Chapter Eleven: Introducing Killpoint

“Vol?”

Volaphomet took in the sky. A big, open hole let it in through the guild’s square. Here, it got a perfect frame between the cliffs, a perfect rocky line surrounding her. Some mailbirds passed above, squabbling and loud. They cut through low clouds and vanished, but left strips of white fluff trailing after. They reminded her of prison.

“Vol? Hey, Volaphomet?”

Images of cells played across Volaphomet’s mind. Repetitive stripes of bars and repetitive bricks making walls that led her through repetitive days. Gray food and walls and even outside, it seemed like the clouds were there most days.

“Vol? You in there?”

Volaphomet blinked, drew her paw away from her chin and snapped back to the present. A quick knock on Sewall’s shield-like purple scales let the nidoking know she was listening. He nodded in response, letting Volaphomet dip and hike back up as she rode on his head.

Luckily, being an emolga prepared her for the motion. Pokemon as small as her felt everything ten times as strongly as everyone else. Probably. Not like she’s asked literally everyone.

Yet.

“Yo, Vol, ya hearin’ us? All that static pluggin’ up yer ears?”

Darn, she was slipping away again.

“Yes, b’y, gotcha, bud. I’m hearin’ ya,” she shot back, peering around Seawall’s horn. Azazel and Hiudix both watched her from below,  one lounging in the grass and one standing at attention respectively. She liked the view from on top of Seawall. Both others were like spiky little mountains from on her perch—Azazel’s harsh black-and-white stripes contrasting hard against the ground, the linoone’s fur sticking out every which direction from either end; and Hiudix’s, well, spikes. Hard to miss the jagged ice splitting from the sandslash’s back. “Whaddya at?”

“Got the gist of it? The meeting?”

Ah, the meeting. She was so used to sitting in the back, being passed over and flying under the radar, she hardly thought to pay attention. But it seems all the rain had washed in something new, because things seemed to be changing.

It started with them being woken up and kicked out. All bleary-eyed, shouted up before they could even get their things. She only got smart gathered around the square outside and in the shade of the gatehouse, watching lines of ground and rock-types march through and into an empty guild. No patience for the flowers, them. They trampled all the cornflowers into blue paste at the grassy shoulders of the path.

Those were the contractors, according to Brute. And the guild couldn’t get back in for a couple days. Which meant finding some other shack to squat in. Should be good for the big ol’ bug. Or not, who’d know what goes on in his noggin—he had something feverish about him that morning, raving and anxious and wrapping his claws around his head even as he started the meeting.

“Team weasels is missing,” he muttered, staring out at the gathered pokemon like he was giving a eulogy.

“Did Larcen not leave a note?” Aulion said.

“Y-yes, but he said a couple days. That’s two! It’s been three days!”

Thereabouts set the tone for the rest of the meeting. Turns out Landy’d locked himself in the basement cells with his feral, so Brute couldn’t get his drugs or whatever Landy gave him that was keeping him stable, and there they were. It came to an end once Auloin took him to the side and with the heavy feeling that they’d gone nowhere.

At least team Killpoint got something out of it.

“Check the board,” he’d said, sitting on the brick lining of the square’s planter, calm enough to actually address Volaphomet. “The important one. We finally have some jobs up there, and since you’re the only fully functioning team we have right now, I’d like you to take them. Please.”

Seawall nodded and led the way, stomping up to the board as Volaphomet clung to his horn and their partners trailed behind.

She couldn’t remember the last time anything had been posted there. Grey rainwater stains cut squares into the surface of the wood, the only signs it had ever been used—and not very well, by her ideas. Two postings waited for them, One snatched by Hiudix, grumbling as Azazel snaked around his spikes to read alongside him. Seawall got the other, perching it on his horn so she could read it.

Formal was a nice word for it. Rotten. It got the mayor’s stamp prominent, right on the face of it, wax dripping down the nice folds that must’ve fit it in an envelope. Guard duty for some rally of his, down at the park. Volaphomet could tell he’d written it himself not only from the nasty cursive ruining good, clean paper, but also because he wouldn’t stop yammering about the rally— his politics, his importance, his love of the blah blah, yadda yadda. She could imagine the way that slowking would clack his teeth together, run his mitts along the rim of his frill, snort and wave them off like they’re gutter-trash.

They were gutter-trash, to be fair, but he was worse. Not born rich, yet rich.

She snorted, standing up to pin the notice on Seawall’s horn so it pierced that rotten pokemon’s wax seal. He grumbled below her, but said nothing.

“I got not much good up here. Mayor business. How’s ye down there?”

“There is a missing child,” Hiudix said. He’d pinned the notice, letting it dangle like a caught fish between two icy claws. “He vanished two days ago out by the mountains. The notice comes from his mother.”

Volaphomet perked up, sparks crackling off her. She let her enthusiasm shine out her eyes and oet Hiudix shifting nervously as she grinned at him. Great news! Well, not the missing kid, but the opportunity they offered. She’d thought the guild would deal in more stuff like it, but instead they got the petty requests—the item fetching and thefts (and all those were Larcen’s fault anyway) with which the mayor’s request belonged. Here, though, was real work. Important work. Something to prove herself with.

“That’s the one! Hand it up here, b’y.”

“We were told to do both.”

She met his blank, icy stare with a grimace.

“Eh, not interested. Not in one.”

“Heh. you tell ‘im, we ain’t licking that bastard’s paws—not today,” Azazel chuckled from beside him, still up in Hiudix’s space, worming around him to snatch the posting.

Seawall grumbled from below her, reaching one massive paw up to snatch the letter from his horn.

“Vol,” he said. A lingering disappointment sat below the word. Sad and pleading.

Darn, she hated how easy he worked on her. She sighed, patting him on the head.

“Fine, fine. Hiudix takes Azazel to the mayor, I get Seawall.”

Predictably, they met her with two blank faces.

“Truly, sir? Azazel?”

“Hey, don’t talk at me like you’re the good one,” Azazel responded, pointy black snout wrinkling in derision even as he stuck his tongue out. “And why do I never get to ride Seawall, huh? We’d make a great team.”

Volaphomet rolled her eyes and hefted herself up against Seawall’s horn, posing one fist at her side, sparks dancing off her cheeks.

“Who tells me what I looks like?” she asked, surveying her team.

Hiudix and Azazel looked at each other, pointy noses almost touching.

“Our leader, sir.”

“A boss, boss.”

And Seawall nodded beneath her.

“You’d be right! And boss boss gets her picka the litter, eh? So toss’er here.”

She could tell they still weren’t jumping off the rocks in excitement, but Hiudix let go of the paper, gave it to Sewall and took what he offered with not much but a warning glance to Azazel. It went unheeded—the linoone wiggled eagerly at the opportunity to be an annoyance.

“We’ll regroup tonight fer a bite, eh?” Volaphomet said. “Break?”

The others nodded. Pride swelled in her as any doubt fled from their eyes. Even Azazel found a still moment and met her head-on. Not that it lasted long. He also used the distraction to take Hiudix’s paper in his mouth, tear off down the path, cackling, and scrambled around the corner in a cloud of dust. For his part, Hiudix only groaned. He cut his claws together and grumbled something under his breath and though he tried searching for help, nobody could help him against Azazel. That chirpy cackle faded away down the valley.

But as Hiudix turned to catch up, he paused. Scuffed his footclaws into the ground and curled on himself slightly—the twitching of his ears barely visible through the translucent blue sheen of his ice spikes.

“I trust you will handle this gently.”

Then he broke away, flinging himself into a roll to keep up.

Volaphomet blinked off her confusion for a minute. There was a bit of nostalgia watching them scamper off—how long had it been since she got out? Barely a year, bet. But boy, does she fly. A self-satisfied smile broke out over her face. She patted Sewall on the horn and felt him let out a low rumble.

“Any ideas?” he asked.

She took the moment to scrutinize the job. Unlike the mayor’s garbage, this letter was frantic, played out on an old invoice with thick black text and speckled with inkblots. It’s odd that a case like that would be dropped on the guild’s lap, though. Seafolk usually went to the mayor’s police first. Not for nothing; they locked her up, after all. Did some good, there. But a creeping dread buried any enthusiasm as she read.

Missing sneasel child: went exploring one day and didn’t come back. Living on the outskirts of town (but where else would a sneasel live?). Lots of uncomfortable stuff around this one. Volaphomet grimaced and read over the page again to bury her discomfort.

It made sense, unfortunately. Hiudix would feel some kinship with his clan, and she doubted the mayor’s flunkies would be willing to do much about a missing Cirrian child.

“Vol?”

She shook herself. Blinked. The paper’d put her in a funk, but her routes were still open. She’d do what she’d always done.

“We meet up with the ol’ boys. Gets ourselves some info—they like lurking around the mayor’s office, bet the kid’s mom stopped there in the first.”

“Sure they’ll let me in?”

She scoffed, scooted forward to drop down and peer into his eyes. Scratches layered themselves into deep grooves all around his scales, but they sunk most deeply around wide eyes. Still so innocent, too. But he didn’t see himself all the time—and not years ago. Sometimes it seemed like he forgot how scary he could be. She smirked. Upside-down it must’ve looked strange.

“Yes, b’y. You’ve got your muscles. They’ll think you got a good head fer catchin’ me.”

He smiled back. So, so small. Poor man wasn’t used to it yet.

“Let’s off, then. Kick’er into gear, eh?”

He grunted. Then strode forward. Taking his horn in hand, she leaned back and let the valley usher them through.

Thoughts of herself pulling a sobbing sneasel into her arms filled her mind. Of taking them alongside her and dropping them back in their mother’s arms, soaking up the praise and adulation, the applause, and she’d smile and know her own place in this world. Finally, after all this effort, she’d stop finding flecks of red under her claws.

She’d be no hero—not to the town—but a hero she’d still be. All those stains were nothing compared to that.

~(0)~

Hiudix would never find comfort in his homeland. Any trip to Seaflok became a reminder of society erected not by him—not by his clan or those, even, who owned the land in the first place.

Of course, Azazel faced no such dilemma, being a come-from-away himself. He relived his younger days as a zigzagoon, scampering back and forth across the path in an effort to be as obnoxious as possible, waiting just out of reach with teeth clenched around the mayor’s letter and with back turned to the wagons traveling through that were forced to wait and shout him down.

They shouted down Hiudix, too, as if Azazel were his responsibility. As he looked into the eyes of the wartortle—one sitting on a wooden hayride drawn by a testy mudsdale—he had to remind himself. Though there were many unkind things he could say, this was not the wartortle’s fault. He would get nowhere lecturing them. He ushered Azazel off the path and let them pass by, accepting their condescending glares with dignity.

They were supposed to meet the mayor and his entourage at Center park. From the road, it remained cloistered in the city. If it was still possible to travel through the mountains, he could imagine it as a great, green island in the ocean of brown and gray between the mountains and the sea. But although he dreamed of climbing often, he’d perhaps lost some of that spirituality that drove some to return to the peaks and likely lose themselves in the dungeons.

Some would call it pragmatism. Whatever it was, he mourned the loss it represented.

And resisted the urge to say something as Azazel scampered through the city and the residents looked at him as if he were the tourist.

The first signs of the park were a welcome relief. To the grass-types as well, likely. Their work was evident—great willows pushing up against wooden buildings, vines and wind-swept flowers and creepers and grasses that all exploded from the ground in great disregard to the carefully-laid bricks that wound from the streets only to be consumed by the wild.

The only competition was the ugly wooden stage being erected right in the center, flowers being trampled by the burlier sorts, all overseen by a hulking swampert and the slowking wandering boredly beside him.

That would be the mayor and his chief of security. Alexander and King, respectively. They barely parted, though Hiudix had it on good authority that it was not because of any friendship. He could see it the way they bristled against each other, the warning glances whenever one arm glanced against another.

These were the leaders of the coast. They hardly inspired.

Not that it stopped Azazel. As soon as he spotted them, he went trotting up, a shit-eating grin on his muzzle and leaving Hiudix to watch from the path.

Hiudix couldn’t afford to wait. The precious seconds Azazel had on his own were often more than enough time to ruin whatever he decided to stick his nose in. And he seemed to have already worked his magic. By the time Hiudix caught up, the two mons’ posturing turned to him full force—not that it slowed him down. If anything, the way Azazel propped himself on his hind legs and drew himself into Alexander’s face spoke of an overconfidence that most left behind in childhood. Hiudix, at least, could remember a time he’d leave his clan’s camp and go into town just to start a fight. But those days had fallen in the sea and drowned.

“Well, Azazel, it seems you found them promptly,” he said, coming around to place a warning claw on the linoone’s shoulder. Alexander met them head-on, face sinking slightly as if trying to recognise them. “We’re here for the posting.”

Alexander tilted his head back, heavy crown dragging it down and that ruby gem glinting in the sun as if it were watching also. Then he waved off King from behind. A slow, pink paw dragging through the air with invisible currents spiraling off it. The swampert rolled his shoulder, muscles flexing, but he trundled off after a moment to shout orders at a group of pokemon relaxing in the shade.

”Well, I guess I should’ve expected guild pokemon for posting at the guild. I don’t know why they sent you,” he drew a paw across his frill, fixating on the linoone in Hiudix’s arm.

Azazel’s tongue dangled from his maw. He bristled in the attention, digging fur sharply into Hiudixi’s arm and getting him to yank it back with a hiss.

“Heh. You love us. I sees the kind of pokemon comin’ and goin’ from your little castle.” He shimmied back to the ground, taking a few hyperactive leaps around and ending up in the same place—to no reaction. “Bet you’d like to know what I’m thinkin’ of that, huh?”

“No.”

“He’s got a freaky side, isn’t he?” Azazel practically hip checked Hiudix with how excited he was. The sandslash grunted but stood his ground.

Alexander snorted. “I’m not happy to get either of you. You should be thankful my normal security is on strike and there’s no quicker options available.”

Should he? Hiudix felt demonstrably ungrateful at the moment. He would never allow himself, but he had the sudden urge to spit at the slowking’s nubby little claws.

“I would like to get this over with as well.”

“I’ll brief you. Normally, I’d get King to do it, but I’m not sure I trust him to have my best interests in mind.” He paused to pay special attention to Azazel. “Though perhaps I’ll end up regretting this. Don’t make me.”

Hiudix mumbled something like agreement and let the mayor walk them up the newly-constructed staircase to the beginnings of a stage. For the first time, it seemed he had a presence. Other pokemon noticed him. Workers nodded their heads lightly as if unsure how to react, bystanders drew closer together. Whether from him or Azazel or the mayor, he couldn’t tell.

Alexander would like not to regret this, yes? Well, they’ll have to see about that.

~(0)~

Volaphomet hadn’t lost her touch, at least. She finessed as finessers did and drunk in the adrenaline with a puffed chest and cheeky lean against Seawall’s horn.

Con did stand for confident after all. Not that she was proud of it, she’d just started weaning herself off, is all. A couple years in the clink, a couple years after to tiptoe around in the shadow of Seawall and her parole and the city, y’know. She had some time, is all, and time enough to smile again and remember the good times. Even if she was a worse pokemon back then.

Was the first time she’d been out to the east side of Seafolk in years. She recognised the storefronts, tilted tent structures and heavy steps chunking down the road instead of a gentle slope. The always-wet mud mixing from the sea and the nearby cliffs those homes were built into. The smell of dirt, of rotting wood and lime dust. The pokemon still hadn’t moved on: that golisopod who ran the general store and kept her other cashbox under the counter looked on from her window; the group of lombre who liked to hustle by the docks, and plotted in a dingy stairwell until they met her with wide eyes; the scrafty who ran his own dojo, the one with the tattered shed bundled around his legs who always shot her a wicked grin. His name was… Saba! Well, she thought. He lingered around another storefront, hunched on an upturned fishing crate, sorting through layers of bandages. Just the mon she hoped to see—Saba’d been here ages longer than her, knew each resident, probably.

Today, Saba’s grin turned unbelieving. He faltered, paws moving on autopilot through the bandages until they worked to a crawl and settled. She met his energy, sparks flying off her cheeks and scattering across Seawall’s plates like thousands of tiny fireworks.

Seawall must have noticed her energy. He reached a giant paw up and prodded her in the cheek as if to remind her. He could still keep her in check.

“Oh, hell, you’re back,” Saba said, but couldn’t stop smiling.

“Nah, not me. This girl’s a different boy, she’d tell ya.”

He blanched more, if that was possible.

“It is you. Fuck me—”

“Ah!”

“Sorry, frig me sideways, Vol, you’re a surprise,” he said. Then must’ve noticed Seawall beneath her and that violent grin quirked. “And uh—”

“Sorry.” Volaphomet waved him off. “Big guy’s Seawall. My Parole officer.”

He rumbled beneath her. Oh, she knew how he got about that ol’ thing. Parole officer. Not for years—yeah, she had that kinda charm. Even Saba stuck around longer than his smile.

“Ah— right, well.”

“I says I’m changed, I mean it, Saba,” she huffs. “But there’s no time to chirp, I’ve got questions. We’s catchin’ up so might as well.”

“That’s chirpin’, Vol.”

“Eh, well.”

Saba barely relaxed. He managed to sink back against the grit and stain of the wall behind him, and put his feet up on the crate he’d been sorting at, but his arms still fell naturally into a fold.

“Well, hit me with those questions, then.”

Vol put on her professional face— the kinda thing she imagined an ol’ gumshoe liked. Furrowed and serious, nose itching from her own twisted whiskers. She tutted, patting Seawall’s horn.

“There’s a missing kid we’ve been searching for. Figured momma’d swing by the mayor’s at some point.” She sneered, pink bastard’s face tumbling through her memories. An ugly smear in a picturebook of other ugly smears. “You lads keepin’ up down there, eh?”

“Sometimes,” he said. He shrugged. “But not recently. He’s getting security.”

Sure. She knew that from the morning. Probably shouldn’t let it slip she shared dorms with that same security, though. Something she’d have to remember wandering around the slums like she still belonged—none of her folk at the guild would slide in nice here. Or not anymore if they used to. She shrugged.

“Never stopped ya.”

He chuckled. “You’re right on that account. The kids have been all anxious—needling him and poking around his office. Something going down, though I couldn’t say what.”

“Kids, yeah. Haven’t heard’a the big guilds pourin’ in?”

The way he screwed up his face said he had. He wore his mood on his face easily, always, and Volaphomet could track it. It settled somewhere in the gutter, in the stray whiffs of old seawater and wet concrete and molding paper.

Interesting news, besides. Not really what she wanted, but she could resist no gossip. Anyway,

“Not here fer that, b’y. Wes lookin’ around for a missin’ sneasel kid. He one’a yours?”

Saba’s already strained frown turned rotten. He ran a paw nervously through his mohawk. Tried turning his attention back to the bandages but not a couple seconds of trying weakened until he only sat stilly over them again. His shadow coulda darkened, leaning like a shipwreck over the rocks that wrecked him. He cleared his throat.

“Shame about that. Nobody knows where he’s gone. You’d know—pokemon go missing sometimes, but you don’t expect it to be kids. Mom’s a wreck. Security’s not helping, mayor’s got nothing. Probably wasn’t him else someone would’ve done something about it already.”

Volaphomet sat back, Seawall adjusting beneath to keep her pitching backwards. He mumbled something under his breath that she didn’t quite catch. Then, he often liked to talk ‘round himself.

Times like these reminded her why she wasn’t much of a detective, despite her efforts. She couldn’t make much out of this and the more she thought the more she reminded herself of the gravity. Not fun at all—all she could think was to speak to the mom.

And as if to read her mind, Seawall chimed beneath her,

“We should speak to the mom,” he said.

She looked back out over Saba. Noticed the dulling scales and fraying ends of his mohawk. The wrinkles that sat deep in his scales. How old could he be? How old could anyone be around here? They either made it young, go jailed or old. Suddenly the sights of old friends muddied. Those lombre looked skinny, the golisopod shaken and wired.

And Saba hissed lightly, lips wrapped tight to reveal just a crisscross slit of teeth.

He shook his head. “She’s gone too, sorry to say.”

Volaphomet blanched.

“What? Gone? Like the kid?”

He shrugged. “Normally she’s in that apartment between twelve and thirteen. No number on it, but anyone’d point you. But…” He hiked up the shed skin bunching around his waist. “Friends told me she’s worried. Gone off to live with a relative and look on her own.”

“So she thinks the kid’s out of Seafolk.”

“I guess.”

But he didn’t seem so solid on that. Not suspicious, exciting as it would be. Saba was a pokemon that would sooner run than lie.

That didn’t leave her anywhere. Something about that was still lies. So they’d check the apartment, but there wouldn’t be much point. And pokemon living here wouldn’t be sharing locations readily if they went off to hide. Or run. She shared a silent, thoughtful hum with Seawall beneath her. They must be thinking the same thing—why go? The mom must know something if she’s so certain not to find the kid here.

The goal stayed the same then. Not much point wading in muddy puddles, best to get goin’.

Volaphomet pointed and fired a couple sparks in Saba’sdirection. He watched them fry and fizzle away at his feet.

“Well, thanks Saba. Hopes to see ya.”

Still, he managed a final chuckle, puffing his chest just slightly and trying to get his hands back into work.

“Hope not, if you’re as changed as you seem. Don’t see many of us hanging around their ah… parole officers.”  He pointed at Seawall. Big guy didn’t manage much reaction, but his plates tightened beneath Volaphomet.

Eh, maybe he was right. She kinda liked to slide back into her old spaces, ugly and dingy as they were, but they didn’t change much alongside her.

So she just waved him off, set her sights back down the path, through tumbling awnings and sly glances over cracked windowframes, and patted Seawall onward. To momma’s house.

~(0)~

Setup went smoothly. It wasn’t like Hiudix expected much else, if he respected one thing about the workers of Seafolk it was their shocking efficiency. Only after a long break and a stern word from the resident swampert of course, but such was the life of the standard contract labourerer, he supposed. Azazel fell into much of the same pattern. The second it became clear that Alexander would not rise to his bait and the bustle of pokemon trampled over all attention he would get jumping from the bushes, growling, he instead mingled with the unearned breakers. Or fell asleep somewhere close by and forced Hiudix to stomp over and drag him up before they got in trouble. Besides these typical issues, he caused little trouble.

The stage erected seemingly by itself, complete with unfurled banners in dull pinks and whites and splattered with an illustration of Alexander at his most genteel. Lording over the square, surely, arms still infamously stuck behind his back and a hint of psychic glow in wide, friendly eyes, but almost kind compared to usual. Flower garlands grew under the paws of grass-types and were cut and strung up in turn, wafting a fragrant, floral thing that Hiudix still had not gotten used to even years living in the grown parts of the mountains. Attendance ebbed and flowed but close to speech time, the burly contractors were vastly outnumbered by a wave of civilians, some of which brought their poor children to suffer in boredom. As Alexander took place behind his podium and waited for King and Hiudix and Azazel to mark the entrances, the crowd coalesced in the open meadow. A sea of faces on the edge of curling into frowns and hissing and spitting.

Hiudix couldn’t tell whether to be insulted that he, specifically, was picked out by Alexander and pointed earnestly to the very back alley entrance, conveniently out of sight from the crowd. Even Azazel got point at the other edge of the stage, letting him bite his tongue at bystanders without restraint.

Regardless of his feelings, Hiundix had a job to do. And with a vague glance, he could at least trust Azazel to stay put. If only for the entertainment of the crowd.

So he took post at the crumbling brick edge, choked by ivy and whose shadow fought damp moss for dominance along the floor. The perfect place to blend in and catch interlopers off guard. He huffed a final relaxed breath, forced his posture straight, brought up his quills and put on his sternest frown.

And waited.

Alexander had the ambitions of a big-city politician but it had never been more true that he could not reach those. Hiudix could not remember his last speech. He may have attended it. But in trying to appear friendly onstage, Alexander’s words simply slid through his mind. Washed over the crowd. Even those who approached the front of the stage ready to bite seemed to deflate—old balloons left out for days. By the time Alexander got past his introductions, his credentials and acumen, and into his development plans, even Azazel seemed bored—slumped over, halfway off the edge of the stage and watched over by a hulking King.

Hiudix did not feel the pull of sleep. But he could only pay attention to those plans. Those were the only words that stuck—that drew him back up and fixed his posture as it slipped.

“…and build out the harbourfront, of course, in both directions. New drydocks on either end, a dozen new piers, and we’re building up along the cliffs…

It ended up being less interesting than he thought. No mention of the East end or the mountains. Not concerning Hiudix, then. Of course, common sense said Alexander would not speak openly of more controversial matters. He certainly cleared his throat a lot, folding his frill over and over and openly ignoring any raised paws. Hiudix supposed things continued as they started. This low drone in the background, mixing with the oncoming winds brought over by an overcast. Alexander’s snout wrinkled as the clouds showered his ceremony in shadow, but beyond that nothing interesting drew Hiudix’s attention away.

At first.

Until he noticed movement.

It began with a shimmer. A glittering in the grass that he might have mistaken for the sheen of dew. Which he did, at first, or the glimpse of movement drawn out by the wind. Until he realised he could follow it, eyes squinted, quills up. He shuffled forward, tracking the subtle shifting of grass. Once it passed by his corner, he struck. Claws out, he leapt, soundless, catching something smooth and scaly between his claws. The flash of reveal was drowned out in the movement, but by the time he dragged the intruder back into the alley it’d come from, it formed into creature of purple scales, hackles equally raised but now hidden from the crowd behind Hiudix’s wall of quills.

It took a moment longer to realise.

“Soleiro,” Hiudix whispered, leaning back like a rattlesnake waiting to strike.

Hiudix caught a faint glimpse of something feral meeting his eyes, but Soleiro recovered quickly muscles relaxed and sinking back against the brick wall and meeting his threat with a flat stare.

“Ah. Didn’t think you’d be up for Alexander’s detail. Changed sides, huh?”

Oh, of course. Hiudix did not let up. Every second around Soleiro needed some sort of pressure. Not to keep him in check, really, simply to not let anything out. If he could mimic a statue for a while, they might part having learned nothing from each other—and all the better with someone like that. Soleiro had an unfortunate knack for gathering information that Hiudix was not ready to test.

So, “Leave,” was all he decided to say.  Dipping his voice low and husky like he remembered his elders did, snouts underlit by licks of spectral fire rising with the moral of their oral mythtelling.

Soleiro pretended to think in response. Or perhaps he did think—but with a tilt of the head that seemed almost sarcastic.

“I’ve just come up with a deal for you,” he said, placing his claws against Hiudix and attempting to pat them out from around his chest. Hiudix did not budge. “Alexander has a safe in his office. The key to that safe is hanging on his waist right now. You let me past, I’ll take it and we can pretend that I was never here.”

A terrible proposition, certainly.

“I’m not interested in his money.”

Soleiro shook his head.

“I think Alexander should’ve become an architect if he actually cared about helping pokemon,” he said, “this is about blueprints. Plans—little diaries he likes to write in when he thinks he’s alone at night, the most solitary author I’ve ever seen. I’ve never caught a glimpse of what he’s planning, but I know he only does it with the door locked. It’s interesting, isn’t it?”

Unfortunately, that happened to interest him. His nose twitched. Barely, but Hiudix clocked it as a mistake the moment he felt Soleiro relax further.

“You know how I work,” Soleiro said, “I’ll let you in on the information. And consider the price paid already. If you let me go.”

Hiudix held his breath. Swallowed and tasted iron. Many others would dismiss Soleiro as creepy and otherwise avoid him. Hiudix suspected that was the strategy—the method he used to pick up so much information and use that to his advantage. That and the camouflage. He could map himself to a background, watch dully from the corner of a room and simply absorb what he needed to and slip away like sand dragged from the beach and into the sea.

And yet Hiudix wanted to lean his way for once. For all his knowledge, Soleiro did not have power. Perhaps he could gain some this way, but that remained the only reason Hiudix still hesitated.

“The speech is almost over,” Soleiro drawled, pointing up at the stage where Alexander finished talking about policy and had begun to rub his throat, wincing.

Hiudix fidgeted. He tried to keep stoic but couldn’t help his free claw wandering to scratch at his chin. Sharp, but it put his mind in focus. While nothing good could come from letting Soleiro have that key, given the changes rapidly approaching Seafolk, he doubted much bad could come from it either.

Of course, his hesitation did not vanish. There was a reason, after all. He couldn’t simply do the deed himself beyond sounding like a stuck windchime when he walked.

“I won’t tell Volaphomet.” Soleiro chimed in, reading his mind.

This did not settle much. Volaphomet might not care about Alexander, but she did care about her newfound moral crusade and as exasperating as that could be in the heat of the moment, Hiudix couldn’t deny buying into it to some degree.

Only, when he looked Alexander in the face and tried to see the thoughts behind that sneering mask, Hiudix found himself not caring as much anymore.

Still, Volaphomet would not forgive him for a while.

“Fine. So long as I remain uninvolved.” Hiudix softened, grip slack around the kecleon’s waist, letting him slip through. “Where will you share the… plans?”

Soleiro brushed him off, sliding around Hiudix and against the brick and ivy. In a blink, he vanished. Replaced by a disembodied voice and a parting shimmer cutting the air.

“Oh, you’ll get them eventually—I know what you’re looking for. Just keep on your toes for a while.”

He got lost instantly, passing from the overgrown edges of the park and into the open shade, with shorter grass and moss choked out by overhangs of foliage. Hiudix only noticed him again on the stage. Alexander was in the midst of turning, propping up a point with an open palm and underlining the result with a limp stamp of the foot, shaking the boards beneath him. He paused a moment, silent, and Hiudix held his breath. But then continued, whipping around to reveal one less key on his belt.

And that was that. Hiudix let his breath go, rolled his shoulders, glanced quickly out at the crowd and hoped nobody noticed.

This was a bad choice, he recognised. But out of his claws now. And ultimately not strange to the average day in Seafolk. Volaphomet would not find out. Nothing would come from it. He would perhaps discover Alexander wishing to build a gilded statue of himself for the other guilds to be unimpressed by and that was that.

He could only hope.