Searching Far and Wide - 148

Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Kadabra

- Bellatrix, Gyarados (Shiny)

- Andromeda, Vaporeon

- Regulus, Meowth

- Sirius, Yamper

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Ivysaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

- Star, Cleffa

- Cinder, Vulpix

Taken I

[Daisy Waterflower]

She would have felt bad for how scared the employee in front of her looked…

But she kind of couldn’t, not when she knew that they’d messed up and they were the reason why Pierce… ‘How?’ she asked herself, feeling a firm hand on her shoulder pulling her back. She caught a flash of blue out of the corner of her eyes that told her it was Violet that took over. ‘How did this happen?’ she wondered, feeling like the dread in her chest, wrapping around her heart, had come to stay.

Ever since that call, she hadn’t been able to get rid of it. For hours and hours, the League had mobilized people all around the place and Daisy had internally panicked all the while. At some point, she’d thought that maybe, just maybe, helping, being part of the process, might help her feel better, feel like they were getting somewhere.

Instead, her sisters and her had been sent to where the Rangers had answered Pierce’s call and where the message had come from, the one that Pierce thought meant someone was going to check on the houndoom he’d been helping. Instead, they’d found out some of the most disgusting cases of neglect she’d seen in regards to the Rangers, ever. Nobody knew anything. The message had come from right there, from this woman’s desk computer. All the information had been gathered… but nobody had a single idea how it all had happened. The woman had supposedly been at her desk, doing her job at the time things had happened. Nobody had seen anyone strange come in, no outsiders, not even a delivery person to the door.

And yet, Lily and the police had checked, with Psychic pokemon help and all, and they’d gotten absolutely nothing. The woman had no idea what had happened. The messages were there and all, even security camera footage backed up their findings… And yet the woman seemed to be innocent. There was not even a trace of Psychic interference, which would have made it all make sense.

It hadn’t even been long enough since it all went down for those traces to have blurred, let alone disappeared. Yet there was nothing to be found there. So, they were left with no trails to follow.

No clues whatsoever.

‘How did this happen?’ she wondered again, her nails digging into her palms painfully, affording her a measure of calm.

“Daisy,” Lily said, calling for her attention with a reassuring hand on her arm that she ignored. “You heard them. Pierce will be fine.”

Except, that wasn’t what they’d been told. The current theory was that he would be alive. Because if the Rockets wanted him dead, then they wouldn’t have bothered with the charade that Cygnus had let them know about. All that had come from the report they got from the Psychic type pointed at the Rockets wanting Pierce and wanting him for something, which meant that they couldn’t kill him… or, at least, they would be reluctant to do it.

The problem was that it guaranteed very little, knowing that. He could still be hurt, he could still die, even with all those reassurances. The Rockets couldn’t be pleased with the stunt Pierce had pulled to get his pokemon away and people knowing what happened immediately, after all. And not knowing anything tore Daisy apart in a way that surprised her. Surprised others too, if the way Lily – and previously Violet – was looking at her was anything to go by.

“Let’s not take it out on the clearly unaware employee, alright?” her sister told her, but she couldn’t find that calm within herself. How was she unaware? The message had come from right there, during her work hours, when she was there. How had the Rockets gotten a message off from there without so much as leaving a single piece of evidence for them to pick up?

“I know,” she muttered, running her fingers through her hair. “I just…” she started before words failed her. Daisy just didn’t know how to explain how frustrated and scared and useless she felt. Most of all, because… She knew she was freaking out, and she was freaking way more than her sisters, way more than… than she should have, considering who she was.

She was supposed to be a Gym Leader. She wasn’t supposed to be acting like a girlfriend in hysterics, no matter the fact that she was Pierce’s girlfriend. She was supposed to keep a calm mind and do her job like usual. 

“You’re pretty serious with Pierce, huh?” Lily said and the words made it seem like it was a teasing comment of some kind. Her tone even almost made it seem that way. However, her expression gave things away, because her smile was twisted by her own worry, her own emotions.

“Yeah…” she acknowledged, easier than her sister had expected, if the pause was anything to go by. To be honest, it was kind of annoying. Pierce still had no business making her care so much and then making her worry so much. The least he could have done was be a shitty boyfriend if he was going to get in trouble so much.

It’d have been easier on her heart.

“It’s going to be fine, Daisy,” Violet told her, joining the two of them once more. “Lance is pulling all the stops, considering how special your boyfriend is,” she added and she smiled the smallest bit. The aura stuff was crazy, but at least it was coming in handy now, because Lance was getting extra help from Rota at that very moment. If anyone was serious about that kind of thing, it was Rota, after all. “You’re gonna get him back.”

Daisy so hoped that she was right about that.

And Pierce better be ready for all that was waiting for him when they did, because she was going to give him a piece of her mind as soon as she could.

[}-o-{]

[Sabrina Shen]

How… vexing.

Nothing had been found on the Rangers, and she could trust that since Daisy was there. She had a feeling the blonde had done her best to find something, going above and beyond. Sabrina knew how deeply the woman cared for Pierce, after all, and that was very reassuring in that situation…

Even if normally she’d have different feelings on the matter.

And then, there was her side of things, where she was finding nothing in an entirely different way. Where the Sisters seemed to have literally nothing, Sabrina had found too much, in a sense. Because she was in charge of trying to track the Teleports used during the whole ordeal and… The place was flooded with information. Her team and her could pick up a lot of information, a lot of threads, which meant that the Rockets had come from a lot of different places, and that would have already been troublesome to deal with.

What made it all worse was that, beyond that, there was some sort of overflowing with some other Psychic presence. One that was oddly reminiscent of the traces they’d found on the SS Anne incident and victims. Sabrina guessed that pretty much confirmed the Rockets had been involved with that, but that was hardly important to the matter at hand, which was finding Pierce.

The problem was that all that Psychic energy all over the place, so overwhelming and strong, was messing up with any kind of tracking they were trying to do. ‘What could do this?’ Sabrina wondered, looking around as if she’d get a clue. The Psychic energies weren’t going to help her, evidently. She’d spent the better part of an hour trying to decipher the mess that she’d found there and it was no use whatsoever, as far as she’d seen.

It was like trying to understand a knot made out of a hundred yarn strings with the threads coming out all frayed and leading nowhere in particular. No matter how hard she tried, no clear paths could be found and she was growing more and more frustrated by the second. Rockets had avoided the League for a while already, but never had they pulled something like that. They set up scapegoats, or more complex schemes so that they wouldn’t get caught that they usually could get something out of, maybe an arrest or two or some information on their plans or… something.

Never had they pulled off something so… traceless before.

It scared her, if Sabrina was honest.

However, it was also a little reassuring. Because if they were willing to pull off something so thorough for Pierce, then that meant that he was important enough for such a thing. In turn, that meant that they wouldn’t just let him die. They weren’t very likely to do all that they’d done and just… waste it. Pierce wasn’t worth all that just to kill, certainly.

Yet, despite knowing all that, Sabrina couldn’t stop her thoughts from spiraling every so often. It was… very frustrating. ‘Caring can be… surprisingly bad, for such a positive thing,’ she mused to herself. When had been the last time she’d cared for someone other than her parents like she did at that moment?

Not for the first time, Sabrina was forced to wonder if Pierce’s ability – likely aura, from what they knew – worked just as well on people as it did with pokemon. Or, at least, relatively close because he seemed remarkably good at befriending people, even if he didn’t seem to do it as much. That was one of the reasons why she’d put actual effort into befriending him…

Something that she was almost regretting at that moment, with worry clawing at her heart all the time.

“Leader-Mind,” her Alakazam called and she turned to look at him. Maybe she’d been stuck in her own head for longer than she thought. “I believe we can’t do much more here,” her pokemon told her and she nodded slowly. Much as it frustrated her, and much as she didn’t want to. Sabrina knew they’d get nothing more no matter how much they tried.

She just… she really didn’t want to leave with nothing.

“There must be another way to find Protector-Voice,” her Alakazam said, but both of them knew that they were at a dead end on all fronts. There were no leads by then. The League had nothing, and that meant that things would be very slow for a while, if they even could get anywhere.

‘Yes, I think we can go now,’ she said and it almost felt like giving up. No, it was giving up, even if she didn’t want it to be. Sabrina hated that she knew that, even if she’d tried to fool herself.

So, she teleported back home, wrote down her report of her findings and then… Then she didn’t know what to do, but Sabrina found herself walking all the way to the area where she taught Psychic Arts. There, she moved to the garden spot, where Pierce preferred to practice and she sat down where she’d had plenty of conversations with him.

Sitting there felt like a contradiction. It made her feel closer to Pierce at that moment, when he felt so far away – she didn’t want to think about it as him being lost –, but she also felt his sudden, forced absence all the more there. Maybe the former feeling just barely overcame the second, or maybe she felt like it was still worth it if it didn’t, because Sabrina stayed there for a good while.

That’s how she spent a portion of that day, waiting, hoping that she’d get some kind of message or call regarding the situation, that she’d get good news. Nothing of the sort happened, however, and she remained there, sitting among her plants, like she had a hundred times before Pierce, yet it felt completely different at that time.

He would be fine, she told herself.

He would be fine.

[}-o-{]

[Misty Waterflower]

For once in her life, she was grateful for work.

That might have been a bit of an exaggeration, she supposed. She’d been grateful for work almost since the very moment she started working at Pierce’s sanctuary and she had been grateful for work on occasion back at the Gym. Especially after she came to the sanctuary though, that was for sure. It was all about working with pokemon, helping them along, feeding them and taking care of them. No more show routines, or fans of her sisters getting in the way. No more being made to fight the weaker challengers because she wasn’t as good as her sisters, wasn’t good enough.

There was only the fulfillment of being needed by those pokemon, of being the one who made them feel better.

Then and there though, she was grateful for an entirely different reason and that was because working allowed her a distraction, something to focus on other than what was going on. She could tend to the pokemon, make sure the gyarados were calm and that the other pokemon didn’t get into trouble. She could check with Boss, Chief and Lady and talk with them about things they might need to do.

She didn’t need to think about how her employer had been kidnapped by a crime organization.

That is, until it became unavoidable.

“They’ve been like that all morning,” one of the staff members said, concern in his voice. Not that Misty blamed him, because she was worried too. Most of all, she was sad, hurting for the pokemon that were hurting even more. “Should we do something?”

“Leave them,” she said, taking a deep breath in. “I’ll keep an eye on them just in case. You all know what to do by now. If you need me, call,” she ordered and it was odd to be the one in charge for once. No longer was she fourth in the chain of authority. She was first, right alongside Grace, and sometimes even higher than her… even if the woman was also sometimes higher than Misty herself, depending on what it was about.

She couldn’t really enjoy that at the moment though, no. Because the wailing of a gyarados in the water and an onix on land were enough to cut through her every thought. She approached them slowly, keeping at a distance and watching them vent their emotions on the patch of land that they’d been let out on. Those two were hardly the only ones. Moves were thrown all around the place, hitting water, sand, rocks, dirt and the occasional tree.

‘Good thing Cygnus thought about releasing them away from the sanctuary stuff,’ Misty thought to herself, watching as the kadabra himself punched against a particularly big rock again and again, not always using moves. She could almost feel the anger, the frustration, bleeding off the pokemon team in front of her. All of them except the meowth and the yamper. Those had curled up together off to the side and she was pretty sure they were whimpering, crying. Andromeda was nearby, shooting moves at a rock, but seemingly keeping an eye on those two.

What a mess Pierce had left behind, even if it hadn’t been his fault at all.

Misty wondered if there was anything she could do for them all though. She had learned how to comfort pokemon long ago, before she even started working for Pierce, and she’d only gotten better there. She had to, considering how that was a good chunk of what they were supposed to do there. She didn’t think she could help these pokemon, however. Not only was the fact that she knew them and knew their reason to be as they were getting in the way, she knew that they wouldn’t be very receptive to anything she did.

Funny how it was a problem that she was close to them, although it might be the fact that she was close, but not close enough.

So, instead of trying, she stayed close by, always with one pokeball in hand. If they needed her to get involved, she would. Otherwise, she’d wait for them to get it all out of their system. None of them were quite pushing things enough for it to be dangerous yet and she didn’t want to get in the way and make things worse.

Eventually, Misty felt confident enough to approach the calmest of the pokemon, which were Regulus and Sirius.

“Hello there,” she said, crouching beside the duo and making sure they were looking at her before reaching forward with her hand slowly. “I just got a call. Everyone is working on this, alright? They’ll find him,” she reassured, even though it felt like she was lying through her teeth. She hadn’t, not really, but that call had also told her how there were no leads at the moment, not with the Rangers and not with the place where Pierce was taken. They had nothing. She had no business saying stuff like ‘They’ll find him’ to this pokemon, but she had to anyway.

Regulus meowed at her, eyes wide and almost pleading.

Curse Pierce for teaching her how to read pokemon better.

“Really,” she insisted, feeling like an absolute fraud. “Everyone is working on this.” At least she was confident in that, Misty guessed. It wasn’t much, but it was something. She had to believe that they’d find Pierce, with all the resources that were being applied. “It’ll be fine.” She had to believe that herself, even if the lack of leads was concerning. No matter how many people were looking, if there was no trace for them to follow, no clues to find, then what could they do?

Andromeda, off to the side, seemed to be seeing right through her. The vaporeon was staring at her with a flat expression as she petted Sirius and Misty almost felt like shying away from the look. She held strong though, or as strong as she could given the circumstances. She needed to, for the younger two pokemon, if nothing else.

Comforting Pierce’s team was going to be a nightmare of its own, Misty could already tell.

It was the least she could do, however, after the man had helped her.

[}-o-{]

[Pierce Lawson]

They were trying to psych him out.

That was the conclusion Pierce came to within an hour of waking up. After he’d managed to send his pokemon away, the now very annoyed Rockets had… He wasn’t sure what they’d done, but Pierce had blacked out or maybe they’d scrambled his mind with Psychics or something. Concerning, but there was a lot to be concerned about all things considered. The point was that he’d woken up at some point to find himself in a… particular situation.

He was in what looked like an interrogation room from a crime show of some kind. All bland, greyish walls with a giant “mirror” on one side, that was all that the room had in it other than the metal door, the metal table his wrists were chained to and the metal chair he was sitting on. For some reason though – which was why he was reasoning that they were trying to psych him out –, the room was freezing.

Not to the point that he worried about frostbite or hypothermia, but enough that he could feel the air biting at the bits of skin that weren’t covered with his clothes, like someone had set the AC way too cold. It was, funnily enough, one of the reasons why he wasn’t as worried or scared as he should be. The cold kept cutting through those thoughts and he liked the cold, so Pierce was actually being helped out. Not that he’d tell that to whoever might be on the other side of the – he assumed, but he thought it was pretty likely – one-way mirror.

‘Everyone is fine,’ was a thought that kept coming back to him, and the other much more important reason why he was able to keep somewhat calm. He was the only one in danger and that was scary, but the thought that he could have been taken with his team put things into perspective enough that he could keep his thoughts in order. ‘What are they waiting for?’ he wondered, also not for the first time.

He had woken up a while back. He didn’t have a way to keep track of time, but he was pretty sure it must have been about half an hour, maybe even a full hour. Nothing at all had happened since then. It had only been him and the silent, cold room. It wasn’t scaring him per se, but it was certainly working to unnerve him, little by little.

The anticipation was killing him, and not in a good way. Pierce couldn’t help but wonder what they wanted, why they’d come for him. He couldn’t help but dread the moment when the door in front of him would open and some Rocket agent would come in to… He didn’t know what they’d do, but that was kind of the problem.

He couldn’t think of a plan if he didn’t know what was going on. He couldn’t try and plot a way out if he had nothing to work with. They’d taken all his stuff. He’d been lucky to keep the clothes he’d been wearing, he guessed, but other than that, he had nothing. Nothing he could use to escape, basically, and Pierce was increasingly aware of that fact with every second that passed.

So, despite everything, he was almost grateful when the door opened and in came the guy that had spoken to him when he was kidnapped. He didn’t know his name, but he was unlikely to forget him anytime soon. The pronounced asian features, the pale skin, the teal hair and eyes…

“Hello, Pierce,” the man greeted him, a placid smile on his face as if everything was fine. “I hope we didn’t keep you waiting for long,” the man added calmly and he felt his hopes that every second could be key to being rescued slipping away from him. Because there was no way the man would be that relaxed if things were a matter of time. “Your little stunt was… annoying, but it has been dealt with.”

Pierce simply stared at the man, unsure if he was expected to reply in some way. Ultimately though, he didn’t feel like making small talk with his kidnapper. He was weird like that, he supposed.

“Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why we went through all this trouble to bring you here.”

“You mean it wasn’t because you’re all fans and want autographs?” he asked, but it was a half-hearted effort at joking/being obnoxious at best. 

“Not quite, no,” the Rocket said with an amused smile. “No, we thought you had a very particular set of talents and… We could use that, we decided.”

“And you think I’m going to help you?” Pierce asked that time, not only with disbelief but also with genuine curiosity. They couldn’t be that dumb considering all that they were pulling off.

“We think you will, yes. After all, not being cooperative…” the man told him and left the statement hanging after that, the silence and the cold feeling like enough of a follow up. “... I wouldn’t recommend that, let’s say.”

Subtle.

“Well, sorry to break it to you…” Pierce started, trailing off as he looked for a suitably insulting name for the creepy bastard across the table. Alas, his choice was taken from him when he chuckled and introduced himself.

“Right, I apologize. My name is Archer, pleasure to meet you,” the man said before walking closer to the table and snapping his fingers. There was a clicking sound and almost immediately afterwards the Rocket grabbed the chain and pulled it up. Apparently, he’d been freed, from the table, that is. He couldn’t even continue what he’d been saying before the man gave the chain a tug. “If you’d follow me, your first assignment is ready for you, Mr. Lawson,” the man, Archer, told him, pulling on the chain like it was a leash despite how he worded his statement.

Pierce considered fighting the guy, or at least trying to get a punch in, but there was no point. There was probably a group of Rockets on the other side of the mirror or maybe a Psychic or… Any number of things. It probably wouldn’t even be good to buy time. So, in the spirit of being a pain in the ass in the only way that wouldn’t make him feel pain, he moved… as slowly as he could, however.

Archer only raised an eyebrow though, even as Pierce pushed himself up and then dragged his feet all across the room and beyond. Sure enough, he saw a bunch of people outside, both behind the one-way mirror and even in the corridor out the door. He glanced at everything he could while being pulled through the hallway, trying to find something of use, something that might help him. There wasn’t much, but if he had time… maybe…

“And here we are,” Archer announced once they reached a door at the end of a  corridor. The man looked entirely too happy, even though they’d gotten there almost at a snail’s pace, and that annoyed Pierce to no end. It also worried him quite a bit, admittedly, and that concern turned to dread when the Rocket reached for the door and opened it. “We hope that you’ll be able to help us with this, Mr. Lawson,” the man told him… and then he pulled the chain with strength Pierce hadn’t expected, all but throwing him inside before the door was shut behind him.

Before he could so much as process that, the beast inside the room shifted sharply, twisting its body and slapping its wings and feet and tail against the ground and the walls on the corner it’d been lying on. Its head turned towards him and its massive jaws opened to let out a roar that shook his bones. The smallest of relieves washed over Pierce then, when the pokemon tried to fly at him and was stopped by a chain around its neck cutting him off.

Still… what did the Rockets expect him to do with this?

And how the fuck had they gotten their hands on an aerodactyl?

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Surprise, surprise!

Also, can I just say, it’s kind of weird how similar an arc both DBD and SFaW are in right now. I’ve known for a bit, of course, but every time I think about it, I pause. I don’t know if I’d have been able to pull it off if I’d tried, honestly. Very… interesting, I guess.

And so, yeah, our boy is gonna be in an… awkward position, to put it lightly. Everyone else isn’t doing great either, of course, but I think we can agree that one that has it the worst is Regul- I mean, Pierce, of course it’s Pierce. At least I’m reasonably sure that he won’t get eaten in the next chapter… probably. Maybe.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What’s the first word that comes to your mind? For me it’s “reckless”, because I’m hearing a song… and it’s titled Reckless. Word was also being thrown around in the chorus, which was when I wrote the question.

See you.