Cobel Timpinia; Trainer Ranking—Rank 982
12 years ago. Lavaridge Town, Hoenn.
He woke up dazed and confused and light-headed and worried and soaking neck-deep in a beautiful hot spring; the fight felt too real to have been a dream, but it also felt distant, too much a nightmare to be reality. Cobel's hand drifted to his face, and he felt the scar splitting his face in two like a mountain range risen up to carve up a continent. Moving - or attempting to - hurt more than he could have ever imagined. If only he'd known things would only get much worse with Quint, long before they ever hoped of getting better.
"Oh goodie," a woman's voice said behind him, her footsteps getting closer to him as she spoke. "I knew a dip would be good for your recovery."
The young Cobel turned and his face flushed with extra heat. The woman speaking to him had wild red hair, flaring out in the ordinal directions; her orange crop top and black, collared-shirt tied together high along the button line offered a direct view of her flat, toned stomach. She held a pair of flared jeans over one forearm, instead wearing a pair of men's swim trunks indicating her intent to dip into the hot spring as well. Of course, Cobel recognized her from hearsay and rumor, having been on his way to Lavaridge to challenge her gym—but he hadn't expected her to be hotter than the spring he soaked in.
"A bit too hot for you, then?" she said, pouting a bit as she noticed the heat overtaking Cobel's face.
"No, no, it's good." he replied, trying to find the nerves he seemed to have left on Mount Chimney.
Flannery sauntered up to the edge of the hot spring, dipped one foot in tentatively, then walked in to her waist, almost as if Cobel weren't there at all; he wouldn't have minded being invisible then and there.
"So," she splashed the hot water around with her hands a little bit, as if working up the desire to dip further into the spring. But at the same time, her red eyes darted over to Cobel with both suspicious and worry. "Want to tell me how a Great Rank trainer ends up mangled half-way down Mt. Chimney?"
"Intense fight," he croaked, feeling guilty in a way, like he brought it on himself. "Guy was...way more serious than I thought."
The Lavaridge Gym Leader shot him another suspicious look, raising a left eyebrow, her mouth furling in contemplation.
"
Serious shouldn't leave you bleeding out, carried into town on the back of your worried, wounded Hitmonlee—"
"—Bruce, Bruce," Cobel's eyes widened, and he stood up in the spring with a violent wave, fighting against his own body to do so. "Where are my Pokemon-the PokeCenter, where—"
"It's right here," she pointed to the hot springs exit. "You're not far, and they're still healing. Now.
Soak."
He let the exhaustion take over, dropping his body back into the spring with an equally violent wave. Flannery looked annoyed enough as though she wanted to say something, but the sympathy for the wounded teen won out in the end, and she stayed silent on that front.
"Who did this?" Flannery asked. "If you can ID this person, we could contact the police in the area and have them brought in."
"He came after
me," Cobel said, his brow furrowing as he pointed a thumb at his chest, frustrated. "All I had to do was tell him to keep walking—or better yet, all I had to do was mash his stubby face into the stupid ground. Why am I even doing this if I can't protect my damn self from any old prick who walks up with their big dick swinging...sorry, I shouldn't swear like that—"
"—forget that, you're talking nonsense," the Gym Leader sighed. "Just tell me the guy's name, we'll see what we can do."
Cobel looked at Flannery pleadingly, like a puppy whose tail had been stepped on searching for some form of validation. He was met with a stone-cold gaze. The leader's hands fell to her hips.
"Quint." he said, finally, looking away. He heard a gasp.
"Shit," Flannery said, a nervousness crossing her face. Her eyes ran up and down the scar over his face again, a realization hitting her suddenly. "Quint?
Vamon Quint?"
"I didn't catch his first name, I was too busy catching his Machamp's goddamn hands." Cobel groaned, feeling the massive, lumping bruises where the fighting-type had slammed into his right side.
Flannery leapt out of the hot spring in an instant, Cobel's eyes hardly able to follow her as she sprinted toward the PokeCenter connected to the hot spring. The young trainer forced himself up again, and to step out of the spring. He found a towel on a wooden bench just outside the edge of the spring; he struggled bending over to wipe off his feet and legs before wrapping the towel around his waist and heading inside at the pace of a three-legged Slowpoke.
"—about 5'6", 200 lbs.? Dirty-blond, keeps his hair short. Keeps a Zangoose by his side at all times. Dangerous?" Flannery looked over at Cobel as he entered the PokeCenter, again offering a glint of sympathy. "To others, yes, and to himself, yes. No, no family to speak of. I don't know where he'd go, outside of Lavaridge...thanks, officer, I'll be in touch."
Hanging up her phone, Flannery hurried over to a table Cobel had settled into, essentially lying down as best he could in the too-short booth seat.
"I contacted the Lavaridge department, they're going to relay their APB for Quint to Fallarbor, Mauville and Rustboro," the Gym Leader explained, folding her hands together on top of the table between the two. "...I'm sorry."
"
You're sorry?" Cobel paused, his head swarming with too much pain to properly process information. "Why are you apologizing?"
"Vamon worked for me," Flannery sighed. "he learned everything he knows about Pokemon at
my Gym. He had a dozen tutors over the years, but still, it's
my Gym. And I knew he had a...tendency to go too far."
"You...what?" he asked, still struggling even processing; he felt a quick surge of anger for the woman who'd nursed him back to health. "You trained that crazy bastard?"
"He never hurt anybody in an official battle," her eyes widened, the guilt growing. "But...there were a few times...
outside the gym...a broken finger here, a sprained ankle there, things like that. He left last year, though—said he was going to train alone a while, then enter the WCS. We had no reason to believe—"
"That he'd try and kill some loser right outside your town?" Cobel finished her sentence for her, the anger strengthening him a bit.
"Please," Flannery placed both palms flat against the table, looking at the younger boy with utmost seriousness. "He came to me when he was
seven. All he had was that Zangoose, and the fangs of a Seviper all-too-fresh with blood. When I asked him
whose blood, all he said was: "Dad's." Sure he was angry at that age, but who wouldn't be? He was sad, too—and, most of all, he had the capacity to be
happy. We did what we could, but I guess, sometimes a gentle hand and positive reinforcement can't do it all."
She looked hurt by her own words. Cobel was too blind and deaf to anyone else's problems but his own to care.
"I don't need his sob story," the vengeful trainer growled. "I need to know where the
fuck he's headed."
He'd taken Flannery off-guard with his sudden viciousness—a quick turnaround from the kid who'd started off apologizing to her for swearing.
"Please, you still need a lot of rest," she said, turning to fumble around in the pocket of the jeans she'd been carrying over her arm around like a matador's cape. Flannery pulled out a metal pin that resembled a red eye, and an eyebrow that was a blazing flame. "Vamon was always one of the best, and always the first to jump at getting better—I believe I'm right in assuming whatever you went through battling him was more than enough to earn you this badge. Take it."
Cobel straggled to his feet, turning away from Flannery's out-stretched hand. She was right that he needed
a lot of rest; just by himself, he assumed he'd need at least two weeks—and that wasn't even speaking for his three, injured Pokemon as well.
"Keep it," he said. "I'll win the thing the right way—and
then I'll track down Quint. So you better hope he gets picked up by the cops first. Otherwise, I can't promise there'll be enough of him left to stitch together and heal in your hot springs."
He left Flannery with her mouth open, stunned. Cobel walked toward the counter, to inquire about his team and his belongings.
Cobel Timpinia; Trainer Ranking—Unranked
June 10, Modern Day. The Slouching Pelipper Bar, Coumarine City, Kalos.
Henri Brignac's office looked like a museum confused about what it wanted to display—a mixture of fine art (mostly impressionist, though with a bit of old realism), historical displays (mainly a depiction of Galarian mythos), even a massive fish tank that consumed the right-hand wall, full of Magikarp, Krabby, Chinchou, Corphish, Arrokuda, Qwilfish, and more.
The man himself sat smoking (from a cigarette holder no less) under the massive skull of a Copperajah, a smug grin across his face, a pencil mustache hanging just above his grinning lips. Henri wore a magnificent suit of sanguine, with a grey button-up and no tie, the top few buttons undone to reveal just a smidgen of bare chest (for the ladies, Henri would submit).
"So you seek an au-di-ance?" Henri's accent was thick, distinctly Kalosian. "'ow can I halp you?"
"I need you to tell me what about the crew of the S.S.
Ablestar." Cobel said simply, wondering if the direct approach would work.
"They are sai-lors, so, they sail!" Henri shrugged, laughed, then took a great, long puff from the end of his cigarette holder with a coolness. "Some-times they gam-ble, o-ther times, they drink. Of-ten both, as - you see - these are wonder-ful things to pair to-geth-ar."
"They owe you money." He took a shot in the dark; it seemed most people owed Henri money.
"Sad-ly, non," Henri shook his head. "They, err, re-cent-ly paid off their debt."
"How recent?"
"A-bout a week a-go?" the most powerful bookie in Coumarine waved the notion off as if he'd rather forget it. "They will be back—gam-blers are ne-var
flush for so long."
"What if they aren't?" Cobel asked. "What if the reason they could pay you off will keep them off your books forever?"
"One ship is one ship, I think of them like they think of one Krab-by get-ting loose from their nets—they have a thou-sand in their grasp, why wor-ry a-bout the one that gets a-way?"
"And you're not worried about them maybe butting in on your business?"
Henri's gaze grew furious at the suggestion, and he wagged a finger at Cobel as if the detective had messed up.
"No-bo-dy does this," the bookie said. "Now, I think I 'ave en-ter-tained you long e-nough mis-tar Timpi-nia, don't you?"
"You—" Cobel froze.
"—I used to make
quite a bit off you, oh a de-cade or so a-go," Henri Brignac's grin returned, spread wide like the Cheshire cat. "When you were un-der-dog, no-bo-dy would bet on you, but you would scrape by a vic-tor-y! And when you were fa-vo-rite, none bet a-gainst you—and like a slow-ing clock, you would
just miss your mark. Truth be told, I knew back then I should have found you. But I did not want to ruin a per-fect thing, you see."
Cobel returned Henri's affectionate stare and wild grin with a look of disdain and a curling, furious frown.
"Back to the
Ablestar," he said, trying to avoid his history. "You know its crew came into some money recently. You got any idea what they're smuggling out of Kalos, into Johto?"
"Is it fish?" Henri shrugged, erupting into more laughter. He seemed to enjoy himself quite a bit. "May-be, it is a way to turn one fish, into one hun-dred."
"What? Nevermind" Cobel said, caught off-guard by the bookie's vagueness. All he could think about was the Bible, and even then he didn't want to think about it for very long. It felt like...a long shot. "Does a man named Grey Gant owe you money?"
"Oh, your old friend?" Henri grinned. Cobel couldn't believe he had slipped so easily—if Henri knew
him, of course Henri knew Grey. "He is, in-deed, a
new friend of mine."
"Been a while since I've seen ol' Grey," the detective said, finally playing along a little. "You think he's gotten into sailing lately?"
"Oh, so ma-ny in Cou-ma-rine
do!" Henri's eyes glimmered. He turned his chair just a little to stare out a window diagonally behind him. "The A-zure Bay is i-deal for it, can't you see for your-self? Here, you can sail, or you can take a hike—and most choose to sail. Good for the soul, I say. Though to you, I might recommend...ta-king the
hike now."
He took the hint with grace, though mostly frustrated. Cobel was just glad the bookie hadn't threatened to throw him to the wolves—the
Ablestar or RKT, either or. Hell, he'd half expected to get tossed out on his ass my another massive bastard of a bouncer. As little as he felt like he'd taken away from the short interview, the detective couldn't help but feel like he'd found an integral piece to the puzzle; but he still had too much to fill around it. For now, Henri's puzzle piece would lay in the center of the board, with Cobel unable to tell whether it was right-side up or upside down.
Vamon Quint; Litigative Investigator, Unova District Attorney's Office
June 10. RKT PokeBall Factory, Kalos.
The stake-out lasted throughout the entire work-day. Vamon Quint waited in his car the entire time, parked just down the road and across the street from the RKT factory with a pair of binoculars in hand, his Alakazam keeping watch on Vamon and the surrounding perimeter from the rooftop of an abandoned motel, while his Cramorant circled overhead to get a top-down view of the factory.
Grey Gant...an
old friend; they'd spent maybe a decade duking it out across League battles and WCS matches, always on an even-foot, even back in Vamon's
rougher years. Most days, he felt lucky to have ended up on the right side of the law; other days, he wished for the simplicity of a small cell and three square meals a day, though those were his more morbid, regretful days.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. Still staring down at the PokeBall factory, he pulled the phone out and answered it.
"Vamon?" Miranda Dayne's voice spoke from the other side. Part of him always felt unsettled when they spoke—as far as he had come, he had yet to get used to being on
good terms with a lot of people. "Vamon are you there?"
"Yeah, sorry," he said in a whisper, as if someone a hundred yards away could hear him over the roar of traffic. "What is it?"
"Cobel," she said, and his mind started racing, a bead of sweat forming around his temple. "he said he's leaving Grey to you—he's onto some guys at the port. The two might be connected though. And...he said to give him your number, in case he found anything good."
"And did you?" Vamon asked.
"Yes." Miranda said simply.
He sighed.
"Fair enough," he replied, gripping at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, frustrated with himself. "And if Grey leads me toward the docks, I'll find him."
Vamon ended the call, opened up the car door, and slammed it shut. Cramorant swooped down onto the hood of the car right as Kadabra teleported over, both reporting much the same as he'd seen—just any, old factory cranking out sub-par product for cheap. But what else had he expected? RKT was a legit company. Yet, knowing Grey had declared bankruptcy mere days before being offered a juicy position with RKT made the Unova D.A's Investigator uncomfortable.
His Kalosian counterpart, however, seemed nonplussed by the whole affair, and though he'd given Vamon permission to look into Grey, he hadn't deigned to bother leaving his office in Lumiose to aide the Vamon in the process.
"Lookin' for something, mister?" One of RKT's easy-to-spot guards (red polo with a black R over the heart, black slacks and shoes, sometimes a matching newspaper boy cap as well.
"Vamon Quint, Unovan District Attorney's Office," he said, mustering up all of his official bluster as he pulled out his badge and left it hanging open for the man to observe every, pure inch of it. "Under permission from Kalos D.A Chaudoir, I'm here to speak with Grey Gant—I'm safe in assuming Mr. Gant's in his office?"
"No sir," the guard replied, leaving Vamon dumfounded. "Mr. Gant left for lunch 'round noon-time, and was called away on emergency. I don't think he's returning today."
"Impossible," Vamon sneered. He'd had eyes on RKT all day, from above
and from the street the factory entrance and exit alike led out to.
Where the hell had that little rat gone?
"Sorry, sir, but it's quite possible." the guard shrugged. "Mr. Gant ain't in that office of his half the time—don't mind my sayin'. Says he's got a sick mother, and her home nurse is callin' in every few hours with this new problem an' 'at."
"Of course," Vamon replied, taking a step forward. "Well, I'd like to have a look at his office anyway, so—"
The guard held out one arm to cut off Vamon's path, giving a sharp shake of his head.
"You got a warrant, sir?"
Shit. He honestly hadn't expected the guard to ask for a warrant, given that the guard seemed open enough about Grey's movements, and otherwise seemed to be the typical, bumbling fool RKT employed for security. But even fools could be trained to spit out the word
warrant.
"I don't need a warrant," he lied, taking a quick look at the man's name badge. "I've permission to investigate Mr. Gant by order of D.A Chaudoir—do I need to give him a call on behalf of your stubborn curiosity, Mr. Darney? Or have you never heard of an
oral search warrant before, have you, Darrell?"
The man's pupils dilated for a moment, frightened by the prospect of the Kalos D.A being called. But still, he held his ground firmly, crossing his arms.
"However you bring your warrant," Darrell Darney replied, much to Vamon's major annoyance. "You gotta bring it—to my boss, Mathieu Force. That's how I'm lettin' you inside."
Vamon cursed his own fortune; he always felt like karma reared its ugly head to pay him back for his youth, and this was one of the many ways it did. Things never came to him easy, unlike
some people he knew.
