Today's mood: my unbelievable joy as I realize I can title this 'Dicks In Distress'

[vrdantwind]

Who: Claude, Dimitri, Felix, and Dedue (along with Emet, Dirk, and Jane)
Where: The water temple, lowest level
When: Between one and two days after SOMEBODY got themselves sealed in a temple because Emet's never watched an Indiana Jones movie
Summary: Hearing that Jane is in trouble, Claude, Dimitri, and Felix spring into action!...oh, Emet and Dirk are there too, I guess. Dedue comes along as the adult supervision.
Rating: E for Emet

The travel time was really the most time-consuming part of this rescue.

Claude had snapped from lethargically depressed to driving himself hard, once he'd heard friends of his (well...he doubts Emet or Dirk would ever use a word as equalizing as 'friends') needed help, and he hasn't slowed down since. But reaching the temple still couldn't be made to go any faster. The good news is that actually navigating the temple to get to the people they're here to help has been fairly easy, insofar as taking direction from Emet-Selch can be called easy. (They're not hard to follow; it's just stomaching the tone they're given in that's a struggle. Emet has been put on mute several times, mostly to keep Felix from throwing the Gear into the water outside the dry area Dive affords them.)

Of course, the suggestions Emet offers for the puzzles turn out to be useless, because it seems as though - somehow - the puzzles on the same route the others took before them are different from what Emet describes. That's worth some later consideration, but for now, Claude simply focuses on solving them himself, with whatever assistance Felix, Dimitri, and Dedue can offer. Of course, since Claude is extremely good at puzzles, this doesn't slow their progress as much as it could. And Dimitri and Felix will get to see their boyfriend at his most laser-focused, as well; these aren't abstract games for fun. These are obstacles between Claude and the well-being of three other people. People he knows, who are - sardonically, ironically, and genuinely - counting on him.

And so, as fast as he can churn out solutions, they're pushing through. And eventually, they reach a door.

Claude studies it briefly before speaking into his Gear. He's not entirely sure how thick it is, or if sound will be audible past it. "Can you hear us outside, Emet? This should be the door, right?"

He can already see opening it won't be easy. The puzzle he's staring down looks significantly more complicated than anything else they've encountered on their way down...not surprising, considered the treasures Emet revealed it had been guarding. Not for the first time, Claude laments Grant's not coming with them. He loves Dimitri and Felix desperately, but neither of them are particularly good with puzzles or riddles or...well, anything convoluted, really. Dimitri's too straightforward to easily comprehend the abstract, and Felix lacks any sort of patience for it. Dedue occasionally offers contributions, but Grant's more analytical mind could still offer more insight here.

...Sylvain would have probably been good at this, too. Not that Claude can let himself think about that long. He's got things he needs to do.

Comments

[amaure]

Honestly, if there was anything that could prove to Emet-Selch that Claude's tenacity is nothing to sniff at, this would be it. Not only was he determined to save the three of them, but so too was he doing it under whatever emotional duress he and his lot are currently suffering. To top it off, he still continues even with the unnecessary commentary Emet seems set on providing.

Sure, he seems to keep muting him, but that's not him giving up, now is it?

Annoying as it might have been for the puzzles to change their answers, Emet must admit he respects Claude's perseverance and unfettered resolve at such a daunting inconvenience, but so too for whomever set this up in the first place.

Whoever it was, they truly did not want people discovering this room. Which is too bad, really, seeing as its spoils will no longer be locked away--assuming Claude can get through the final puzzle.

Answering his gear, he mutes it and waits a moment to attempt to hear them through the door (and water). He can, just barely, the transference of soundwaves through air, then water, then air once more does quite the job of muffling and distorting it. Which speaks nothing of the temple's wall and door. What's important is he can.

If his hearing was any worse, he might not be able to tell. Good fortune that isn't the case!

"Yes, indeed! I can hear you." He confirms with a lilt to his voice. "That you and yours would make it thus far is impressive, and I must say I can confidently speak for the three of us when I say we are ever so touched by your most heroic standard of friendship."

Yeah. Yeah...

"So, tell me...have you faith you will soar over this hurdle like the others--or shall we remain comfortable as we are?"

[bestswordmaster]

"We're not friends, you condescending bastard. I'm here for Jane and Dirk. You can rot for all I care."

Which is probably not true; even if it had only been Emet, Felix probably would have come anyway. But he's not in a mood to play nice.

"And you'd better get off your ass, because Claude's going to solve this in no time and if you're not ready to leave, too bad."

[nastyboy]

And then, a polite beat after Felix's own acidic response to Emet-

"Hello, Jane and Dirk."

Dimitri knows Emet... vaguely, and how he knows him is from events that he has to admit did not favor him to the man. He's been trying to tell himself not to let his own personal feelings color anything. That's been made somewhat difficult by Felix's own impressions of Emet. Which, you know.

Condescending bastard and all that.

So, in other words, he's not entirely sure how to respond to the other man, besides what Felix is saying already. But he does know Dirk and Jane... And he knows one other thing as well.

"Claude will unravel this puzzle swiftly," he confirms, reaching down for his own pokeballs. Grindy the massive shiny Kingler is at their rear, just in case something tries to sneak up on them, and Hafren the Cubone is in his arms... but there's one more person he thinks can offer help to Claude, now that they're here at the penultimate challenge.

A beam of red light goes straight at the puzzle, and a Rattata latches onto it almost immediately before looking back at Claude with a determined nod of his head. Dimitri places a hand on Claude's shoulder and nods to him. "You're not alone in helping them," he tells him reassuringly.

Meanwhile, the people actually stuck behind the puzzle may just get to hear... so much squeaking. How does it penetrate through stone? A mystery. A rat mystery.

[cyan_maid]

Jane hasn't felt this down in the dumps in a good while. Granted, her week unconscious and reliving memories of home had made her feel worse, but...this was a different kind of feeling entirely. A helpless one, a self-critical reprimand replaying over and over in her head. She should have known better, should have done better - should be figuring out her own escape rather than sit morosely with her Primarina, unable to get her hands on the apparently changed puzzles.

She hates being the damsel. Especially when she knows she could full well save herself.

But that doesn't mean the voices coming from the other side of the door are any less welcome. She comes over when she manages to hear the muffled sound, listening intently, and. Honestly, she's not surprised there is rat-like squeaking. If anything, it gives her pause enough to huff out a tired, relieved laugh.

"Hi, Dimitri. Hi Felix, hi Claude."

Her tone is worn and sheepish, but she is glad to know there's someone on the other side of that door. Three someones.

[uber_marionettist]

Dirk's made good use of all this extra time. Not only has he sanded the Arceus portion of the creation mural--a mural that has not been seen by the eyes of human or Pokemon for hundreds of years--to the perfect smoothness of a tabula rasa, he's taken a fine chisel and hammer out of his kit and filled the space in with a traditionally iconographic depiction of his own Divine self with arms outstretched and triangular shades measured to exact angles.

He's taken great care to only carve the stone as deep as the original work, matching the effect pewrfectly, and is in the process of reassessing the rest of the mural when a disembodied voice interrupts them by name.

Which wouldn't be that remarkable, he knew they were coming. But it's followed by.... is that squeaking?

It is.

He sits, silent and cross-legged on Medea's shell, listening to the squeaks.

"Is there a porpoise Pokemon I don't know about?"

[vrdantwind]

Claude had been examining the puzzle - and it tooks quite daunting, however much Felix talks him up - and musing about the difficulty of it before Dimitri's hand is on his shoulder, and a familiar friend winds up clinging to the door. And, for perhaps the first time since Sylvain left them, Claude actually smiles.

He's always been deeply fond of Gremlin in general, but seeing him in this context is particularly meaningful. It brings him back to those early days in Johto, visiting the Ruins of Alph with Dimitri, solving the sliding puzzle there with assistance from one very intelligent rat. (And Dimitri was also there.) Dimitri still mostly feral, Sylvain standoffish, Felix not yet even arrived in Violet Town to meet them...

It's more than just reassuring or nostalgic. Thinking back that far reminds him just how far they've all come. It's an encouraging thought.

"It'll be tough," he says aloud, stepping forward to give Gremlin a welcoming stroke down the back - as if he were a cat. Honestly, he's not much smaller than some. "But nothing my assistant and I can't figure out. I'm not going to promise it'll happen in the next five minutes, but we'll have you out of there within the hour."

Then, still with that slight smile on his lips, he adds, "Hey, Jane. How're you doing? We'll have you out of there soon."

He pauses. "But before we start on this puzzle, I want you guys to remove those treasures you found from their pedestals - assuming you put them back again. If we don't know exactly what mechanism it was that triggered the trap shutting and all the puzzles resetting, it's best to take all the precautions we can to avoid tripping it again. Some kind of weight switch would be the most obvious conclusion...but whether that's it or not, what's important that nothing in that chamber changes significantly - especially regarding those relics - between our getting this door open and you three walking out. I don't want to take any chances."

[amaure]

"Worry not, dear Felix, I know well where your affections lie." It does not bother him one bit that Felix harbors naught but irritation and perhaps hatred for him. Millennial of weathering the misunderstanding and animosity of mortals has tempered the steel walls of his heart, that such ill-favor does little to faze him.

Does even less to curb his behavior as a whole.

After all, the last thing he could care about is the recognition and validation a mortal might give him. Such ephemeral and waning moments were not worth the energy nor feeling they required, when once that thread in history's weave came to an end, that was that.

He knows better than to get attached to such temporary things, or so he tells himself. This, too, is why Dimitri's lack of regard towards him does little to prick him, and he keeps his focus only upon Dirk's continued revisions of that mural, and what Claude is both doing and saying.

"Worry not, I have not returned the helm I removed earlier, if we were to make off with them, returning them now would ill afford us such." He assures him while still wearing the Helm of Antimatter. Limited as Emet-Selch finds himself in this world, he still does not fear the wrath of their so-called gods.

What are they going to do? Kill him? He'd love to see that.

[bestswordmaster]

"...hello, Jane."

Felix has taken up a guard-like position somewhat near Claude, but not near enough that he'll be in the way. Should any wild Pokemon decide to take this opportunity to attack, he and his team will be ready to repel them.

Then, to Emet, "Call me that again and I'll run you through."

Sure, he lost the last duel they had, but he doesn't need to duel the man to stab him when his back is turned. ...not that he actually would. But the point stands.

[nastyboy]

Squeaking intensifies.

Gremlin has a lot to say, as it turns out, although he at least keeps it for after Claude has given him a nice long pet - an action which earns an arch of his back and a little rat wiggle. Yet with that very important action done, Claude's assistant gets to work. He begins to scramble along the puzzle, little rat hands finding purchase easily, to get an idea of what he's looking at. Occasionally, he leaps off of the wall, onto whatever shoulder is nearest - Dimitri, ideally, but sometimes Claude. Maybe Felix or Dedue, if they come close enough.

This is all to get a better look at the puzzle, before he starts pointing at bits of it, with even more squeaking. In his professional opinion as an assistant, these are areas of interest!

While Gremlin is a Very Good Boy and Claude makes orders, Dimitri patiently gives the group inside a moment to follow those orders, before he speaks up. Felix clearly is... engaging with Emet, in some sort of fashion, but that can't really keep them all distracted for long... Dimitri isn't sure if he can help make the time pass, but he's willing to try. Anything to cheer Jane and her friends up.

"I actually brought Dedue with us, Jane!" Dimitri says, gesturing to his silent friend despite the fact that there's a bunch of stone in the way of Jane seeing anything. "It will be nice to have you both properly meet." And, as a quick aside to Dedue - "I've written of you in letters I send to her."

Because of course he did.

"In the meanwhile, to pass the time while Claude works on freeing you... Ah, your friend Mr. Strider is still fond of rhymes and poetry, is he not? I could make another rhyme for you all, or we could exchange them, if you'd like! I never got his opinion on the one I sent him before."

If Dimitri is aware of the implications of Dirk not responding to him before, well, he's not making it obvious.

[cyan_maid]

"Yeah, I've still got it."

As much as she has half a mind to put the damned thing back, Jane is holding onto the breastplate with a fair bit of sullenness. Was it wrong to want to get to know more about the people who frequented this temple? The time period they were here, the things they worked with? Was it wrong to want to put something like this in a museum so others could learn about it?

(Frankly, no one had ever quite explained to Jane that a lot of museum items from specific countries were pilfered by other specific countries, so the thought doesn't really play into her logic. But that's a topic for another time.)

She perks up a little at mention of another member of the group. "Oh-! Hello, Dedue." She knows this one hasn't met her, but she says hello regardless. Even when in a funk, it wouldn't do to be impolite. But the mention of, uh, rhymes...

"...You want to rap."

It's said very flatly. Is. Is she going to have to sit here while two men rap battle at each other from other sides of a door.

[uber_marionettist]

Dirk's stoic mien is so stony it might as well be carved of the same material as the mural he's so freshly profaned.

"He can't rap," he deadpans, not bothering to look up from admiring his completed work.

"What he sent me was a poem for grade-schoolers. He got as far as figuring out there was a rhyme and made up a crude little meter to go with it, but any resemblance to spitting pretty much ends there. Deleting it from my inbox was an act of kindness."

He fits his arm into the gleaming gauntlet to admire it; it's made for the right hand, which is handy (ha) for the left-handed 'Mr. Strider.'

He'd only refused to wear it while he worked his magic on that more deliberate act of desecration--the one intended to provoke as well as stake claim--because doing so might have suggested compliance with Arceus' pantheonic hegemony. Neither Arceus nor any of the lesser deities under its mythopoeic hierarchy matter to Dirk save for the possibility of retributionary action. Not because he fears it, but because he would welcome it. Hell, he's practically begging them to do something to him, or else concede his deific supremacy.

If they can be offended, then call him offensive. If they can be blasphemed, then call him blasphemous. If they're watching, call him a spectacle. If they're listening, call him an agitator. If they're absent or impotent, then just call him God.

I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.

-- The Backstreet Boys

[vrdantwind]

Dirk's rude dismissal of Dimitri's genuine efforts - no matter how bad they may or may not have been - is enough to aggravate Claude even though his attempts to focus on the puzzle. Dirk and Emet can be as condescending to Claude as they like, and Claude can mostly ignore it, but he draws the line at his most earnest and approval-seeking boyfriend.

"Dimitri," he says, without looking up from the puzzle, "I think Dirk wants you to practice your rap skills. In fact, I think he wants you to do that for at least as long as it takes me to finish this puzzle. I'm sure it'll help me and Gremlin concentrate on our work."

Dirk is a captive audience, after all.

[amaure]

There's a lot that Emet-Selch could say to all of this, truly it is a Herculean effort to not quip back at Felix--one he loses, but he really wasn't trying that hard.

"Promise? I would so love to see you achieve that which you did not last we crossed blades."

However, at that, he lets his commentary die in order to allow Dirk to have the floor. To which he verbally mops it with Dimitri in regards to his rapping ability. Amusement crosses his features to which only Dirk and Jane are privy, so too it's growth at Claude's retort to this all.

Will Dimitri take up his request? Is he the sort to purposefully antagonize Dirk in such a way? He almost hopes so--not that he wishes for Dirk to particularly be antagonized or annoyed, but he certainly would find the clash far more interesting than the walls he's been forced to stare at for some time now.

He's due for a little entertainment.

[bestswordmaster]

"I didn't say anything about crossing blades. But I gladly will, once we're finished here."

If Felix recognizes that Emet's deliberately trying to rile him up by implying he'll continue to lose, he's not letting the attempt succeed; Emet doesn't know him as well as he thinks, if he believes that defeating Felix will stop him from trying again as many times as it takes to win.

He has no idea what 'rap' is in this context, but as much as he wouldn't object to aggravating Dirk, he has absolutely no patience right now for sitting through some kind of...impromptu poem exchange.

"Whatever these 'rap skills' are, they can wait until we're out of here and I can walk away before you all give me a headache."