glass of water in his beak, and Odette locked eyes with him. Talonflame nodded once, as if gesturing to the glass.
“Man, Dee, smoking? I’m disappointed in you," Noel chastised, shaking his head.
“Oh, Noel!” Dorien gasped, loosening his hold on Odette. “Odie didn’t tell me you and your Pokemon were coming too.”
“Mm, she likes to keep important things like that to herself, I guess,” Noel said suavely. He was playing it cool, but Odette could hear the very distinct sarcastic undertone in his voice. It was the same one he got when he discreetly mouthed off to the teachers back in high school.
Odette took the opportunity to wriggle out of Dorien's arms, desperate to get her hands on that water. She approached Noel, and Talonflame extended his neck out to give her the glass.
"Thank you," she mouthed as she began to sip it. She didn't realize just how much anger she was withholding until the water was going down her throat and replenishing the energy she'd lost to playing a bimbo and keeping herself from throwing a table through one of the windows.
Noel stepped around her and held his free hand out to Dorien, who took it without hesitation.
“How have you been? Haven't seen you since graduation,” Dorien said. “I hear you’re doing some great things down at the performing arts center.”
Noel chuckled bashfully. Well, fake bashfully. That certainly wasn’t his real shy laugh. “Naturally, just living my own dream,” he said whimsically as Talonflame fluttered his wings. Odette, now feeling more awake, was taken aback when she watched her friend’s bright smile turn lustful.
“But let's be real here,” he said in a borderline whisper. “I could be doing great things to you if you’d give me the chance, Bonhomme.”
Without warning, Noel brought Dorien’s hand to his lips and placed a long, firm kiss on it. He didn’t stop until Dorien jerked his hand back.
Odette’s absolute disgust turned to unbridled humor when she saw sweat starting to form on Dorien’s brow. He was doing a horrible job in masking his uncomfortableness with the situation, what with the way he gritted his teeth through his forced smile, and rubbed at his hand like he’d just been bitten by a Parasect.
Isaur began to snicker, and Odette nudged her roughly to shut her up. She sipped the rest of the water to keep herself from laughing too.
“Oh…no, listen,” Dorien stammered. “I don’t really go that way. I’m not into that. Please.”
Noel blinked a few times, then cocked his head to the side innocently; questioningly. He then exchanged looks with Talonflame, who looked equally as confused. “Really? I’m sorry, you just totally seemed like the type.”
Dorien’s expression fell. He dropped his hands to his sides, before tucking them behind his back. He inhaled deeply, as if trying to compose himself.
“No. If you’ll excuse me, I think my dad’s business partner is calling me.”
Without warning, he sidestepped back around Noel and looped his arm back around Odette's waist, pulling her into his chest. He leaned in and planted a deep, heavy kiss on her lips. The absolute abruptness of the gesture instinctively caused Odette suck in her lips, and she positioned herself to bash him over the head with her water glass.
Stage kiss, stage kiss, stage kiss, you're acting. This is fake.
She exhaled sharply, allowing herself to numbly fall into the kiss. She stalled all conscious thought while she coaxed the tenseness from her body, trying to mimic coming down from the surprise. When her body felt heavy again, she rested the hand still holding the cigarette on Dorien's shoulder. He finally pulled away after what seemed like an hour, now wearing a triumphant smile over his lipstick-stained lips.
"I'll come back and get you in a bit, doll," he said, thumbing the corner of his mouth. He released her, and shot a glare over his shoulder at Noel, before storming off and leaving Odette standing there, frozen.
She kept her eyes locked on the floor, blinking every so often. She could feel the cigarette in her fingers, and the cold glass against her palm. Her lips were still sizzing where Dorien had left his mark. She could feel Isaur patting her on the cheek. Slowly, but surely, she was restarting herself.
"Blink twice if you need a breath mint. Blink once if you're going to throw up," Noel urged, placing a hand on her shoulder.
She took a long time to register what he was saying. She felt dizzy, but her stomach had settled enough to where she was sure she wasn't going to vomit.
She gave Noel two long, hard blinks.
Noel nodded, then jolted his gloved arm, prompting Talonflame to hover over to the ashtray. Noel then reached into his jacket pocket, and withdrew a pack of Altoids. He flicked the pack open and handed it to her.
That was enough to pull her the rest of the way out of her haze. She dropped the cigarette, and lunged for the metal box. She snatched up four of the white tablets and threw them into her mouth without thinking twice about it. Her body deflated again, and she hung her head in a mixture of exhaustion and onslaught shame.
"Damn, he really thinks you're dating," Noel scoffed, leaning down to pick the cigarette up.
"What gave it away?" Odette huffed, raising her head again to down the water in its entirety.
"The face sucking was a pretty solid tell. Are you okay?"
With a couple timed breaths, it was at least safe to say that she wasn't going to explode. She'd been close. She was damn near ready to crack his skull open. But no. She got it; she was in control.
The kiss was fake. She was acting. She could control herself. She was in control.
She could have stopped that if she wanted to, and she knew that. She knew that...
“Do you really think he's gay?” she asked, ignoring the question, and hoping to focus on something different.
Noel scoffed. “No. I just know that the best way to get under any heterosexual misogynists' skin is to question their straightness.”
“Talooooon,” Talonflame agreed.
Odette nodded slowly, taking time to realize she found the remark funny. She snickered once, turning her head to exchange a look with Isaur, who was staring at her with lowered brows.
“You’re diabolical,” Odette said back to Noel. She straightened her posture and began to rub her temple. "You couldn’t have picked a better time to show up. Where did your fans take you?”
Noel offered a half smile as he reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a handful of folded napkins and business cards. At least he wasn't pressing any more on what had just happened.
There had to be about four slips of paper in his hand, and Odette wasn’t quite sure what she was looking at until she snatched a card and looked at it. It was indeed a standard business card, but on the back was a handwritten number, and a note.
555-8910, personal phone
Call me ♡
She raised a brow at him. “What the hell is wrong with you? What happened to getting juicy information?”
“I can mine for info and window shop at the same time,” Noel said. “You wouldn’t believe how many of these trust fund boomers will pay out the ass to enjoy themselves thoroughly, you know?”
"Tal!" Talonflame said.
“I didn’t know you were trying to be a sugar baby now.”
Noel snatched the card away from her. “That college tuition debt isn’t going to pay itself.” He pointed to the card. “This guy? Owns the Battle Maison in Kiloude. He’s fucking rolling in it.”
Odette blinked a few times to mask her puzzlement. “Noel, isn’t he like fifty? And married?”
All she got in response to that was a wink. She knew it wouldn’t be worth getting into it with him; nothing would stop him from his flings. She supposed she had no room to get on his ass, anyway, considering she’d just spent a solid several minutes trying to talk to a guy who was leaps and bounds outside her socioeconomic standing, and then kissed the guy she wanted to strangle.
I was in control. Could have stopped if I wanted.
Shaking off that thought, she started to wonder how Noel made it seem so easy. They’d barely been separated for 20 minutes, and he had managed to get his hands on the feelings of not one, but possibly four men. As questionable of a talent as it might have been, she couldn’t help but be impressed by it. And for once, envious. She’d have loved to have walked away from that conversation with Clovis with his contact in her hand, but she was just royally incapable of imposing such a request on him.
Noel wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and began to lead her out of the smoking area, but not before leaning down and picking up the cigarette she had dropped. He tossed it onto the ashtray Talonflame was sitting on.
“Look at it like this. Sex is the best way to get somebody talking. I'm sure letting Dorien mack on you is doing wonders."
"I'm whittling away at him, for sure," she said confidently. Though, whether she was assuring Noel or herself was hard to tell.
"Also, since when the fuck do you smoke? I know you’re taking a break from using your chops, but jeez.”
She shook her head. “Somebody offered, and I couldn’t say no.”
***
Dinner time rolled around rather quickly. Odette and Noel had spent so much time scrounging around, trying their best to mingle in with the crowd, that they’d barely noticed people moving to sit at the formally set tables until Dorien came and found them. He’d evidently recovered from his moment of awkwardness, because he acted as if nothing happened as he directed them to his own table, which was already seated with humans, but no Pokemon.
Odette quickly noticed that a good majority of the guests had returned their Pokemon to their balls as they went to sit. It wasn’t enough for her to warrant doing that with Isaur, especially with Dorien being as handsy as he was, but it struck her as peculiar. Most of the patrons at that fancy restaurant had their 'mons out, so why not here?
“Everyone,” Dorien said when they approached. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “This is my date, Odette, and her Froslass, and my old schoolmate Noel and his Talonflame! They’ll be sitting with us tonight, so please be nice.”
Odette gritted her teeth, and resisted the urge to twist his arm off of her. However, he let her go, just in time for his friends to stand and greet them. The men were quite overzealous with their cheek kisses, and the women wasted no time in fawning over Noel. Though, of course, they still had a couple greetings for her.
“My goodness, your lip fillers look fantastic,” one woman said. “Where do you get them done? My last plastic surgeon retired, so I’m in the market for a new one.”
Odette stared at her for a long while, trying to gauge if she was joking or not. “Uh,” she stammered, blinking rapidly as she tried to come up with an answer that would make sense. "Baby-Doll Eyes Cosmetic Surgery Center in Brackish Town. My Nana knows a guy," she said. And that wasn't a lie. Marieanne went there for yearly Botox appointments, and always ranted and raved about it.
The woman beamed. "Good to know. Thank you so much!"
Odette managed a grin and a nod, and decided that was the sign that she should sit down too. If that interaction was any hint as to how the rest of the night’s conversations was going to go, she felt like she needed to brace for it.
There were six empty chairs left, all side-by-side. She sat down in one, with Noel to her right, and Talonflame next to him. Dorien attempted to grab the empty chair on her other side, but Isaur slipped into it as he pulled it out. Odette swallowed down her relieved sigh by grabbing the set glass of water near her plate and taking a long gulp from it.
“Frosslasssss,” she taunted.
Dorien stared at her for a long moment, before shrugging and moving to the empty chair next to Talonflame. “Fine, fine. Who am I to separate Pokemon and trainer?” he huffed.
“Good on you, Isaur,” Noel said quietly, covering his mouth to hide his amusement.
“Oh shucks, table’s already filling up.”
The sound of Clovis’s voice caused Odette to cough on her sip, and she forced what was already in her mouth down, before turning to see him approaching, Snom still on his shoulder. A greeting made it to the tip of her tongue, but she needn’t have bothered. Everyone else was up greeting him before he’d even made it all the way over. They were polite to her and Noel, but they appeared to be extra nice to Clovis, with the way they showered him with joyous hugs and firm handshakes and cheek kisses.
“There’s always room for you, Clovis!” one of them said.
“You’re far too kind,” Clovis eplied. “I couldn’t offset you all like that, though.”
“Snom!” Powdered Sugar said.
“Nonsense!” Dorien called eagerly. He gestured to the last empty chair next to him. “Plenty of room to sit next to me.”
“Fross! Fross!” Isaur said suddenly. She moved to sit on Odette’s backrest, then gestured to the now-empty seat. Odette watched in silent embarrassment as Clovis smiled broadly and stepped over.
“Fancy seeing you here, Isaur. But I couldn’t possibly take your seat,” he said.
Isaur shook her head. “Frosssss!” she insisted.
Clovis snickered, then shot a look at Dorien. He shrugged. “This chair’s closer. Maybe next time?”
“Come now, you’d rather sit next to somebody you just met?” Dorien said. Odette was sure he was trying to be taunting, but it somehow sounded more like a warning. Regardless of what it actually was, Clovis didn’t appear to care.
“Don’t be jealous that she’s the new hotness and you’re the old busted,” he said pointedly.
The table erupted into light snickering, and with that, he sat. Odette eyed him, then cut her eyes to Isaur just in time to watch her land into the empty chair next to an unamused looking Dorien. She looked positively proud of herself, and Odette wasn’t sure if she was thankful or mortified. Isaur playing wingwoman for her was uncharted territory.
“I hope you don’t mind me displacing your Pokemon,” Clovis said abashedly over the laughs.
“No, no. I think she was glad to move.”
She heard Noel clear his throat, effectively earning both hers and Clovis’s attention. Noel reached his hand over to the newcomer, flashing his teeth.
“Hi, I don’t think we met. I’m Noel,” he said quickly. Clovis was ever-gracious, and shook his hand happily.
“Pleasure to meet you.”
“You know Odette, huh?” Noel asked.
Clovis nodded. “Sure, we engaged in a smoke break just a little bit ago.”
Noel cocked his head to the side. “No kidding! She’s not really much of a smoker.”
“Well, she did pick it up pretty fast.”
“Yep,” Odette said quickly. “Like I told him, I’m a fast learner.”
“And couldn’t say no?” Noel queried under his breath. Odette kicked him under the table, and he winced. But, it got him to stop talking. All he offered in response was a wry grin as he slumped back in his seat.
Next thing Odette knew, everybody was chattering amongst themselves. Now that the greetings and formalities were out of the way, there was nothing else left to do but talk some more until the food was brought out. Noel didn’t seem to have any trouble entering into conversation, but Odette found herself alone with her short-circuiting brain, unsure of what to do. Actually, that was a lie. She knew what she wanted to do, but she just wasn’t sure how.
“So, what else are you quick at learning?” Clovis spoke.
Well, that just saved her from having to strike up the conversation first. She nearly fell out of her chair when she met his blue eyes again.
“Pardon?” she said.
“Magical type specialist, singer, good at reading...are those the only two things you have under your belt, or are you more in-depth than that?” he pressed.
She opened her mouth to speak, but found it difficult to form the words. What was there to her? She hadn’t been asked to “talk about herself” since the icebreaker the Purrloins! cast did on the first day of rehearsals. “I...dance?” she said. “Danced,” she corrected after a beat.
He straightened his posture. His eyes lit up in a way that showed her he was now extremely invested in the subject at hand. “Let me guess, ballroom? No, wait,” he said before squinting. “Ballet. You have the face of a ballet dancer.”
She didn’t mean to roll her eyes as hard as she did, but it just happened that way. “Just not the height or figure,” she said.
“Short girls pas de deux the best,” he chuckled.
She wasn’t sure when the hell she swallowed a Cutiefly, but the one in her stomach was flying in violent circles.
“I was more into hip hop, actually. Afro dance is my favorite.”
Clovis scrunched his brows, and that little smirk of his became agog. The fact that she was managing to hold his interest like this was becoming thrilling. “Very interesting. I never ventured much past private ballet lessons.”
“Absolutely lame,” she scoffed, picking up her glass of water again. “You don’t know how to dance until you can throw the stiff rules out the window and just move.”
Clovis looked like he had some sort of quick remark, but he was interrupted by a shrill beeping that seemed to be coming out of his suit. His calm and collected demeanor quickly morphed into something more rigged and aggravated, and he sighed heavily. He reached into the same pocket where he’d kept the carton of cigarettes and pulled out a cell phone--the newest Applin brand phone, no fucking less--which was blinking with an incoming call. He didn’t try to conceal it, so Odette got a perfect view of the caller ID before he pressed the ignore button.
Jocelyn (DO NOT ANSWER)
Odette averted her eyes away as he set the phone face down on the table. She drank some more, just to mask the curiosity that so desperately wanted to show. It wasn’t any of her business, but she definitely had some questions.
Clovis began rubbing his face, as if warding off whatever aggravation had just overcome him. He sighed again, before turning to face her. “Sorry, where were we?”
“I was calling you lame.”
That smirk returned with frightful ease. If she hadn’t just witnessed his slip into annoyance firsthand, she’d have never known it happened at all. “Right, because you think--”
The phone rang again, and just like that, he was aggravated once more. He picked it up, only to be met with the same caller ID. He muttered a stream of curse words under his breath, then began to look around almost frantically.
“Okay, you know what--” he said. Odette watched as his eyes landed on the beautiful table centerpiece. It was a fantastic arrangement of real burgundy dahlias and scabiosas, put together in a tall crystalline vase. Clovis stood, pushed aside the flowers, and dropped the phone into the water. It landed with a subtle splash, earning the attention of everyone at the table.
Clovis adjusted his coat, then sat back down. He pointed to Powdered Sugar. “Remind me that’s there before we leave. Or don’t.”
“Snom."
“Wow, Clovis, do you know what the power button is?” Dorien asked.
“I sure do, but I like this arrangement better,” Clovis replied.
“Did one of your many suitors get ahold of your number?” Dorien said, wiggling his eyebrows for dramatic effect.
Odette’s eyes widened in spite of herself. Suitors? She should have expected that much—surely she wasn’t the only girl in the room eyeing him. He was the whole package; gorgeous, seemingly with a personality of substance. The money was just a damn plus.
When she actually cleared her head, she finally registered the biting tone in Dorien’s words. A tone she’d expect from a jealous party; one trying to get under somebody else’s skin. She shot him a questioning look. He locked eyes with her, then blew her a kiss.
Dickhead, she thought, sending back an obliged smile. His contact name in her phone proved truer and truer every time they interacted.
Clovis abruptly paused. His eyebrow twitched as he raised his gaze. “You say that…like I have girls lining up at my door?”
The clear confusion in his tone was enough to calm her nerves.
Dorien shrugged. “Do you not? I’d figure that much from a man of your wealth.”
“Try figuring other things instead, okay? I know it's hard, but I believe in you.”
Dorien sighed deeply. “Well, if you’re that desperate to get rid of your phone, why not get a little training off on that Snom and have him freeze it?” Dorien said.
“I think I’d be better off having him freeze your lips shut instead,” Clovis snapped, not missing a beat.
“Oooooom!”
"Easy boys! No ribbing at the table!" somebody chortled.
"Oh, do you think we'll have ribs tonight?" somebody else asked. Another round of conversations began, and Clovis turned his attention back on her.
"Sorry. He really likes to make a comment on everything," he said. Odette had no issue picking up on the aggravation on his voice that he was undoubtedly trying to hide.
"Well, if it's such a problem, why bother hanging around?" she asked. She cringed a little upon asking, because surely that would sound suspicious coming from Dorien's date.
Clovis bobbed his head from side-to-side, pursing his lips pensively. It was a long beat before he spoke again. "Well. It's as simple as keeping relationships with powerful families."
She was relieved to see he wasn't too caught up on that comment. In fact, she watched as he averted his eyes over his shoulder, then leaned in closer to her. "And picking up on all their secrets," he whispered.
Odette rested her head on her cheek. She didn’t need to act like she was interested, because she genuinely wanted to hear where this was going. The hot billionaire with all the dirt? Jackpot wasn’t a strong enough word.
“Do tell the newcomer.”
She half-expected him to blow her off, despite the fact that he had brought it up, but he looked to be hunting for an answer. “Hm, well,” he started. "Since you're fraternizing with a Bonhomme, you should be somewhat in the know."
She didn't like the way he said that, but that was the least of her concerns at the moment.
Clovis began to scan the room, and Odette instinctively followed his gaze in anticipation. She watched him discreetly point at a woman sitting at a table right next to them.
“Lydia Auclair. She runs a successful vegan bakery company, but somehow neglects to tell her customers that she makes her frosting with Dewgong milk. Humanely sourced from the Pokemon-Trainer Work Program, of course, but I doubt the vegans she sells to would care enough about that,” he said. He paused again, hunting down another victim. He wheezed to himself as he pointed all the way across the dance floor toward a buff looking man, sitting with a woman on each side.
“Enzo Barbeau. Spends all of his money on high end hookers, all while his finance company is on the verge of bankruptcy.”
His finger traveled to another man. An older one, sitting next to a lady who was obviously his wife. However, neither one of them looked thrilled to be in such close proximity to one another.
“And Burke Agard,” he said. Owns the Battle Maison in Kiloude. Absolutely gay, and his wife Camille knows he has a number of boy toys on the side to suit that need. She just doesn’t want to deal with losing money in the inevitable divorce, so she pretends she doesn’t know.”
Odette stifled a laugh into her hand, thinking back to Noel’s stash of phone numbers. “You know what,” she said. “Somehow, I think I knew that one.”
Clovis opened his mouth to speak again, but was cut off by the sound of a mic being tapped. It echoed through the room, effectively silencing everybody and alerting them to a woman clad in a beige tea-length gown, standing in the center of the dance floor.
“Good evening everybody!” she said. “We hope you’re enjoying the festivities and your dinner!”
There was some light applause and cheering, and the woman waited for it to die down before going on.
“But now, it is time to commence tonight’s slated exhibition battle. We have, of course, selected two contestants from tonight’s guest list to take part with their brand new Pokemon,” she explained. More, louder cheers were earned from that.
“So please, give a warm welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Patenaude!”
A well dressed man and woman, presumably the called-upon Patenaudes, stood from their table at the opposite end of the dance floor. Mrs. Patenaude wore a floor length satin orange gown. It was tight fitting, really accentuating her features...save for the fact it was an atrocious color.
“Orange really only looks good on a Charmander, doesn’t it?” Odette heard Clovis mumble. She started to wonder if he was reading her mind. She sure hoped not, as that would be a level of embarrassment she’d never be able to overcome.
She focused in on Mr. Patenaude, noticing how he wore a bow that matched the woman’s dress. They locked arms with each other as they sauntered to the middle of the floor, and the applause soon subsided. The couple smiled broadly, clearly looking forward to the battle they were about to engage in. She had to wonder if they did this often...actually, she had to wonder if married couples really battled each other often in general? Was that a thing that couples did to show affection? She couldn’t really recall any times she’d seen her grandparents battle, but then again, neither of them were really battle oriented trainers…
She was truly clueless. How could she be sitting here, rolling in an elementary school grade crush, and not even know the basics of what romantic relationships require?
Odette was removed from her intrusive thoughts by the emcee speaking again. She gestured happily to the couple as she regarded the crowd.
“As I said, this will be an exhibition match between our previously selected contestants. We ask that all guests, Pokemon and humans alike, remain seated at their tables until the battle comes to a close. No interference should be necessary,” she explained. “We also ask that you please enjoy the show! This shall be a fantastic treat for all of us.”
More applause sounded. Odette exchanged dubious looks with Noel as she quietly put her hands together.
“Mr. and Mrs. Patenaude, you may take your positions. I will call the start of the match,” the emcee said. The couple gazed at each other lovingly, before exchanging a small kiss. They then walked to the opposite ends of the floor. As they moved, walls of light shot up from the perimeter of it, stretching the length to the ceiling before fading away.
“I guess they use this as an arena a lot,” Noel said. “My poor ass can’t keep up.”
Odette chuckled to herself as she watched the opponents withdraw their respective Pokeballs, each one of them grinning with anticipation. Mrs. Patenaude took it upon herself to stick her leg out from the slit in her dress skirt, and she bounced on the heel of her Jimmy Chinchou shoe. Mr. Patenaude adjusted his coat as he stared at his wife, looking...flirty. Odette started to wonder if maybe this was some sort of foreplay for them. Like a kink. Could battling be a kink? That somehow sounded gross, especially with so many people watching. Then again, voyeurism was also a kink.
She felt more of her brain cells starting to die off. She’d never thought so hard about the ins-and-outs of romance and sex in her entire twenty-two years of existing, but leave it to one head of luscious silver hair to change that.
The couple’s collective anticipation seemed to expand and take hold of the entire room. It was amazing how fast everyone fell silent, waiting with bated breath for the battle to commence. Odette had never witnessed such an atmosphere surrounding a mere exhibition battle.. For all she knew, it was staged down to the movement. Still, hopefully it’d be enough to take her mind out of the gutter for the time being.
The emcee raised her hand. “Trainers ready!” she called. She then paused, seemingly for dramatic effect. “Begin!”
Their Pokemon were out in the field before the emcee had jogged to safety. Mrs. Patenaude sent forth a bright green Scizor, while her husband used a dark green Malamar. Odette supposed she should have expected them to be shiny, but she still felt surprised seeing them. Being in the presence of so many shiny Pokemon still felt so bizarre.
“Sciiiii,” the Scizor drawled.
“Mal,” the Malamar said in a low voice.
All of Odette’s surprise faded out, and was replaced with intense concern.
Both of those Pokemon...they looked so tired. More tired-looking than any other Pokemon she'd seen tonight.
Malamar were known to squint a lot, but Mr. Patenaude’s Malamar was blinking like it was running on thirty minutes of sleep. Meanwhile, the Scizor looked as if it was going to topple over at any moment. It wobbled as its feet hit the ground.
With narrowed eyes, she shot another look back at Noel. He was wearing an intense frown, and his arms were crossed over his chest.
"What the fuck?" she mouthed.
"I don't know," Noel responded.
There wasn’t much else to say, so she forced herself to look back at the battle. Did they both just...forget to heal their Pokemon before coming into this? Were they both just stupid?
“Scizor, use Agility!” Mrs. Patenaude cheered.
“Malamar, Brutal Swing!” Mr. Patenaude declared.
Scizor put its pincers together, concentrating. As it did that, Malamar sprang forward. Well, sprang was a strong word. It looked more like a slow, discombobulated trot. A faint glow took hold of its tendrils, as it reared back to swing at the Scizor.
“Maaaaaaal,” it squeaked.
“Sciiii.”
Malamar swung, and Scizor tried to use its newfound speed to get out of the way. However, it lost its footing and fell over. Malamar missed entirely, and the weight of its swing also caused it to fall over. Neither one made any moves to get up after that.
Was...was that it?
Odette knit her brows, waiting for the emcee to call it. Several seconds passed, and nothing. Were they waiting to see if they would get back up? Odette began to feel her anger creeping up again, because this was just fucking cruel. Is this really what the wealthy liked to do? Send exhausted, barely healed Pokemon out into battle to watch them flail around and struggle? What kind of sick--
“Oh darn! They’re still a little tired,” Mrs. Patenaude said sheepishly.
“Well, then let's just cut to the chase, shall we?” Mr. Patenaude responded.
They withdrew their tired Pokemon with such synchronicity, it was a little unnerving. Mr. Patenaude then withdrew another ball from his coat pocket. Squinting through her glasses, Odette could not make out what kind of ball it was. It was pitch black, but the button on it was a bright red. It blinked, as if beckoning to be pressed. Mrs. Patenaude revealed her other leg, where the same kind of ball was strapped to her thigh. She grabbed it, and held it up.
“We shall!” she shouted.
Mrs. Patenaude pressed the blinking button on her ball, and it opened with a puff of thick black smoke. As the questionable gas seeped from the ball, she brought her thumb to her mouth and bit down on it, hard enough to draw blood.
“I lend you my blood, Hiruition!” she said. As she spoke, something shot from the ball. It moved to the middle of the playing field, as a beam of red formed around the incision she’d made on her thumb. It met the apparition, causing it to explode into a corporeal form.
It was as large as a Gyarados, if not bigger, and had a similar body type...no, maybe it looked more like a Dragonair? It slithered through the air like one, but it was too fat to be a Dragonair, or Gyarados...besides, neither one of those Pokemon had a proboscis like this one did. This thing looked more like a leech than anything else. It had a set of dark eyes that Odette could barely make out against it’s dark purple skin. Its tail end faded off into smoke, in the same way the outer edges of a Gastly did.
Odette’s hand began to cramp from how hard she was grasping the table cloth. She felt something grab her thigh, and turned to see Noel’s eyes about to bug out of his head. She couldn’t look at him for too long, because she had entirely fixated on trying to figure out just what the fuck this thing was. She’d studied up on her Pokemon species, she was sure she knew a lot of them, and she was even more sure she’d have studied something about a giant leech Pokemon. A giant leech Pokemon that apparently...had something to do with trainers' blood?
She was so caught up in her confusion that she barely registered the thunderous cheering that had erupted around her. Everyone at her table...hell, everyone at every table seemed to be up on their feet, cheering for this...thing.
Out of morbid curiosity, she looked over at Clovis. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or even more confused to find that he had not moved. The joking smirk he’d had on while they were bantering over their water was replaced by a blatantly unamused frown.
“Odette, what the hell is that?” Noel said, causing Odette to turn her attention toward him. He had to lean over and speak directly into her ear, just to talk clearly over the cheers.
“Talonflay?” Talonflame said.
“I--” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t even--”
She couldn’t form the words before Mr. Patenaude opened his own ball. In a similar show of nicking his thumb and opening the ball, another Pokemon took form. A grotesque fish. Or at least, it seemed like a fish. It had fins, it had beady fish eyes, but it also had a mouth full of horrifically sharp teeth, and it was far bigger than a fish needed to be. Maybe slightly smaller than a Copperajah. Slightly.
A black goopy substance dripped from between its teeth, and it reeked of rotting meat. That somehow wasn’t even the most strikingly odd part of it, though. What stood out the most was the single antennae hanging from its head. It dangled in front of its face, and it ended in a bright red bulb. The bulb emitted an orb of light that surrounded the Pokemon entirely.
“Lophious, we fight!” Mr. Patenaude hollered through the cheers. “Scald!”
The red glow around Lophious intensified, and the goo in its mouth began to illuminate as well. It brightened, until it began to smoke up. That rotting stench filled the room, causing everyone to cover their noses. It then spat the goo at the other Pokemon, causing it to cry out in a way that Odette had never heard a Pokemon scream before.
It was unnatural. She’d even go as far as to call it demonic.
“Don’t take that, Hiruition! Bite down hard!” Mrs. Patenaude hollered.
The leech regained itself from the attack, and wasted no time in flying forward. It moved with such frightening speed and accuracy, Odette felt nervous just sitting there on the sidelines. Its proboscis opened, revealing a rounded pattern of teeth, which sunk into the middle of the fish Pokemon’s head. It screamed and thrashed with a level of aggression that would normally cause a battle to be officially halted, but the emcee didn’t call anything. It just went on, like it was supposed to be normal.
At some point, the Pokemon were just allowed to go at it. Biting, hitting, strangling each other. The couple would call out moves every now and then that Odette recognized, but it seemed like they were mostly just set on letting these two things rip each other apart. She was barely paying attention at that point, because she was still racking her brain for an explanation.
Hiruition...Lophious, she repeated in her head over and over again, hoping it would somehow uncover any bit of knowledge she might have buried over the years. When nothing came up, she just grew more frustrated. It didn’t help that the cacophony of roars from both these giant Pokemon and the onlookers not to mention the terrible stench of sulfur, were doing a fantastic job in further clouding her judgement.
Though, she wasn’t sure what actual judgement there was to cloud. She’d never seen, nor heard of any of these Pokemon in her life.
She numbly watched these two alien things exchange hit after hit. Normally, she ate battles up, looking for things to nitpick, praise, perhaps compare to her own tactics. But, she could do none of that here. She could only watch in wide eyed shock.
“Hydro Pump!” Mr. Patenaude demanded. Lophious geared up, before spitting a beam of high pressure water at Hiruition.
“Evade it, then tackle!” Mrs. Patenaude said. Hiruition effortlessly looped around the beam, before whipping its tail at Lophious, sending it flying toward the ground. When Lophious failed to get back up, and the red light faded from around it, the crowd’s cheers intensified.
“Lophious is down and unable to fight!” The emcee bellowed over her microphone. “The winner is Mrs. Patenaude and her Hiruition!”
Mrs. Patenaude basked in her victory, as she and her husband withdrew their Pokemon. They met again in the middle of the battlefield, and embraced, all smiles and laughing. Like this was a normal thing for them. They locked hands and waved to the onlookers, before striding back to their table.
“And that concludes tonight's exhibition. We so hope you had a wonderful time. Please, enjoy the rest of your dinner, and try not to mind the smell too much!” The emcee said. A final round of cheers carried through the room, before slowly but surely dying back down as waiters fanned out around the room, carrying trays upon trays of the entrees. Meanwhile, some Pidgeots flew down from doors in the ceiling, and began to fan the battle fumes out the windows, which opened automatically for them.
Even as her spread of rich looking lobster tail and vegetables was set in front of her, Odette couldn’t bring herself to attempt to eat. She’d entirely lost her appetite. There was nothing in her brain that could help her make sense of what she just saw, so she zoned in on the conversation happening around her.
“A Hiruition? How lucky!”
“Do you think if they tried hard enough they could produce another? I bet the Malamar could hold it.”
“So strong, I hope to coax one out of my own.”
What the fuck were they talking about?
She was clearly an odd one out here; they were all talking like they’d practically expected this to happen. Her gaze traveled to Dorien, where he was engaged in seemingly deep thought with the person sitting next to him. She could barely hear him, so she looked back to Clovis, who was staring down at his watch now.
“Clovis, what--” she started to ask.
“An abomination, that’s what,” he grumbled, almost too low for her to hear too. Nonetheless, Odette could pick up the raw anger that coated the words. She didn’t notice Noel was listening in until he leaned over her to get closer.
“What do you mean?” he asked, almost too frantically. “What are they talking about?”
Clovis exhaled a hard breath, and threw his napkin on the table. He stood up and pushed his chair in, before leaning down toward them. He got so close, Odette thought their noses would touch, and she jerked backward out of habit. He spoke quietly, as if he were trying to make doubly sure she was the only one who could hear him. The look in his eyes was deadly serious, and it made her blood run cold.
“A word of advice: walk out of here while you still can. What you just saw was a disgusting show of greed that you’d be better not getting involved in. ”
With that, his expression smoothed. A beaming grin curved over his lips; a convincing one that caused his now-shining eyes to crinkle up ever so slightly. A stark contrast from that dead, hard stare that was on her not even seconds before. It was a little unnerving just how good he was at switching himself off and on like that, but Odette's brain was too busy reeling to really dwell on it.
Clovis cleared his throat, alerting everyone's attentions. “Well, friends, it was fantastic fraternizing with you all, but I have an early meeting tomorrow, and it’s already—“
He reached into his coat pocket, then frowned as his eyes fell to the phone, still submerged in the vase.
"Om? Om," Powdered Sugar said.
"I see that,” he huffed. He then leaned over and started trying to dig the device out.
“Aw, come on! Leaving so soon?” Dorien whined.
“Duty calls, and you smell bad,” Clovis replied as he managed to free the phone from its aquatic trap. He shook it off, his face crinkling in annoyance as he did, before shoving back into its apparent main home in his pocket.
"Ha, ha, so funny," Dorien said flatly.
Ignoring him, Clovis offered another bright grin, then waved. “Good evening, all.”
“Snom!” Powdered Sugar said in unison.
He then turned and made way for the exit. Odette watched him go, numbly taking note of the moderately rushed skip in his step.
She blinked rapidly, trying to tame her buzzing brain. She then exchanged looks with Noel. His mouth was also slightly agape, as what usually happened when he found himself at a loss for words.
What the fuck?
Her eyes traveled to Noel’s dinner, and she noticed he hadn’t touched his food either. Looking down the table, Isaur and Talonflame’s meals also remained untouched. It was good to see they were all on the same page here.
“Disgusting show of greed that we’re better off not getting involved with,” she repeated in a whisper.
“How do—“ Noel slowly started to speak, but he cut himself off, and turned his head away. No sooner had that happened, Odette felt a presence sink itself into the spot where Clovis had been sitting, and turned to see Dorien’s gross grinning face.
“So, what’d you think?” he asked.
“I'm...impressed?" She didn't mean for it to come out as a question, and she silently cursed herself for it.
He chuckled, then put his arm around her shoulders and leaned into her. “Have you ever seen Pokemon like that before?”
Part of her wanted to say yes just to get around the evident condescending explanation that was about to come her way. But, she couldn’t do that. Maybe Dorien would prove to be useful and give her something she could dwell on, instead of an eerie warning.
“No,” she said sweetly. “What were they? They were kinda scary looking.”
Another chuckle as he placed some pecks on her cheek. "Not to worry, gorgeous. I'd have protected you if they got too close."
Coming from somebody who can't beat an ice type with a steel type, I highly doubt that, she wanted to say.
He began to thumb her cheek in the same spot he'd just kissed, his eyes flicking from hers to her lips. She wanted so desperately to push him away. She could if she wanted to, but not if she wanted answers.
Control. You have it.
“I can’t really get into specifics right now, because you’re new here,” he said. “But you should just know that there’s more where that came from.”
This caused her eyes widened a smidge. “There’s more of those things?”
“Like I said, no specifics. Just trust that I can get my hands on some very powerful ‘mons for you. That is, if you stick around and see how it all works,” he explained. “Plus, I can always put in a good word for my date.”
"You would do that for me?" She fluttered her eyelashes for good measure. She needed to sell the doe-eyed bimbo look here. "I'm not rich, though. I don't think I can afford--"
"Shh, shh, shh," Dorien hushed, pulling back and taking both of her hands in his. He brought them to his mouth and began to kiss her knuckles. "None of that. You don't need to worry about any of that. Besides, you have a shiny, which is the hardest part." With that, he smiled lovingly. "You just keep in mind that I would do absolutely anything for you, okay? Trust the process."
A chill ran up her back, and she made herself giggle shyly. "Okay, Dory. If you say so."
She’d come here hoping to find some answers, and instead ended up with way more than she bargained for. Trust the process? Those Pokemon?
Something smelled rotten, and it wasn’t the lingering stench from the battle.
“Behave,” Noel said, raising his right arm, which was clothed in his custom-made falconry glove. The black leather had been lined with glimmering gold piping, and there were crystals embedded into each one of the knuckles. It honestly looked like something Elton John would wear...if he trained flying types, of course.
“Normally I'm all for you acting chaotic, but tonight's not the night," Noel said as Talonflame lifted off his head hovered down to land on his forearm.
I love how you drop real people into your work left and right. When Hau show up 3000 years from the fic's present, I hope he's listentng to Afroman.
I usually keep the name that historical figures most known by but change the others.(Da Vinci might be an exception, but I have seen and heard him referred to as Leonardo. So in-universe Leonardo became Leonardo Da Vinti.
She was clearly an odd one out here; they were all talking like they’d practically expected this to happen. Her gaze traveled to Dorien, where he was engaged in seemingly deep thought with the person sitting next to him. She could barely hear him, so she looked back to Clovis, who was staring down at his watch now.
“Clovis, what--” she started to ask.
“An abomination, that’s what,” he grumbled, almost too low for her to hear too. Nonetheless, Odette could pick up the raw anger that coated the words. She didn’t notice Noel was listening in until he leaned over her to get closer.
“What do you mean?” he asked, almost too frantically. “What are they talking about?”
Clovis exhaled a hard breath, and threw his napkin on the table. He stood up and pushed his chair in, before leaning down toward them. He got so close, Odette thought their noses would touch, and she jerked backward out of habit. He spoke quietly, as if he were trying to make doubly sure she was the only one who could hear him. The look in his eyes was deadly serious, and it made her blood run cold.
“A word of advice: walk out of here while you still can. What you just saw was a disgusting show of greed that you’d be better not getting involved in. ”
With that, his expression smoothed. A beaming grin curved over his lips; a convincing one that caused his now-shining eyes to crinkle up ever so slightly. A stark contrast from that dead, hard stare that was on her not even seconds before. It was a little unnerving just how good he was at switching himself off and on like that, but Odette's brain was too busy reeling to really dwell on it.
The change in mood and the tension is presented well here. But wow. the people battling didn't even heal their mons. Wonder if those mons are being forced to battle, as opposed to both trainer and Pokemon wanting to battle. They're really stupid and think they'll heal by themselves, consider them above "commoners" so they don't visit centers, and/or they're messed up people.
But I also think you do a good job in getting the readers to actually want to see these people being taken down.
Lots of interesting reveals in this chapter! Clovis (Valentin?!) owns the rink, huh? I love that he's so well-known there, too. The little girl and her smoochum were cute! I wonder if we're going to be calling him Valentin from now on?
Also loving how you've mixed in Odette's emotional crush in there. It's done well, as I haven't found it distracting from the flow at all! (And I love how even she realizes she needs to rein herself in and focus, hah.)
Also lots of info sharing, and a Name Drop! That should spice things up next chapter!
Odette had never felt the urge to trade her motorcycle in for a flying-type pokemon. Noel, when he wasn’t going on and on about how his Braviary didn’t listen to him, always claimed flying was a truly exhilarating experience, but for Odette, nothing trumped a motorcycle. She was in full control, weaving in and out of traffic and between buildings at mach speed; she decided where to go, and how fast she went. Flyers didn’t know what they were missing.
And then the summer travel season rolls along in July and Lumiose becomes a parking lot if it’s anything like Paris. :V
Odette tightened her grip on the handlebars as a breeze stirred her bangs, cool against her uncovered head. She’d have to be extra careful tonight, what with the roads still being soaked from the downpour. The last thing she needed was to have Acadia screaming “I told you so!” at her hospital bedside.
Wew, no helmet, huh? Somebody’s a risk-taker, though that seems right up the wheelhouse of someone who’s going to be going toe-to-toe with an evil team rocking demonic entities.
The city storefronts flew by her in streaks of bright light, seemingly absorbed by the headlights of the other cars she was surrounded by. The brisk air nipped at her face, leaving her nose inflamed and beginning to run. She quickly reached up a hand and rubbed at it, as she switched into the middle lane of the road. Her eyes darted between the two cars that bordered her bike, and she instinctively slowed down when she saw the right car begin to swerve into her lane without the use of a blinker. It then sped up, as if trying to leave that little faux pas behind.
“Dumbass,” Odette said to herself, going back up to her normal speed. Her mind ran with observations as she maneuvered between cars.
Says the lady who’s a dooring away from a hospital trip. Don’t know if it was intentional or not, but it’s a revealing insight into how Odette’s mind ticks that she’s just completely unfazed by all of this at the moment. I suppose force of habit helps jade one to mortal hazards in everyday life.
Watch the van, they’re lane hopping...that hatchback’s driving under the speed limit, driver looks like they’re texting, steer clear…why is this stupid sedan on my ass? And there’s the stoplight. Shit, it’s turning. Not going to even try to run it with Noel on here.
Wait, Noel is riding on Odette’s bike? I kinda wonder if that ought to have been mentioned in description earlier, since I didn’t pick up on that at all up until this one paragraph.
She slowed to a stop at the front of the pack of automobiles waiting for their chance to charge across the four way intersection. The downtime gave her the chance to rub her tingling nose again and untangle her bangs.
Noel seized the opportunity for a chat. He rested his chin lightly on her shoulder and loudly inhaled.
“Dee, I gotta ask. What shampoo do you use? The inside of your helmet smells so good.”
Whelp, somebody on this bike is cognizant of road safety, at least.
She looked over her shoulder, resisting the urge to laugh at the sight of Noel in her helmet. She'd felt it'd be safer for him to wear the helmet, considering she was the experienced motorcyclist between them, but the thing barely fit his head. Something was better than nothing, though.
Ah, so that’s Odette’s thought process for her helmetless ride. Kinda wonder if this “I know what I’m doing, I can handle a bit of danger” is also going to manifest in how she rolls as a protag or not.
“Bulba and Bulba curl moisturizing shampoo,” she answered. Her eyes remained deadlocked on the traffic running perpendicular to them. “It doesn’t have much of a smell, though. You’re probably noticing the heat protectant spray.”
“I still don’t understand why you straighten your hair,” he sighed. He grabbed one of her braids and began to tug on it playfully. “Your curls are amazing, and you would rock the Luxray mane look.”
That sounds like a fast way to get Odette to make angry Luxray noises at you, but okay, Noel.
Odette pressed her lips together. “Until you have thick curly hair to deal with every day, don’t yell at me about what I do to mine,” she said. “I like my braids, and my braids like me.”
A bit more gracious than what I was expecting, but I kinda figured she wouldn’t be amused there. :V
Noel kept up with his chatter, but Odette tuned him out as she watched the traffic. The hundreds of tires rolling over soaked asphalt blended with the sounds of rumbling engines around her, combining with the music from the storefronts on either side to create a full cacophony. Odette drew in a deep breath. Most people weren’t fans of traffic noise, but she had always found the sheer volume calming.
And then in about 20 years, Odette will wonder why she’s hard of hearing.
The sound of an engine revving echoed violently from over the building off to her right, and it caused her to jolt. Even from far off, it rattled in her eardrums above all the other sounds.
Odette jerked her head in the direction of the disturbance. On the street, a few people had halted, looking around.
“Street racers? Who the hell is street racing in Lumiose at this time of night?” Noel exclaimed, pulling his hand away from Odette’s hair. Before Odette could answer, that same revving noise exploded through the area again, louder than the first.
… Wait, what time of night is it anyways right now? Since street racing usually tends to be common in nighttime hours precisely because that’s when there’s less traffic for racers to contend with. Can’t tell if the implication is that it’s supposed to be evening rush hour, or else if it’s some ungodly hour in the early morning.
“Look!” Noel called, nudging her back. Three cars raced around the corner. They were sleek, shiny, and probably cost more than her entire apartment and everything in it.
Rich people out for a joyride.
“Red light’s gonna rain hard on their parade,” Noel laughed. Odette’s eyes flicked over to their light; sure enough, it had gone green. The cars around them started forward, but Odette didn’t move her foot from the brake. Her gaze was fixed on the three cars. Their speed wasn’t letting up in the slightest.
Unless if Odette lives in a studio apartment that’s like 10 square meters in area, I sure hope those drivers have a good insurance policy if Lumiose real estate prices are anything like Paris’.
The cars behind her began to honk, and she felt Noel jostle her again, lighter this time.
“Uh, Dee?”
It all happened in a blink. As the sports cars entered the intersection, the honking became frenzied. Cars screeched to a halt. The street racers tore past, sending up a spray of mist. They rounded the next corner, and they were gone as quickly as they’d appeared.
Could’ve been worse. From the way that the text was building up, I was expecting them to take out a minivan and some rusted-out Not!2CV and come to a stop in a mangled heap.
Odette blinked rapidly, trying to process what she’d just seen. The passersby erupted into conversation. Even though she couldn’t make out the words, she could hear their disdain and disbelief.
Those fuckers could have killed somebody, she thought numbly. Around her, the honking had died down. The light was still green, but the traffic remained halted, all sharing in the same shock.
I’d say that this sounds like a good time to just punch it and move along, but considering how story plots work, that’s probably a good recipe for getting run over by a straggling fourth car in the intersection.
Odette felt an all-too-familiar tingling sensation start to form in the small of her back. Her lips curled back over her teeth. The corners of her vision began to go red.
“Those fucking lowlives,” she spat. She violently revved her bike. “I’m gonna--”
Noel flinched back. His hands came up defensively in front of his face. “I want you to drive before the guys behind us shove their fists down both our throats!” he yelled back.
She stared. The red began to clear, as the aggravated honks behind her began to register. She lowered her fist, turned around, and propelled the bike forward. Her heart was pounding as fast as her mind was moving.
Somehow, I don’t remember it being explicitly stated in the prologue and first chapter, but I’m getting really strong “Odette is Florent’s missing child he’s trying to kill” vibes right about now. Especially since the demon thingy that said child was sitting on was tied to the Deadly Sin of Wrath.
“God,” Noel breathed when they were well away from the intersection. “Leave it to you to go psycho over some stupid racers. Keep it together, Dee.”
Warm-up breaths, she thought. One second in, one second out. That was a start. Now two seconds in, two seconds out. She wasn’t feeling any different. The tingle in her back had yet to lessen, and her brain buzzed with threats and ferocious thoughts of payback. She wanted nothing more than to blacken the eyes of one of those drivers. Haul him out of his car, slam him against the wall and punch and kick, until they were a bloody pulp, until—
… Yup, she’s totally that kid from the prologue sitting on Venira. I knew something was up with that thought process, and something about that rage just feels unnatural.
The breathing wasn’t working. She felt like she wasn’t getting enough air. All of her brain power was going toward her rage. She had to concentrate on something else.
So, she began to recite the Purrloins! script instead, starting with the opening song.
Oh, so that’s Cats in this universe, huh? Filing that one away, since I can already tell you’re going to be having fun with homage / reference brand names.
“Are you blind when you’re born, can you see in the dark, can you look at a king, would you sit on his throne…” she sang to herself. She focused on remembering how the orchestra sounded when they played along with the singers in rehearsal. The harmonies, the rests, the subtle grooves, the way they were never quite together on the sudden rests, no matter how much the conductor scolded them.
Yup, I figured, Kinda wonder if the lyric text ought to have been differentiated from Odette’s normal dialogue somehow, but eh. It’s a minor stylistic nitpick.
She kept on driving toward her building. The more she focused on picturing the stage as she sang the lyrics, the less she focused on the idea of hunting the drivers down, and making them pay for their bullshit.
Surprised that thinking of theater would help with that considering her… -ahem- experience mentioned in passing while working on a theater troupe last chapter.
Another turn brought her onto Gigavolt Way. She slowed to a stop outside a low-rise apartment building. The familiar sight helped in cutting her anger for a moment. Arched doors stood behind wrought iron balcony fences, and flower boxes brimmed with blooming daisies and pansies. Some of Odette’s night owl neighbors were out on their balconies with their Pokemon, enjoying the cool post-rain air. They waved as Odette drove by and turned onto the downward incline leading into the garage.
Those cars must’ve been quite something, since that certainly doesn’t sound like a shoebox of a studio apartment.
“Flat sweet flat,” Noel hummed as Odette stopped at the security gate and entered her code. She easily maneuvered down the rows of parked cars through the parking lot until she found the spot labeled 310. She and her mother had certainly gotten lucky when they moved into the building, because the 310 spot happened to be stationed right next to the elevator and staircase leading up to the lobby.
Okay, yeah. She’s Vienna’s kid. I won’t be convinced otherwise until the story hard-deconfirms it.
Once the bike rumbled to a stop, Odette swung off and began to stomp toward the elevator doors. She’d forgotten about Noel. His voice caught her just as she reached out to jab the elevator button.
“Hey! Temper Tantrum!”
“That’s not my name,” Odette snapped back, not turning.
“It might as well be,” he said. “Quit stomping around and come back here.”
Noel… I really don’t think you want to be antagonizing your pal there.
Odette closed her eyes. She didn’t have the patience to deal with Noel being Noel right now. All the same, she pulled back her arm and turned to face him.
“What?” she said. The word came out more menacingly than she had intended.
Noel had taken off the helmet. He held it in front of him like a shield. “Pick one. We’re either gonna woosah, or we’re gonna sing another happy song.”
“Pick one,” Noel repeated as he stepped closer. He had a ridiculous grin on his face. The fuck was he so happy about? “I would suggest singing, because the acoustics in here are great. Don’t think I didn’t hear you singing Jellicle Songs.”
His grin didn’t falter, despite the intensity of her glare. All she wanted to do now was get up to her apartment and stretch all the anger out of her system with her Pokemon team, provided nobody was up to anything foolish. But no, Noel had to be a good friend and make sure she calmed down before any of that happened. The babying lunatic.
Noel’s the sort of guy who’s got a death wish, isn’t he? Since even without the meta possibility that Odette is harboring a demonic being inside her, this… doesn’t exactly feel like a moment where one would want to push someone’s buttons.
She sucked in a deep breath.
“Jellicles do, and jellicles can,” she sang, her voice echoing through the brightly lit garage.
Somehow, Noel's smile widened even further. “Jellicle purrloins sing jellicle chants,” he belted.
Still of the opinion that the song text ought to be differentiated from the dialogue a bit more, but it’s a cute little back and forth here.
As they continued through the verse, Noel dropped his things and began to do his own choreography for the song, as if he were back on the stage at the center. Although she tried to keep herself from doing so, she was soon smiling at the ridiculousness of it. But, the subdued performer part of her was aching to dance along with him. She’d spent enough time on the stage’s wings, watching the dancers run through their steps again and again and again, that she felt as if she knew the choreography as well as she knew the timings of the scene changes.
As Noel danced, she began to move along with him. Not with the same pep, but with just enough gusto to show she had an idea of what she was doing. A couple of steps in, and the tingle in her back faded almost entirely, leaving behind a bout of exhaustion.
… Wait, is this all happening in the garage to her apartment complex? Sure hope there wasn’t anyone just chilling and watching all this. .-.
She stopped what she was doing, arching over and placing her hands on her knees. Her vision began to cloud with sleepiness, and her insides felt like they’d melted into jelly. It suddenly pained her to be standing upright.
God, I hate this part, she thought regretfully.
Nonetheless, she made herself breathe through it. She began to smack her lips together, now longing for a big sip of water. That usually ended the dizzy spell.
So these anger episodes take a lot out of Odette. Filing that one away, since I can already tell this will come back to bite her at points in the future.
She felt a hand begin to paw the back of her head as the elevator dinged, signaling it had been called.
“Maybe if you diverted more energy into smiling, you wouldn’t always get so winded every time you got pissed off,” Noel teased.
Odette opened her backpack and retrieved the water bottle she’d swiped from the backstage fridge just before leaving for the night. She chugged the water in greedy gulps.
“Smiling causes premature wrinkles,” she huffed when she finished. She blinked until her vision felt normal, then she rolled her shoulders, letting her body wake back up again.
Well that turned out better than I thought for Noel. ^^
“So does frowning all the time?” Noel said, his voice inflecting upwards as if he were asking a question. “I’m just saying, getting so mad that you’re tired afterward shouldn’t be the move.”
She pursed her lips as she wrestled the half-empty bottle back into her bag. “Clearly my anger issues know no bounds.”
The elevator dinged again, and the doors slid open. Noel sauntered in. Odette followed with considerably less spring in her step.
“They were just stupid rich kids racing their new toys. Why waste your energy on that?” he asked as they began to move up. "Based on my observations, they might die of a sacrilege overdose soon, so…"
Noel can tell that just by looking? Or is the idea that they fit the profile of people who wind up dying from ODing on sacrilege?
“Because,” Odette said strongly. “They could really hurt somebody. If I hadn’t been paying attention, there’s a chance they would have hit us. Then we’d be paralyzed or dead. And they don’t give a shit. The inconsideration just…”
Her jaw clenched, and she pushed back her rising anger. There was no need for a round two of that.
“It just pisses me off,” she finished flatly. She paused. "And that's not funny."
Yeesh, that anger inside of her really is bottomless.
Noel sucked his teeth again, then placed his free hand back on her head. “Sorry, sorry, my bad," he apologized. "But gods, you have so much rage in that tiny body. You must hide it all in your hair.”
… Now I am getting the mental image of Odette going full Bayonetta at some point in my mind from that “hide your (probably demonic) rage in your hair” comment.
The elevator soon stopped, and opened into the complex’s main floor. The interior wasn’t nearly as fancy as the exterior; just a wide open space with an empty front desk, a sitting area of mismatched chairs and loveseats, and a wall of mailboxes.
“Let’s see what BS junk we got today,” Noel said as he popped open his own mailbox. Odette’s was quite high up, so she had to stand on the tips of her toes to be able to get the key in the lock.
Oh, so these two live in their own units in the same building, huh? Maybe Odette really does have a glorified broom closet of a studio apartment.
She was surprised at how much mail she pulled out once it was open. A couple magazines, pamphlets, and some smaller envelopes.
Mum’s, mum’s, mum’s...she thought as she flipped through the magazine covers. Finally, she came upon a pamphlet addressed to her. She flipped it over to read the cover, and her chest seized at the words that blared in her face.
Fleurrh University of the Arts
You’re almost done!
Sign up for Summer Classes Today!
Somebody certainly isn’t attached to her mother with a thought process like that.
She dropped the rest of her mail and tore the pamphlet in half. The sudden movement made Noel flinch. When she returned from dumping the torn pamphlet in the trash, she found him watching her with knowing eyes.
His brows raised. “More shit from Fleurrh?” he asked.
Odette: “Seriously, Noel. Why is this even a question?” >_>;
Noel: “... I’m pretty sure that you haven’t canonically told anyone about what exactly went down with you and that theater course you were in, so…”
Noel shook his head incredulously while nudging his locker closed. He set his own mail pile down and knelt to help Odette collect the rest of hers.
“Oh yeah, because you’re totally going to step foot back on that campus. After everything they did to you.” He considered his words for a second. “Or wouldn’t do for you, more like.”
Her vision was swimming, but not with red this time. Her chest began to tighten, same as it had when she’d started thinking of him.
She hadn’t gotten anything from her former university for a while. She’d thought for sure they’d removed her from the mailing list. Her, her mother, her grandfather, and their lawyer had told the school’s higher ups where to shove it, and she figured that was that.
But life seemed determined to rub salt against her wounds. Odette began to massage her forehead.
Wait, shouldn’t that trigger alarm bells as to why the university would suddenly start sending mail again if you sued to get them to break contact in the past?
He forced himself on you, and you killed him for it…
That is certainly a lot darker than I was expecting. And I was already expecting something dark. Though I now wonder how on earth Odette got off the hook for that.
She didn’t realize she’d started staring at the floor until Noel snapped at her. She jerked her head up, catching his concerned gaze.
“Hey ma’am, up here,” he said. “You’re good.”
“Sorry,” she said, shuffling the rest of her mail pile together. “All good. I'm fine, just thinking.”
I was going to nitpick this, but no, “Roserade” is a pretty consistent name across Pokémon localizations. It does make me wonder if we’re going to see FR names brought up here and there in stuff like place or brand names in the story, since it would strike me as a nice touch.
Odette had to admit, the offer sounded tempting. A solid buzz would put her straight to bed, no wrestling with her brain needed. However, she also had to consider the possible hangover to follow.
… How poorly does Odette hold her liquor if she gets hung over from a glass of wine? .-.
She shook her head again, sighing. “It would, but I have trainer school tomorrow. I don’t want to be dealing with dry mouth and wrangling Loïc at the same time.”
At the mention of the name Loïc, Noel’s expression melted into one of slight fear. “Right, handling a rabid Mimikyu while hungover doesn’t sound like a smart thing to do.”
“You say that, and yet, he acts pretty damn rabid,” Noel said. “I’ve never met a Pokemon that wreaks havoc on his surroundings like he does.”
“Then clearly you’ve never set foot in a Pokemon research lab,” Odette said. “Have you ever met a Gengar that’s had too many bottles of protein? It put Loïc’s tantrums to shame.”
Oh, so it’s not just Odette who’s got anger issues. That… sounds totally wonderful and healthy right there.
Noel shook his head in disbelief, pushing the button on the wall. “I mean, still...he’s taking a long time to acclimate to ball life. How long has it been, six months?”
Uh… Odette? If you’re still having trouble with a caught Pokémon that long after getting it, it’s probably a sign to just go back to wherever you got it and let it go. .-.
Odette groaned quietly as she re-entered the elevator, supposing he had a point. She began to recall how her mother had brought Loïc back from Alola. She’d gone to scout their new bungalow in Iki Town, and ended up finding him hiding under the deck of the house, growling at anything that moved.
Well, never mind then. Or at least until it’s time for the plot to take you back to Alola anyways.
“I don’t want to bring him to the lab acting like this, so maybe you can try to acclimate him to your team?” she’d said upon returning, Pokeball in hand.
Since then, he’d gotten a little better, but not by much. He was still destructive, still rambunctious, still liked picking fights with other Pokemon for reasons not battle related.
Nowadays, it wasn’t uncommon for her to return home to some varying degree of chaos, typically centered around Loïc and one of her other Pokemon having a dispute. She’d left her team that afternoon with the instruction to start packing things into boxes, knowing damn well some sort of problem was going to arise. She’d had a little hope that at least something would get done; that Loïc would have an epiphany and stop acting like a wilding. But, she majorly knew it was wishful thinking.
“Can’t wait to see what other nonsense is in store for me today.”
That sounds like a fantastic argument to not leave Loïc alone with your stuff in the middle of packing, since from the way it sounds, I’m half-expecting a good chunk of the contents of Odette’s apartment to have been yeeted out the window.
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep.
Foolishness had indeed struck the Cinq-Mars apartment.
Standing in the doorway, the sound that hit Odette immediately was the ring of the smoke alarm. White smoke rose in three separate columns from behind the bartop that bordered the kitchen. The dinner table was in complete disarray, with all four chairs completely toppled over, and the tablecloth dangling off the edge in a bunched-up heap. A board game and its many colorful pieces were scattered all over the wood floors. The only one of her Pokemon in sight was her Froslass, who was face down on the living room sofa.
Though somehow that was even worse than what I was expecting. How on earth has Loïc not destroyed Odette’s apartment multiple times if this is the sort of stuff he gets up to unsupervised?
“I swear to gods...” Odette said as she began to fan smoke away from her face with her mail stack. “Isaur?” she said loudly. “What the hell?”
“Fross,” Isaur said, her voice muffled by the cushion. She sounded exasperated, and that seemed to be the only answer she was going to give.
Odette kicked the door shut behind her, then threw her helmet and mail down onto the coffee table. Her eyes began to water as she stomped across the small family room, to the dining area, passing the tipped chairs to get to her balcony doors. She threw them open and fanned the rising smoke outside. She tried to hold her breath for as long as she could, as to avoid breathing the smoke in, but found the task to be a little too difficult for her. She took to staggering her breathing instead.
Okay, Odette is confirmed for having means. Either on her own, or through her family, since that wouldn’t exactly be cheap for the Parisian real estate market. Not that the whole bit about siccing lawyers on her old college didn’t seem to point in that direction.
“What happened to packing?” she yelled through short huffs.
She moved into the kitchen, and quickly found the source of the fumes. Her Chandelure, Ange, was sitting on the floor, bright red in the face from pouting. His signature embers had flared up and were releasing them as a result.
IMO, Odette’s dialogue sounds better with everything an exclamation, since it makes her come off as more “agitated”. Your call for whether or not you’d like to go that route.
Odette began to cough, feeling that tickle starting to return to her back again, along with a new tightness in her lungs. She grabbed a plastic cup full of water from the sink, and dumped it on the Chandelure's fires. They fizzled out, and Ange slumped over, clearly winded from whatever energy he’d been exerting.
Oh, so Odette’s urge to kill is rising right about now, huh?
“You’re ridiculous,” she said in a huff, throwing the cup aside. She went back out to the living room, and returned to fanning the exhaust. It was there that her Gothitelle, Solene, came running out from the hallway leading to her bedroom, breathless.
Solene: “*You think that I didn’t have this same idea earlier?*” >_>;
Solene drew in some air and put her hands together. An orb of pink light formed between them, and suddenly, the smoke still left in the room began to ball together. The ball then hovered out the open balcony doors, and said doors slammed shut behind it. The beeping stopped, and Odette sighed in relief. She began to rub her back, as if trying to coax the tingling sensation out of it.
I’m honestly surprised that Solene didn’t think of attempting to do something like this on her own prior to this out of self-preservation given that the last bit established that she was having trouble breathing.
“Guys, I wanted to come home to a calm place tonight,” she said, irritated. “Of all the days to be up to some shit, today wasn’t it.”
Odette paused in her rubbing, a thought suddenly occurring to her. She looked around the room, almost frantically. Isaur was on the couch, Ange was collecting himself in the kitchen, Solene was in front of her, and Enora was still in her ball.
Solene pointed up at the ceiling, evidently annoyed. Odette looked up just in time for the sound of skittering feet to echo from down from it. Her gaze cut to the vent above her, and it popped open almost immediately. That familiar fake Pikachu head hung down from the darkness of the air duct.
Odette narrowed her eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of the vents? What could you possibly need up there?”
“Kkkkkkkkkkkkyu,” he responded. His body weight shifted slightly, and a slew of other board game pieces and cards fell from the duct. Odette silently watched them all hit the floor before speaking again.
Because that’s just who he’s been for the past 6 months? Though I can tell that Loïc is a giant barrel of laughs. A pain in the ass to actually be around, but a barrel of laughs nonetheless.
“Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.”
“Why are you being a dickhead?” she asked again, her anger rising. Loïc was silent after that.
Oh, so Odette’s power to meep others into submission with her anger works on Pokémon, too. Filing that one away for the future.
Odette pinched the bridge of her nose and took another deep, long breath. “I’m going to count to three,” she said evenly. “If you’re not out of the vent by three, I’m throwing every single chocolate covered pecha berry we have in the fridge in the garbage. Do you--”
She didn’t need to finish her sentence. Upon looking back up, she saw the rambunctious ghost type floating down to the floor, slowly. He landed at her feet.
“You’re so easy,” Odette huffed. She picked up the haphazardly thrown board game and unfolded it, seeing the familiar print of a Monopoly track. She frowned at it.
“Who was playing Monopoly?” she asked, peering up at Solene.
Wait, Odette’s Pokémon have enough of a grasp of human language and writing to figure out how to play Monopoly? What is the sapience level of Pokémon in this setting anyways?
“Gothitelle!” Solene snapped. She pointed down at the now-politely sitting Mimikyu, and toward the kitchen.
Odette nodded slowly. “I could have told you that the two of you playing Monopoly would be a horrible idea. What were you even thinking?”
There wasn’t a verbal response from Loïc this time. Instead, he scurried between Odette’s legs and dove under the living room coffee table. That was all the answer she needed.
“Boys, when I said ‘start some packing,’ I meant ‘start some packing without getting sidetracked by random shit,’” she sighed. She sat the board on the table, along with her backpack.
In their defense, I’m not sure how Ange was supposed to pack anything of note as a living candelabra. :V
“Go-thiii,” Solene spoke in agreement.
Odette eyed the Gothitelle dubiously. “Oh yeah, Miss? What’d you get done today?”
Solene wildly gestured back toward the kitchen, where there was a stack of four small boxes against the back wall, plain as day. Odette had been in such a hurry to do some damage control, she hadn’t noticed them.
You probably want to throw in a sentence that beats it over the heads of the reader harder that Odette is realizing that Isaur is lying on the couch from exhaustion, since I did a double-take at this at first from not picking up on it.
“Frosssss,” Isaur grumbled, rolling over onto her back. At that moment, Loïc stuck his head out from under the coffee table and attempted to jump up on the couch with her. She immediately sat up and swatted at him.
I can already tell the last 6 months were quite something in this apartment.
Odette pulled Enora’s Pokeball from the front pocket and pressed the front button. With a bright flash of blue, Enora herself appeared on the table. She stretched herself out, yawning as if just waking up from a nap.
“Loïc and Ange, clean up your mess. Solene, make sure Loïc and Ange clean up. Enora, make sure Isaur doesn’t kill Loïc. I’m going to take a shower,” Odette instructed flatly, grabbing her bag and making her way toward her bedroom. She’d typically be able to at least attempt to diffuse the situation, but her brain was fried at this point. She needed a breather, before she got upset again.
Cue the living room devolving into chaos again 5 seconds after Odette leaves the room.
Her bedroom was a bit messier than she normally tolerated. The contents of her closet spilled out all over the floor, reaching as far as her desk chair and bed. Most of the drawers on her dresser stood open, also threatening to dump its contents. With the preparations to move underway, she had a lot of organizing she needed to do. What could be packed away until the March move, and what she needed to keep out until then. A pile of flattened boxes were leaned up against her wire bed frame, ready for use. There was only one box in the room that had been packed and taped, but she’d had that box together for nearly a year--long before this move to Alola was even finalized.
Right, I forgot that this story was set in January 2020. Is Lumiose’s weather significantly different from reality or something? Since I’m shocked that there’s not more mention of the cold during the past two chapters.
Her eyes instinctively traveled to her wall of empty shelves, catching on the amount of dust that had started to accumulate on them. Despite the fact she’d shoved every last one of her trophies and photos from her performance days into that one box, she still found herself glancing at the shelves every time she entered her room. They used to fill her with joy and a sense of accomplishment and worth. But now, they just existed, hoping to maybe one day hold something else that filled her with those same feelings.
I mean, never say never, assuming that you survive the plot crashing into your life, anyways.
She threw herself onto her unmade bed after tossing her bag to the floor. Lying there, she allowed herself to really take a second to decompress. Forget the day, forget work, forget her team’s shenanigans. She just concentrated on relaxing.
She hoped, in some way, shape or form, tomorrow would steer clear of the weird brushes with the past. Just a day at Santalune Pokemon Academy, focused on nothing but training. That was all she was asking for.
A small crash sounded from the family room, followed by a cacophony of angry shouts from her Pokemon. She cringed to herself and took the deepest breath she could muster.
I thought the chapter was pretty decent. Not a whole lot happened plot-wise, or at least as far as I can tell, but I’m pretty sure that the point of this chapter was to get a better glimpse of Noel and especially Odette and their worlds, and to give glimpses that something is really, really not normal with Odette before their lives get upended by the plot in like a chapter or two. To that end, I think that it does its job pretty well, since I was honestly expecting Venira to just casually burst out onto the stage at a couple points in this chapter.
As for things that I was less fond of, there’s not a whole lot since I thought the chapter was pretty well written. There were a couple typos and missing words here or there that could’ve been found by yeeting the chapter text into Google Docs or a comparable program with a built-in grammar checker, but those were pretty infrequent. I think that the bigger issue was that there were some sections that were a little hard to follow or visualize from lack of description, but I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not it’s worth your time and energy to tweak that.
Congratulations on the chapter @Sinderella . Not all of it is quite my cup of tea, but it’s certainly a solid piece, and I can definitely see how you built a following for your story. I’ll be looking forward to whenever I get a chance to see the plot really get rolling, since just from the buildup, I can already tell it’ll be quite something.
Strong Language, Horny Protagonist, Brief Discussion of STD's
And as always, this chapter has not been beta read! Only lightly skimmed (thanks @Flyg0n bby!). So, read at your own risk!
ALSO, some recent changes were made to Chapter 1 to include some new information. I'm going to include the little bit here for you
reading convenience! ⬇️
“Lissssssteeeeen,” Noel insisted, swatting at her. “I was putzing around, looking for some similarities. It’s not much, but so far, ninety percent of the cases have been among people in the wealthier demographic.”
"What's new?" she said flatly. "The cops figured that one out ages ago."
Noel smirked. "Did I mention that the press is conveniently leaving out the fact a decent majority of the Pokemon being affected by sacrilege are shiny?"
Odette furrowed her brows at him. "Bouffalant fucking shit," she said.
Noel had his phone out before she'd even finished talking, growing more smug by the minute. "No, seriously," he said, swiping his finger across his screen. "Most of these case files are there for public viewing, but my in down at the LCPD managed to send me her admin password for their whole case-file system."
"Who's your in at the LCPD?" Odette asked incredulously.
"I've got gals in different locals, baby," Noel snickered, heightening his voice for dramatic effect. "We met in an online coding class."
Odette narrowed her eyes. "I'm going to pretend you didn't tell me that so this in of your doesn't lose her job. Grandpa would have a coronary; he's well on his way there as it is."
Noel finally stopped scrolling and held his phone to his chest. "So, as I said," he started, ignoring the comment. "I was putzing around, examining some case files and whatever, and boom. She texts me the login; asked her for it a couple days ago, she said she'd get back to me, whatever," he explained. "I kind of went a little nuts in there; went ahead and pulled up something on that most recent OD case, and sure enough...didn't match with the public record. Specifically denotes a shiny Simisear, while the public record denotes an ordinary."
He handed his phone to her. "Scroll left."
She shot him a wary glance as she took it. She squinted at the screen, which showed a close up photo of his computer monitor, displaying a website with a bunch of case information. She didn't bother reading all of it, because her eyes immediately fell to the part that had been highlighted for her convenience.
Simisear (Standard)
She did as instructed and swiped left. It was another photo of his screen, displaying an interface she recognized: the LCPD's online case filing system. She'd caught sight of it multiple times, just glancing at it over her grandpa's shoulder while he worked. This time, the same information cell had been highlighted again.
Simisear (Shiny)
She blinked in surprise and cut her gaze back to Noel, who was already nodding toward her with a jokingly pensive expression. "What'd I fucking tell you? That's suspicious as hell." He crossed his arms. "Granted, not all of them were like that, because some cases actually did just involve ordinary 'mon. But the ones that had shinies? All had discrepancies like that. And I'd say, of maybe the..." he trailed off to count his fingers. "Twelve I looked through last night, nine of them were about shinies. I'd guarantee it's a majority. Can't say for sure, but I'm willing to bet."
"You got me," she scoffed after a moment of stunned silence, returning the device to him. Her mind had become so aflutter with this new revelation, she'd almost completely lost track of where they were in the song. She didn't care, though. She had to dwell on this.
"The wealthy, plus shinies..." she muttered. "Sounds like some shiny trade bullshit."
"Fueling the crisis with their coveted money 'mons? I'd believe it," Noel sighed.
The week had gone by in a blur. A blur of excessive note-taking, staying up until the wee hours of the morning wasting away at computer screens, and a series of unpleasantly pleasant thoughts of Clovis not wearing any clothes.
Noel had volunteered to take on digging into more about shiny Pokemon, while he all but forced her to start looking into the LeClair family. She’d been hesitant at first, but she eventually allowed her deductive brain to go to work.
Sitting in the dressing room under the Lumiose Center, she was going through her ten pages of chicken scratch for the third time that morning. Rehearsal didn’t start for another thirty minutes, Acadia hadn’t gotten in yet, and Noel decided to neglect telling her that he was leaving his flat early that morning. She found out the hard way when she knocked at his door and was informed by his parents that he'd been up and out long before she came knocking. She’d texted him at every stoplight until she reached the center, to no response.
Noel wasn’t one to wake up before 11, so she found it a little odd. However, she wouldn’t let herself get antsy about it until practice was about to start. He was a late sleeper, but he was never late, no matter what. If he was in any sort of trouble, she’d know at the start of rehearsal.
For now, she decided to dedicate her working brain function to deciphering her finds again, while trying to ward off the intrusive thoughts that ran laps in her mind whenever Clovis’s name crossed her vision.
She had to wonder if her grandfather got worked up whenever he had to research a lead. Surely not, since he could probably discern something from the way he spoke to his Snom. Or from how he walked. Or his hair, or his eyes, or--
Her grip on her papers tightened as a hard grimace crossed her face. She was damn glad there was nobody else in the dressing room right now (she'd been sure to check before sitting down), because she didn’t need anybody to bear witness to how red her face was. The sweat that started forming on her brow caused her glasses to begin fogging, and she tore them off her face to wipe them clean on her jacket.
“You’re stupid,” she said to herself as she pushed them back over her nose. She then jostled the packet, as if alerting her whole body to the fact that it needed to focus.
Clovis LeClair, the son of billionaire Charles LeClair, owner of the Clair De Lune group, which was made up of more than four-hundred different companies based in multiple regions around the world. Most of them were centered around humans and Pokemon working together humanely, to get things done in an orderly and, as they put it, “the old-fashioned green and clean way.” They dedicated their companies to making sure Pokemon were treated fairly and humanely. It was truly a noble cause.
Charles had a large family. Married once to the love of his life, and they had eleven fucking kids. She couldn’t imagine one woman popping out that many babies. Likewise, she also couldn’t imagine having that many human siblings. Growing up with Solene, Enora, Ange, and Isaur was plenty.
She’d gone out of her way to find all the LeClair siblings' names and ages. The youngest was about nine, and Clovis was twenty-four, about to be twenty-five. Odette had been pleased to see that their difference in age wasn’t harsh at all.
Most of the LeClair kids, save for the youngster, were involved in Clair De Lune somehow. Clovis, however, was peculiar. He had the highest net worth out of all of them, for his involvement in coming up with some sort of algorithm that had a hand in optimizing and even revolutionizing data management. She didn't really understand what any of that meant, because her brain could compute fuck all in regards to number and business talk, but she supposed it was impressive.
But the weird part there was that he’d never been seen in public until semi-recently. Over the past couple years, more or less. That was the part that got her. He hardly seemed like a shut-in; flying under the radar and working behind the scenes for twenty-something years while daddy raked in the big money.
She supposed she knew a thing or two about acting a part, but it seemed like he knew it too well. She’d found him standing alone in the smoking section, sure. However, he was at least somewhat eager to strike up a conversation, if only to ask her an obnoxious question about her height. She didn’t know any shut-in who’d have even attempted something like that. They’d have merely kept to themselves.
Plus, he pretty much admitted to gathering dirt on people, which meant he got around. He spoke to who he could, maybe eavesdropped here and there, maybe even asked point blank. He was blunt enough to question her height, surely he was ballsy enough to ask somebody if they were hiring expensive hookers. And honestly, they’d probably answer him. The folks at her dinner table were ready to give up their seats for him, so it didn’t seem far off to assume that much.
He had a pull in that room that she wouldn't expect a multi-year shut-in to possess, even after an extended amount of time out and about.
Then again, she had to consider that perhaps that pull had something to do with his status. He’d mentioned that he lingered around Dorien for “ties to powerful families'' or however he’d put it. Clearly, the LeClair family wasn’t anything to scoff at, so others were probably doing the same. Schmoozing the eldest son of one of Kalos’s richest families seemed like an obviously good political maneuver to attempt.
However, none of that did anything to deter the big thing on her mind: how could he have skated competitively if he hadn’t been seen in public until just recently?
She’d scrounged the internet, trying to find some record of his competitions--score sheets, videos, anything, and came up with nothing. So, was it a lie? Or, maybe it...had just been wiped? Cops could mess with public access case files, surely a billionaire could have information pulled from the world wide web. The question is, why?
She grazed her thumb over the notation she’d made in the margins, regarding this bit of information that didn’t add up. If she ever met him again, she’d have to find a polite way to press. Was it something he wasn’t proud of, or was it something more? Maybe he had the information pulled to keep it from coming up for people like her, who spent days trying to research him? Because surely he had his fair share of stalkers. Was he still trying to fly under the radar despite being so out in the open?
That posed another question, too. If he wanted to hide it so badly, why bring it up at all?
She was starting to think it was a slip-up on his end. The fear that passed through his eyes when he said it was indicative of the fact that he’d not meant to talk about it. That, of course, posed more questions. But it made the most sense right now.
Gods, her head hurt. Thinking about him, all this information, and of course, the way he’d so effortlessly switched faces. From his warning, cold stare, to that fake-yet-real smile as he said goodbye. Even the way he looked aggravated when Jocelyn called, before switching back to the smug smirk, like it was nothing. He did it with such scary ease, like he’d been trained to do it.
Or, maybe he was a psychopath like Dorien? Effortlessly going back and forth between emotions because he was so good at faking them? That wasn’t something she initially considered, but it was a possibility, as much as she detested it. She didn’t need another raging psycho in her life, especially one so pretty.
Speaking of Jocelyn and Dorien’s quips about that call, Odette definitely didn’t leave that stone unturned, as much as she wanted to. But, her obnoxiously prevalent feelings got the best of her.
She’d tried to find something on a possible girlfriend, or even worse, a fiance or wife. Nothing came up. As far as these information sites were concerned, Clovis was a single man. So, Dorien really was blowing smoke. But she had to wonder why Clovis had a ‘Jocelyn’ calling him, and why he was so annoyed by it. An aggravating secretary? A bodyguard? His old nanny? Was he even raised by nannies?
She sighed deeply to herself and leaned her head against the wall she was up against.
Was this how obsessed girlfriends felt?
She certainly didn’t know firsthand, but it had to have been similar. She’d never been in this position, and she now fully understood why she was so thankful for that. She needed to get a handle on all of these feelings she was having. They were best kept bottled up with the rest of her emotions, because they had no business clouding her head when she was trying so hard to think rationally.
Her bag began to buzz, and she could hear the muffled voice of her RotomPhone trying to speak to her. The front pocket jostled, signaling it was trying to get out, so she reached over and unzipped it. It hovered out and flew up to her face.
“Bzzzt! Such a nice nap, ruined!” it complained. “I’m trying to recover here! I need my health sleeps!”
“I think you look wonderfully healthy, actually," she said. "Your rehab's going great. The techs at mum's lab will be happy to hear."
"Yes, bzzzzzzzt, but I am sleepy right now and would like to get back to that."
“Tell me what’s up and I'll oblige," she chuckled.
“Incoming texts from ‘Pelipper Pier.’ Bzzzt!” it replied.
Rolling her eyes playfully, Odette set down her notes next to her and grasped the phone, punching in her passcode and navigating to her texting app, where she found that her one and only group chat was indeed blowing up.
Odette took a moment to decide how she wanted to respond to this. She was momentarily thankful to finally hear from Noel, but then supposed some virtual shenanigans from her displaced friend group would be a good temporary distraction from her headache. Though, she was wondering what he was so frantic about. Probably whatever thing he’d gotten up so early for. Was it some new information?
After years of a close-knit group friendship, she could still honestly say that she never knew what to expect when she opened this chat. But, the distraction was working. She was glad she was able to at least snicker at the weird exchanges happening here.
She’d barely pushed the send button again when she heard the door to the dressing room slam open. It echoed through the empty space, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin. She scrambled to shove her notes back into her backpack, but didn’t get very far before Noel suddenly bounded in front of her.
“Found you,” he said, panting. Sweat trickled down his red face, and he could barely get the words out.
She set the RotomPhone back in her front pocket. “Back to your nap, drama ‘mon.”
“Bzzt! Don’t mind if I do!”
She zipped the pocket, then turned to stare incredulously at Noel. “Dude, this is the girl’s room,” she said.
Noel threw his duffel bag down and doubled over, placing his hands on his knees as he leveled his breathing. “Who cares? Nobody's in here right?" He lowered his voice to ask that
"Made sure of it."
"Well then. I’ve given every woman in this cast dating and sex advice; I have an honorary pass," Noel said, swatting his hand dismissively at her.
Odette scoffed. “Right, because we give out passes.”
Noel was able to pull himself together before peering back up at her. His brow was raised, and he wore an accusing frown. “You’re talking an awful lot for somebody I’ve seen naked like eighty fucking times.”
“What’s your problem? Where’d you just sprint from?” she asked, ignoring the quip. There was really no use in arguing with him. “Thanks for telling me you were leaving early, by the way.”
He straightened his posture and placed his hands against his lower back, leaning backward until a crack emanated from his spine. “Yeah, sorry,” he said through a deep exhale. “Woke up earlier than usual to fly to the library when it opened. Phone’s been on silent until about five minutes ago."
“Wow, you know how to read? I'd have never guessed from the way you can't seem to read your phone. Nice job texting the wrong chat,” she teased, feigning innocence by sticking out her lower lip. She snickered as he shot an unamused glance at her.
“I can read, very well actually,” he said, pointing at her nose.
He abruptly fell to his knees and unzipped his bag, then began to dig through it frantically. Curious, Odette hopped off the counter and stepped over to him, leaning over to try to get a better look at what he was looking for. She didn’t see too much before he whipped out a rather weathered looking hardcover book. The sudden movement caused her to stumble back. Her eyes caught on the faded words on the front cover.
Pokemon of an Old Past
“A crusty book about the old times?” Odette asked in a deadpan tone. “Case solved. We can stop now.”
“Keep your snide comments to yourself, Miss Ma’am,” Noel chastised as he stood up.
He started flipping through the book. She watched him intently, taking note of how careful he was with each turn of the page. From where she was standing, she could see the dated yellow-ish hue each one of them had, and even noticed that some of them were ripped and torn toward the edges. She grimaced at the sight.
“Did you pull that out of the damn archives or something?”
“I sure did,” Noel replied quickly. “This book was pulled from public checkout because of how decrepit it is. But, I put in a favor with my friend down there. She let me take it for the day because their copy machine wasn’t working.”
Already, she had so many questions. “Gals in different locales?” she started, earning a hearty laugh from him.
“Actually, Bernadette from choir. But sure, that mantra works too.” As he spoke, he began frowning at the book, which he was still flipping through. “Gods, I should have used a damn bookmark...what page was it again?”
With another roll of her eyes, Odette sighed. “So why did you need Bernadette from choir to let you take home an old book because the copy machine wasn’t working?”
Noel didn’t respond that time. Instead, his eyes lit up, and he held the open book to his chest, pressing his lips together in what looked to be anticipation. The sheer excited look in his eye was enough to get her to drop her doubt. She cocked her head, arching a brow.
“Noel? What’d you find?”
“So, in my research this week, I wasn’t coming up with much that wasn’t damn obvious. Pretty much just wiki pages about shiny coloring variations and research notes that didn’t provide anything interesting.” He paused, apparently for dramatic effect. “But,” he said, “I started searching for some more analog sources, and ended up in the library directory.”
“Alright, that’s why you were at the library,” she said impatiently, snapping her fingers. “Where’s this going?”
Noel inhaled deeply. “Shockingly, or not, I thought the library didn’t have jack shit either...until I found this.”
He held the book out to her.
“There is a single page in this book that mentions shinies, and it’s fucking damning. Read it.”
Her gaze slowly traveled between the book and Noel’s eager face. She carefully reached out and took it, slowly turning it in her hands so she could make out the words. Now that it was actually in her grasp, she could feel just how aged it was. The bound leather cover, which surely used to feel smooth to the touch, now felt rough and almost dusty against her fingers. The words on the page were even starting to fade in some areas, but she could still easily read it.
Her eyes scanned the page, taking in a couple words here and there about ancient Pokemon and whatnot. Nothing truly caught her eye until she’d made it down to the last paragraph, where she saw mention of oddly colored Pokemon. Surely, it meant shinies. That was where she actually started to read.
It was once said that these Pokemon of odd coloring had the ability to harbor and spawn Pokemon of a different power--grotesque creatures that found their abilities in the sanguinity of their hosts.
She furrowed her brows.
“Put it together, smarty pants,” Noel urged.
The gears were already turning. So much so, her ears had started ringing. “Harbor and spawn Pokemon of a different power…” she read, talking under her breath. “Sanguinity means blood…”
The pieces. She had them. She needed to think through it...
Hiruition and Lophious...those two Pokemon, never seen them before...Mr. and Mrs. Patenaude cut themselves when they brought them out...right? And they were grotesque, super grotesque...
She closed her eyes, trying to get further into the moments before, during, and after that damned battle.
The Malamar and the Scizor were shiny...people were talking about them ‘holding another’? Those poor ‘mon were tired too...what’d their trainers say about that? Didn’t seem to care...harbor and spawn...harbor and spawn...harbor and spawn...
It was...starting to make sense.
Dorien...saying things about getting his hands on ‘very powerful Pokemon’ for me. Dorien’s in the shiny trade, they seemed to all somehow be in the shiny trade, they all had them…they all had shinies.
They were all there to watch whatever that Malamar and Scizor had harbored and spawned? To perhaps see...what their own shinies could harbor and spawn?
Her eyes snapped open, immediately meeting Noel’s intense stare. She blinked a few times, trying to parse how she was going to say what she wanted to say out loud.
“The shiny trade probably exists because traders know shinies can...make those things, on top of the fact that they're fucking money machines,” she finally said, eyes going wide. She raised a hand to hook it into her hair.“Or, try...they're money machines in the first place because they can make those things? The bottom line is, Dorien knows that. They all. Fucking. Know that.”
“Ding, ding, ding!” Noel said in triumph, holding his hands above his head victoriously.
Odette slammed the book shut and set it down next to her backpack. She then brought both of her hands to cover her face, exhaling sharply as she gave her head a moment to calm down. Though, there was no way that was happening.
“Does that play into Team Enigma, though? Does that play into sacrilege? What about Virtue Corp?”
“It definitely does,” Noel said. Odette moved her hands down to her cheeks and peered over at him just as he began wiping some sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket.
“Think about it. Sacrilege is traveling around the top one percent, and the top one percent are the ones engaging in the shiny trade.” He peeled off his jacket as he spoke, letting it fall to the floor. He then started to pace back and forth, crossing his arms over his chest as he went. His brows had furrowed, and Odette noticed that vein on the side of his head starting to pop out; a telltale sign he was thinking hard.
“Then we have those public case file discrepancies specifically writing out shiny involvement in sacrilege-related problems, and we can be pretty confident those are tied into the cops warding off the press for Virtue Corp.”
Odette considered his words, and when she was sure she agreed, she nodded. “Okay, yes.” But, she frowned as she thought more about it. “However, it doesn’t fully explain the discrepancies. What does sacrilege have to do with those Pokemon we saw, and what’s the point of covering shiny involvement up?”
Noel pointed back toward her. “That’s where I’m stumped. That answer has to lie in Virtue Corp, because they’re the ones driving that boat,” he said. “But I would think that an organization dedicated to abolishing the shiny trade would want to blow something like this out of the water; not cover it up...whatever it is they’re specifically trying to cover up by tweaking case files like they are.”
A heavy silence filled the space between them. Odette retreated back into her head to hopefully try to make better sense of these findings. She needed to get her thoughts in a line, before she got too overwhelmed. She reached for her notes on the LeClair family and pulled out the last page of the packet, which had only been a quarter of the way filled. She dug into the front pocket of her bag, careful not to jostle her phone, and retrieved a lone pen, which she uncapped with her teeth before beginning to scribble with it.
Shiny trade exists because traders know shinies can spawn the weird Pokemon. Hoarding from the public??? Explains why it won’t be abolished despite overwhelming support for it????? Maybe.
Sacrilege going around top one percent, who engage in trade--connected to the case discrepancies, but we don’t know why? Virtue Corp doing. Still don’t know why.
A thought suddenly occurred to her as she was writing. She remembered the note she’d found on Bernard’s desk again, and how J.L. Ménétries had mentioned something about being in their "prime suspect's circles" with “ties” to Team Enigma. If Virtue Corp was dedicated to abolishing the shiny trade, they’d surely know a thing or two about it, and how it’s navigated...
She wrote the words down before she even registered what she was thinking.
PRIME SUSPECT'S CIRCLES = SHINY TRADE???? TEAM ENIGMA IN SHINY TRADE?????
“Okay, I can see that making sense,” Noel suddenly spoke, causing her to flinch. She’d been so caught up in getting her thoughts down that she hadn’t noticed that he was looking over her shoulder. She craned her neck to look at him, before glancing back at her words.
"You think so?"
Noel began to poke his lower lip quizzically. “The note you found pretty much confirmed Team Enigma’s existence, and outed Virtue Corp as the brains behind fudging records. They could definitely know Team Enigma is involved in the trade,” he rationalized. “But I’m still stuck on the why. If Team Enigma is in on the shiny trade, an org like Virtue Corp would surely want that outed, right?”
She nodded again. “You would think,” she said tentatively. However, she had to look at this from all possible angles. If this were all actually true, and Virtue Corp did put it out as such, she would imagine that the negative reaction from the public would be astronomical.
“What if they’re trying to keep all of this under wraps to lessen the possible reaction?” she asked. “There’s so much negative press around the shiny trade and Team Enigma’s possible whereabouts and involvement in the crisis. Putting the two together would cause a social explosion if people found out. Especially if my hypothesis that the wealthy are purposely hoarding those Pokemon is correct.”
“Point taken,” Noel said slowly. The more he considered it, the more he appeared to go along with it. “Something like this dropping on the general public would start a damn riot,” he added. “But I imagine the riots would be even bigger if they found out that things were being hidden from them, you know? Is that a risk the police, or even Virtue Corp, would take? Having a conspiracy like this on their backs?”
She pressed her lips together. “Point taken,” she muttered.
Noel held up his hands, almost defensively. “Then again, we could also equally consider the fact that they’re keeping it under wraps because they’re also clueless.” He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his leggings, turning on his heel to begin pacing again. He walked back and forth between her and a nearby bench a few times before talking again.
“Like, maybe they know Team Enigma’s involved, but to what extent? And how does this drug play into everything? Rich humans and their Pokemon are dying, but how is that bridged to the trade? How is it bridged to those Pokemon?”
Odette could only shrug. “We don’t know.”
“And it’s a possibility they don’t either,” Noel said. “Granted, we are running on a shit ton of hypotheticals here; we’re not some big organization. So maybe I’m comparing bluk berries to cheri berries...”
Another round of silence swelled between them. It seemed that they were coming down from their frantic Q and A.
“In regards to your hypothesis,” Noel said calmly, “that would explain why I had such a hard time finding information about shinies that wasn’t blaringly obvious.” He pointed to the book on the counter. “That was literally the only thing I read, both on the internet and in the library, that spoke of a legend like that.”
“What did you search up to find the book, then?” Odette asked.
He chuckled for a moment. “Ancient Pokemon,” Noel said. “I started getting this idea that they were some crazy old fossil ‘mon and decided to go that route.”
Odette turned her head and stared down at the book for a long while. “Are you saying you think the rich tried to wipe knowledge of those things from public access?”
“I’m sure a bunch of millionaires banding together could make something like that happen,” Noel said in a huff. “I’d bet that book's saving grace was referring to shinies as ‘odd colored Pokemon’ instead of just ‘shiny.’ Though, I would think, if they were really trying to wipe records, they’d at least be a little more thorough.”
“Nobody’s perfect; not even rich people. Or a drug gang,” Odette said.
Noel didn’t respond to that. Instead, he wandered back over toward her and leaned against the counter next to her. He released a long yawn as he dipped his chin against his chest.
“I’m exhausted. I don’t want to rehearse today,” he said. And she didn’t blame him. The day had barely started and she already wanted to take a nap. She wasn’t sure how she was going to be able to concentrate on calling cues and making sure props were where they were supposed to be when she had all of this nonsense swirling around in her head.
“Did you find anything interesting about your smoking buddy?”
She’d gotten so caught up in putting together the pieces around what Noel had found, that she’d totally forgotten what she was looking for in her notes about the LeClair family. She reached back into her bag and pulled out the rest of the packet, and put it back together with the other sheet she’d just written on. Noel eyed it, and his brows raised.
“Look at you, detective,” he said, impressed.
“I wouldn't go that far. This is just research phase,’” she said with a roll of her eyes, flipping through the pages. “I think I know everything there is to know about him, but I still have some--”
She cut herself off, immediately sinking into another frenzy of internal questioning. She’d been trying to figure out the connections between the shiny trade, Team Enigma, and Virtue Corp, that she had forgotten she had a whole lead here to factor in too. And now that she was looking at it again…
Pressing her lips together, she turned back to the page where she’d noted the figure skating disconnect. The marginal note, and her excessive question marks. Cases could be rewritten, records about Pokemon could be pulled, and she had been certain that one billionaire could mess with records regarding their whereabouts in a sport. But, she couldn’t find the reason.
“What do ya have, Watson?” Noel pressed.
She began shaking her head. “I’m not sure yet...just some things not adding up. Everything I read had Clovis LeClair pegged as a shut-in, but he started telling me he was a competitive figure skater while I spoke to him.”
Noel appeared taken aback by this. “Him? A shut-in? I'd never read him as an antisocial type.”
Well, at the very least she knew she wasn’t nuts for thinking that herself. “That’s what I said, too,” she said. “The last thing an antisocial person is doing is competing in something. And even if he did, I couldn’t find anything about it.”
“Man, these rich people really like yanking their shit off the internet, huh?” Noel groused. “I wish things were that easy.”
She ignored him to keep tunneling into this. Her eyes roved frantically over the papers as she listed her observations in her head.
She could conceivably believe that he was once a functioning, sociable person, who partook in the activity. Then, something could have happened that drove him indoors, and led him to want to pull all traces of his involvement in the activity down.
Actually, that hit way too close to home. It rang eerily similar to the issues she was having with herself. Before she could allow herself to become bitter, she continued paving this mental path. She couldn’t stop just yet, and she needed to keep this rational, and not let her feelings get in the way.
“Hypothetically speaking,” she spoke in a low voice, “if Virtue Corp is in their prime suspects circle--presumably the trade--that means they have undercover parties stationed around...” she trailed off.
Clovis had very clearly been upset by the battle. It showed in the way he watched it, and the way he looked at her as he warned her to get up and leave. He’d done that in a manner that assured only she would hear, just to turn around and act as if nothing was wrong as he told everybody goodbye. Not to mention, Clair De Lune was set on the humane treatment of Pokemon, too.
All of that would be in line with an organization set on bringing down the trade, right?
That could also help explain the figure skating disconnect. Recluse or not, that was a slip-up.
She’d heard a couple of stories of the cops at the LCPD getting too comfortable in their roles while undercover and accidentally letting something slip. Nobody was perfect; not even a rich person. This was also going to be a jump, but one that she was at least finding more ground in.
“This is extremely hypothetical, and I am fully grasping at straws here," she sarted. "But, what are the chances Clovis could be an undercover party with Virtue Corp?"
Noel took a beat to mull it over, before grimacing.
“No shot,” he said, shaking his head. He reached over and took the papers out of her hand and began to skim them himself. “If he was actually undercover, what reason would he have to warn you like he did? That seems risky as hell. You could tell Dorien what he said, and the next thing he knows, his cover’s compromised. You might be reading too much into some misspoken words.”
“You didn’t see it though. He panicked,” she said.
He began to rub his eyes tiredly. “Sure, maybe he did. But an undercover party could be anybody. It could have been one of the fat guys sitting at our table. It could have been the chick who asked if you had lip fillers.” He cut himself off with a wheezing laugh. “Which was hysterical by the way.”
“Yeah, real comical,” Odette sighed, a tinge of annoyance in her voice.
“Hell, if we really want to go deeper into that route, it could be Dorien.”
She raised a concerned brow, her gaze on him becoming dubious. “Yeah, shiny trade Dorien joined forces with the org trying to take down the shiny trade. Makes perfect sense.”
“Not everything functions at face value, Dee. But, realistically, Clovis could just be some pretty rich man who thought you were cute and decided he didn’t want to see you get involved in...whatever this is,” he said.
She thought her head hurt before, but this was ridiculous. She understood where Noel was coming from, but she still had some contradictions biting at her.
“But him wanting to see me not get involved would most likely mean he doesn’t like being involved,” she said. “But he switched. He threw me the warning, then went back to acting like nothing was wrong. If you don’t like it, why act?” She began to scratch her cheek. “Saving face?”
“He told you a thing or two about getting in with other powerful families,” Noel said. “He could warn you, then pretend like nothing happened to cover his ass.”
“That also seems like a risky maneuver, however you put it. I could whistleblow him even if he is just a standard regular,” she said. She released a deep breath as she realized the counter to that. “But at least if he was just a regular rich person, he has the in to say ‘what the hell is she talking about?’ and make me look dumb for accusing him.”
She let out a deep, loud breath. Noel did the same.
“I think there’s two possible things going on here,” she went on. For some reason, she felt confident in this deduction. Was it because of her little girl crush? Probably.
“Clovis could have figure skated before he decided he wanted to be a shut-in, then somehow had all of his participation taken down so nobody could ever find out about it,” she said. “Or, he’s undercover and absolutely slipped up. And in realizing he slipped up, he decided that shooting me a warning would be a route to go.”
She turned to look Noel in the eye again. “I’m living by your line for this. Not everything functions at face value. At least not until we can stop leaning on hypotheticals.”
“You got me there,” he said.
The door to the dressing room swung open. Odette flinched again, and she saw Noel jolt as well. Nothing like a loud noise to break them out of their trance.
“Noel, I better not find you here. That’s illegal,” Acadia’s voice echoed through the room.
They exchanged looks, and both began to giggle in spite of themselves. Odette figured she was so fried at that point, she couldn’t do much more than laugh.
“Busted,” she said quietly.
“Hey,” Noel said with a shrug. “If she kills me, at least I can say that I helped put together the corner pieces.”
Here for catnip! Been meaning to catch up with this, so it's nice to get this for catnip
And yes, reading is indeed essential. Shocker that it's coming from me, ain't it?
Clovis LeClair, the son of billionaire Charles LeClair, owner of the Clair De Lune group, which was made up of more than four-hundred different companies based in multiple regions around the world. Most of them were centered around humans and Pokemon working together humanely, to get things done in an orderly and, as they put it, “the old-fashioned green and clean way.” They dedicated their companies to making sure Pokemon were treated fairly and humanely. It was truly a noble cause.
Charles had a large family. Married once to the love of his life, and they had eleven fucking kids. She couldn’t imagine one woman popping out that many babies. Likewise, she also couldn’t imagine having that many human siblings. Growing up with Solene, Enora, Ange, and Isaur was plenty.
She’d gone out of her way to find all the LeClair siblings' names and ages. The youngest was about nine, and Clovis was twenty-four, about to be twenty-five. Odette had been pleased to see that their difference in age wasn’t harsh at all.
Oh, this is nice! I love seeing this type of background lore. I also like how this family is using their power, wealth, and influence for the greater good. A noble cause indeed, and it def. gives Clovis more of a gentleman vibe.
"Well then. I’ve given every woman in this cast dating and sex advice; I have an honorary pass," Noel said, swatting his hand dismissively at her.
Lmao, this guy's something else fr. Noel's such a troll, so I think we've found which one of your OCs Valen would hang out with.
From what you've said about your Hau, complete chaos would be unleashed if Noel and Hau joined forces. (Still hoping Hau listens to Afroman in at least one moment.)
Hiruition and Lophious...those two Pokemon, never seen them before...Mr. and Mrs. Patenaude cut themselves when they brought them out...right? And they were grotesque, super grotesque...
She closed her eyes, trying to get further into the moments before, during, and after that damned battle.
The Malamar and the Scizor were shiny...people were talking about them ‘holding another’? Those poor ‘mon were tired too...what’d their trainers say about that? Didn’t seem to care...harbor and spawn...harbor and spawn...harbor and spawn...
It was...starting to make sense.
Dorien...saying things about getting his hands on ‘very powerful Pokemon’ for me. Dorien’s in the shiny trade, they seemed to all somehow be in the shiny trade, they all had them…they all had shinies.
They were all there to watch whatever that Malamar and Scizor had harbored and spawned? To perhaps see...what their own shinies could harbor and spawn?
Her eyes snapped open, immediately meeting Noel’s intense stare. She blinked a few times, trying to parse how she was going to say what she wanted to say out loud.
“The shiny trade probably exists because traders know shinies can...make those things, on top of the fact that they're fucking money machines,” she finally said, eyes going wide. She raised a hand to hook it into her hair.“Or, try...they're money machines in the first place because they can make those things? The bottom line is, Dorien knows that. They all. Fucking. Know that.”
“Ding, ding, ding!” Noel said in triumph, holding his hands above his head victoriously.
Odette slammed the book shut and set it down next to her backpack. She then brought both of her hands to cover her face, exhaling sharply as she gave her head a moment to calm down. Though, there was no way that was happening.
Uh oh, that fookboi Dorien gon' get it now. The fact that I'm rooting for Odette and the crew, plus I want her to dropkick Dorien into the next dimension, shows how good you do in getting your readers invested in your characters. (Just make sure the next dimension isn't Raeg-verse)
I think you characterized her thoughts and racing emotions well. The repetition is used for a good buildup. And fr tho, Dorien can go Muk himself.
Noel began to poke his lower lip quizzically. “The note you found pretty much confirmed Team Enigma’s existence, and outed Virtue Corp as the brains behind fudging records. They could definitely know Team Enigma is involved in the trade,” he rationalized. “But I’m still stuck on the why. If Team Enigma is in on the shiny trade, an org like Virtue Corp would surely want that outed, right?”
She nodded again. “You would think,” she said tentatively. However, she had to look at this from all possible angles. If this were all actually true, and Virtue Corp did put it out as such, she would imagine that the negative reaction from the public would be astronomical.
“What if they’re trying to keep all of this under wraps to lessen the possible reaction?” she asked. “There’s so much negative press around the shiny trade and Team Enigma’s possible whereabouts and involvement in the crisis. Putting the two together would cause a social explosion if people found out. Especially if my hypothesis that the wealthy are purposely hoarding those Pokemon is correct.”
“Point taken,” Noel said slowly. The more he considered it, the more he appeared to go along with it. “Something like this dropping on the general public would start a damn riot,” he added. “But I imagine the riots would be even bigger if they found out that things were being hidden from them, you know? Is that a risk the police, or even Virtue Corp, would take? Having a conspiracy like this on their backs?”
Noel held up his hands, almost defensively. “Then again, we could also equally consider the fact that they’re keeping it under wraps because they’re also clueless.” He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his leggings, turning on his heel to begin pacing again. He walked back and forth between her and a nearby bench a few times before talking again.
“Like, maybe they know Team Enigma’s involved, but to what extent? And how does this drug play into everything? Rich humans and their Pokemon are dying, but how is that bridged to the trade? How is it bridged to those Pokemon?”
Odette could only shrug. “We don’t know.”
“And it’s a possibility they don’t either,” Noel said. “Granted, we are running on a shit ton of hypotheticals here; we’re not some big organization. So maybe I’m comparing bluk berries to cheri berries...”
Another round of silence swelled between them. It seemed that they were coming down from their frantic Q and A.
