victory_road | [Closed log]

Entry tags:

[Closed log]

Who: Sion and Ryner
Where: Their house/property outside Ecruteak
When: The morning after prom
Summary: Canon updates mean terrible things and buttloads of guilt
Rating: PG, because this is denyuuden and we can't have nice things
Log:

The sun still hadn't risen yet when Sion awoke, blinking. That in and of itself was no surprise, it was a rare occasion that he slept through a night uninterrupted, but he immediately noticed that something was off. This wasn't where he'd remembered falling asleep to begin with.

And it was dreadfully familiar.

He hadn't seen this place in months, but it took only a moment for the memories to come rushing back. Both the long time he'd spent here, as well as all that had happened in Roland since then. And yet despite it all, here he was again, as if nothing had changed. The same bed, the same room, the same house... Every he and Ryner had done together in their time in this strange, nonsensical world.

Then, of course, there was Ryner. Sion could hear his even breathing, still sound asleep. Not that that was any surprise, Ryner could probably sleep through the end of the world if he were allowed to. No, that was no surprise, but rather the fact that they were still both here, after everything that had happened. After everything that Sion had done.

It was too much for Sion to bear.

"Sol?" Dusk was giving him a concerned look, watching him intently as he carefully moved to climb out of the bed. Of course she'd sense that something was amiss... Sion shook his head, holding a finger to his lips and glancing meaningfully in Ryner's direction; they didn't want to wake him now, did they? Then he reached out and gently stroked the absol's head, his expression sorrowful.

"I know it's asking a lot, but could you do me a favor?" he asked, as quietly as he could manage. Dusk gave him an inquisitive look, and Sion rummaged through some of his things until he came up with a pokeball. Her pokeball. "I need a little time to think. By myself. So..."

The look of concern remained, but Dusk was clearly conflicted. On the one hand, she wanted to make her partner happy, to do as he said. But on the other, there was something very, very wrong right now, some sort of disaster just waiting to happen, though she didn't know what.

Sion just gave her a sad smile. "Please," he said. "That way I can still have you nearby, just in case," he promised.

"Sol..." It was reassurance enough. After all, when had Sion ever given her reason to doubt him? He'd certainly never done anything to break her trust before, so while still a little reluctant, Dusk complied, returning back to her ball. Then, quietly, Sion turned, opened the drawer of the nightstand, and placed it inside, closing the drawer behind it.

That done, he straightened, and still moving as quietly as possible so as not to wake anyone else, threw on some clothes and slipped out of the room. Then it was over the railing and landing softly in the living room to walk over to the front door. Of course, it was impossible that none of the pokemon would be awake, but a simple shake of his head and muttered "not this time" was sufficient for those cases, at least. Which meant that soon enough, he was quietly closing the door behind him and stepping out into the predawn gloom.

And within moments, he was out of sight.

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As was expected, but hey, it was worth a look. Glen turned around, and once he was in the main room again he headed for the sixth hole in the wall.

Rose hummed a little quietly and picked up some of the shed fur. Was it really fur, or did it have a consistency like human hair? Because not being able to see well, she wanted to make sure.

Ryner sighed. "Sion Astupid, I swear to god..."

(Did the path at least continue? Footprints or no.)

The last hole was a little on the small side. Really, it'd be a squeeze for a human to fit through it. But it was still possible. It turned out to be a bit of a tunnel, burrowing into the hillside, and long and twisted enough that the end wasn't readily visible from the entrance.

The bits of fur Rose picked up seemed like just that, fur. They were fairly short and had a texture similar to what one might expect from a growlithe or vulpix or such.

The rocky ledge continued on for a distance, yes, should Ryner choose to explore it. Just how far was hard to tell amongst the overgrowth, but this certainly wasn't the end of it. Though, was that the sound of something bumping in the tangle of roots and branches a little further along? Although perhaps it was just a wild pokemon passing through...

Glen scuttled further into the tunnel - might as well check the whole thing out, right?

Rose, determining that no, Sion hadn't been in here, took one more go around to make sure there wasn't an alternate exit or something, before going back the way she had come to the main chamber.

Ryner... well, he didn't want to go much further until the other two had confirmed a dead lead, but the rustling was worth checking out. So quietly he tiptoed toward it to see if he could figure out what it was without disturbing it.

The tunnel continued to gently curve, before dead-ending in a small chamber at the end. That was most definitely quite empty, and probably would have been difficult to fit a human in anyway.

When Rose comes out the main area looks, well, more or less how it did before, but much darker, given that Glen was down the tunnel. Really, it was probably too dark to make out much of anything without another light source.

Outside, upon reaching the spot where the noise had come from, there didn't seem to be anything much out of the ordinary. Perhaps some dirt or a rock knocked loose and tumbled down, but that was about it. While he looked, however, there was another soft thud nearby, a little further down...

Well, it was worth a shot, anyway. It was unfortunate that the last hole had proven to be a dud, but hey, such is life. He scuttled his way back toward the main area, where Rose was waiting, poking at the same vine wall (on the left from the entrance) that Glen had poked at earlier.

"Clef?"

The Joltik shook his head. No luck.

So Rose sighed and started making her way out of the tree, while Glen spared one moment to take a quick look at the final wall in the chamber (the one from the right of the entrance). He didn't expect there to be anything over here, hence why he'd saved it for last, but hey, you never knew, right?

Meanwhile, outside, Ryner took a glance back at the tree the Pokemon were still exploring, mentally sighed, and crept a little further along toward the thud. As long as he didn't get too far away, they wouldn't lose him, right?

Needless to say, Rose didn't find anything that Glen hadn't already observed from the spot. when Glen approached the wall, however, he found that thanks to a trick of the light and his low perspective, where it had looked like the floor rose to meet the wall, there was actually a narrow hollow between the two. It start with a sudden drop off in the floor about a foot or so away from the wall, and continued down into something of a natural hollow that extended another foot or so under the overhanging rock of the wall. It was empty, however.

The tree and the hollow beneath it looked much the same to Ryner. Certainly the tree itself wasn't going anywhere, the hollow in shadow, with irregular roots and rocks all around it, and definitely no sign of either Rose or Glen. In any case, the thud he'd heard was no more than a couple yards away, although getting there with all the overhead branches in the way wasn't so simple. In some cases the only way forward was to push a branch aside, and at least once when he did so there was a sound from further back--hopefully he hadn't disturbed a wild pokemon hiding in all that tangle!

But if he pressed forward, he'd find the spot in question, which looked, well, just as unremarkable as the first one had.

Because of course it was empty.

A little disappointed but ultimately determined to keep going, Glen and Rose made their way out from beneath the tree, Glen continuing to be a makeshift lightbulb and occasionally helping Rose over some of the not-so-Clefairy-sized bumps along the way with his webs.

...And Ryner stopped at this new spot and gave a quiet "ugh" when he found nothing there.

The way out was uneventful, really, though it might take Rose some effort to climb out again. Not as much as the way in, but still a bit of a steep climb for a small pokemon.

There definitely was little to be seen there. Not even trampled leaves or broken branches leading away, like one might find if something had been hiding there and fled suddenly. Maybe a rock wedged into the soil under a damaged leaf, but that was about it.

Other than that, there wasn't much else of not. There were distant cries of pokemon, of course, and the stream continued to babble along, splashing now and again. Though it was definitely well into the day now, for that matter...

Rose and Glen made their way out from beneath the tree, paused a moment when Ryner wasn't standing right there in order to locate where he'd gone, spotted him quickly, and made their way over to where he was. In Rose's case, she ran pretty quickly, while Glen took it a little slower to look to see what he might find. The perspective of a human and that of a tinyspider are different, after all. Something could have been missed.

Seeing his Clefairy coming and aiming for a running jump, Ryner held out his arms for her just in time. "Hey. Find anything?"

"Clef." She shook her head.

"Hnn... Well, thanks for looking, you two. Come on, let's keep going."

If Glen and Rose weren't careful on their way out, they might slip on some loose soil on the way down, as there was a patch or two that certainly looked firmer from above than it actually was.

But that aside, Glen might notice in passing the first spot Ryner had investigated, in that from below there was a slight but distinct gap in one clump of leaves, and of course the loose dirt patch that Ryner had seen.

Well, that was certainly interesting. Glen approached the gap in the leaves and examined it and its surroundings further.

It wasn't very large, for one thing. Easily missed both if one were neither low to the ground nor small. Just a spot where, at first glance, something was missing.

On closer inspection, that sense of missing-ness appeared to be due to one of the leaves having been knocked to the ground, quite recently to judge from the glistening liquid sap on the break. Nothing else seemed terribly disturbed, however, no sign of a trail to follow or other recently damaged bits.

On the ground below and a little bit away from the broken leaf there was a very, very shallow indentation in the soil, with a small fringe of loose soil around it. And just a little further than that was a small stone, about the size one could easily fit in the palm of a hand (well, if one weren't a tinyspider, that is) resting on the surface of the exposed rock of the ledge, with a very faint trace of scrape marks below it sticking out towards the spot in the dirt.

Glen approached the indentation in the soil first, to see if he could discern any sort of vague shape to it. If it wasn't Obviously Not A Human Footprint, it could be worth something, after all.

And after examining that, he scuttled over to those scrape marks.

It really wasn't very large at all, Perhaps two or three inches long, an inch or so wide, and very shallow. It didn't resemble any kind of footprint, but if Glen had seen craters left behind from large objects (or powerful pokemon attacks) striking open ground it might resemble a very, very small scale one if you squinted.

The scrape marks were just a few small marks across parts of the rocky surface that stuck up a little further than others, going under the small stone and extending back in the direction of the indentation a little bit. It looked a little bit like what one might see if someone had scratched the rock with something, or dragged a hard object across it.

...Well. He wasn't quite sure what this could be, but it looked like it could be important, so.

"Tik!" he called, waving his front legs to get the others' attention, and Ryner turned and came over.

"What'd you find, Glen?" he asked as he saw the scrape marks. (From the perspective of a human, which is markedly different from the perspective of a tinyspider.)

From the perspective of a human (and what's more, a human with more than a little familiarity with analyzing things) and with the guidance of a tinyspider to see all the pieces, it looked like the rock had hit the ground, making the small indentation in the dirt, then skidded a little further along the stone surface of the ledge, creating the faint marks. At an angle, no less, to judge by the position of those spots relative to the damaged leaf, which meant it didn't just fall straight down from above, but must have come from somewhere upstream. Certainly none of the upper bank looked like the stone could have easily come from there, not from the direction and momentum the marks implied.

...Well.

His gaze traveled from the rock, toward the direction it had come from. This wasn't just here, and it wasn't here for no reason.

But if it had been thrown...

"Good find," he told Glen, as he started walking in the direction the stone had come from.

Judging from the positioning and the angle and such, Ryner could probably spot the general area it may have originated from. When he started in that direction, however, it quickly became evident that it was around the same place as the entrance to the hollow Glen and Rose had been exploring just a short while ago.

Great.

That's great.

"Are you sure you didn't find anything in there?" he asked quietly as he looked up, at the tree that was above the hollow.

"Fairy." Rose shook her head. The most she'd found was fur.

"Tik..." And Glen hadn't found anything either.

The tree was a large old tree, with its roots overhanging and framing the entrance to the hollow. Even on close examination--or as close as one could get without climbing--however, there was no sign of recent damage or disturbance to it. For that matter, the angle would have made it a somewhat difficult climb to scramble up at that particular point, as there was a lack of good handholds beyond the thick roots, the tree's lowest branches towering overhead.

Neither had found anything, but they had certainly been in there a long time, suggesting there'd been quite a bit to explore. For that matter, the noises Ryner had investigated had occurred while Rose and Glen were in the midst of their exploring. And it was certainly possible that the stone could have been thrown from just within the entrance to the hollow, even.

...They hadn't found anything, but what if they'd missed something?

Or what if he'd moved? If he'd moved into a place they'd already checked while they were looking elsewhere, would they have noticed?

He certainly couldn't have climbed the tree, and the stone couldn't have just fallen.

"...Let's look again. All together this time," he said, with a slight bit of hesitation but not much. There was still the chance this was a waste of time, but he didn't exactly have any better leads.

The Pokemon looked up at him curiously, but if he thought it was a good idea, surely he knew what he was doing. And so they followed him into the hollow once more.

(...And when got down there, it finally occurred to him that he did have a small light source on him, didn't he. So he pulled out his Pokegear. Its backlight would be at least something.)

Edited 2016-12-12 05:55 (UTC)

The light wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't exactly a huge space to illuminate. For a full-grown adult, it was obviously a fair bit more cramped than it had been for his pokemon, but otherwise once Ryner reached the main area there was plenty of room to maneuver. Upon looking around, from his higher vantage point he could easily see the areas to the sides from before, as well as the tangle towards the back. A little shifting of the light would reveal that all the places visible from here were indeed empty.

Areas that he could clearly see from here were empty weren't worth looking at, but the hollows that weren't so obvious, especially the ones in the back, might be. Ryner approached each one in turn with his makeshift flashlight, just to make sure, as he continued to think.

"...You guys are sure you didn't see him?"

"Tik."

"...Was there any point where neither of you were watching the exit?"

The two pondered for a second, before Rose chirped "Clefairy..." There was one point where they were both in holes, after all.

"Jol joltik?" But wouldn't they have heard him? Is Glen's question. He's a human, and this space isn't that big.

"When he was little, he had to avoid a lot of assassins," Ryner responded, anticipating what Glen's confusion was about. "Being a bastard prince and all. So hiding and not being noticed aren't skills he'll have gotten rid of..."

He still wanted to make absolutely sure, but he was starting to get the feeling that he knew what Sion Astupid had done.

Edited (...yeah the old version wasn't coherent at all...) 2016-12-28 21:32 (UTC)

Well, Sion wouldn't have had to be silent to sneak away, after all, just quieter than the two pokemon. And earth and rock weren't exactly bad at muffling sound, for that matter.

Still, though, should Ryner choose to explore the back of the hollow, he'd find it just as void of any wayward best friend as Rose and Glen did.

Of course. Of course, and he'd just let him do this. Of course. Dammit Sion.

He turned around as quickly as he could for the entrance. ...Not that that was as fast as he'd like, given the small quarters, but there are things Ryner had been trained in too, and time spent sparring with the Pokemon had kept him in better shape than he might be otherwise.

"You two stay at the entrance for a minute, okay?" he said quietly before he exited. "Keep an eye out."

Rose and Glen looked at each other, wondering what Ryner was thinking, but they did what they were told, at least.

And as quietly as he could - which, when you're brought up as an assassin, even if you're purposefully fail at it, you have to learn certain things (but then again he was annoyed so he might not have been perfect) - he made his way back toward the clefts to check them again.

Because there was a very real possibility that Sion had chosen to sneak to a place that had already been searched while nobody was watching the entrance, in the hope that it would be assumed clear. That's just the kind of asshole move that stupid king would pull, wasn't it.

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