Her mounting apprehension melted away the moment she saw the uniformed figure and was quickly replaced with a strange sense of relief. In truth, one of the few times a cop had ever made her feel more at ease. She stood up quickly to accept the handshake.

"A pleasure, I'm Persephone. And don't worry about it, I'm just glad you came and weren't scared off by the idea," she said with a small smile. "Ghosts, supposedly," she agreed, pondering it for a moment longer. "Could be that or just kids messing around in one of the abandoned blocks? Or just paranoid neighbours."

Abandoned because there was some messed up murder in there, admittedly. She didn't add that in because she assumed he knew already and making a point of it seemed somehow inappropriate. Some things are better left unsaid.

"Honestly, I'm not really sure where the place is, so lead the way. This city's layout is a bit confusing to me." As much could be said for Sootopolis, but at least there you can more or less see where to go, if not how to get there.

The city felt like an oppressive and claustrophobic box. She didn't trust the long indoor halls, sterile even in places she assumed were meant to be residential quarters. Something between hospital and college dorm, artificial lighting cast and unnatural sheen on the polished marble floors.

She smiled at his comment questioning his own helpfulness, a small quirk of the lips and a quick but confident shake of her head. "To be perfectly honest with you, I'm incredibly unqualified for this and only got the assignment because I happen to have Pokemon suitable for the job," she admitted. It was meant to be somewhat encouraging, but maybe while establishing their mutual borderline incompetency did bring them together on some level, it was also probably did little to assure either of them of the success of the mission.

Curious, Persephone wanted to ask where he was transferred to Mauville from, but decided to hold her tongue for now. As personable as he was, that was probably still too personal a question. "At least we'll go in together and have each other's backs. I take it you're the bravest member of the Mauville Police Department?" she said, grimacing slightly. In the time she had earlier, she did try to look up the specific case for details, but all that seemed to have been published is just that an Alolan trainer died under strange circumstances and no further substantial material was provided - only vague fearmongering about the ferocity of the attack.

Stepping through the front door to the lobby, Persephone turned to her partner again as they made their way to the lifts to the upper floors. "I assume you were never able to identify what actually caused the death? I hope you have a key, by the way." It's not that they couldn't break down the door regardless, but that would probably still be considered property damage in the eyes of any court, even if its done in the presence of a police officer.

Bravest, dumbest, least lazy, he was correct in that in this instance it all seemed fairly synonymous given what they were about to do; words that could describe either of them in equal measure, presumably. She grins back. A cop with a sense of humour.

As he searched for the key among all the pockets his uniform seemed to hide, Persephone watched on with a soft smile, her vague daydream of breaking down the door shattered prematurely. Probably for the best considering they might have to repay for a new door if they had broken it, and this deep mahogany wood grain looked far from cheap to replace.

"Can't tell you I'm not disappointed," she admitted with a grin before stepping into the gloom ahead.

The room, what looked like an entrance hall with a grand chandelier overhead, looked like it had definitely seen better days - dust coated the inexplicably still furnished surfaces, cobwebs hung overhead like limp silken flags. Listening closer, Persephone could swear that she could her the tick tock of a clock though there didn't seem to be one in sight at all.

"Looks empty and unoccupied, case closed," she joked weakly even as she walked to the center of the hall with a pace that could almost be described as cautious. Stopping, she pulled out a pokeball and released the lucario - while he couldn't help if it were indeed a ghost, at the least he should be able to sense its location within the maze of rooms.

Persephone turned to look back at Zeke, pausing to blink away dust before speaking again. "What's your professional assessment, Detective?"

Persephone inclines her head in agreement at his assessment, flashing a quick grin; for what it was worth, yes the place was somewhat disturbed, but not in the way that suggested human involvement.

"Yeah, he can get a sense on hidden people, Pokemon, really strong old lingering feelings. That sort of thing," she said, taking one final glance around the grand hallway before turning to follow Zeke down the hallway automatically, carefully eyeing the crooked paintings lining the walls. "To be honest, I'm not really sure how it works, but it's decently accurate," she admitted idly.

Having the Pokemon's assistance in determining these things for so long made her realise that there was a certain amount of privilege attached to it; turning to the Lucario to ascertain motives was like second nature.

She heard the ticking too. "A possessed clock? That's novel," she ponders, hoping her smile and light tone do a passable job of masking the tension in her shoulders.

Wasn't there a Pokemon who did that sort of thing, hiding in objects?

It's not that she didn't like ghost types - she had a handful herself and found them quite charming. The thing setting them apart from some wild one causing havoc is that they were hers, and ghost types could be quite unsettling at best and downright dangerous at worst. It was just in their nature.

Turning to her side to look at her Pokemon, he didn't need to be directed to do what he came for; pausing in place, statuesque, eyes closed, and ears flat against his skull, while he tried to read the area around them. After several long moments, he snapped out of his reverie and jerked his head towards the second to last door down the corridor.

He says what the fuck and Persephone opens her mouth to give an unduly profound explanation, but the moment she follows Zeke and her Pokemon into the room, the words no longer seem willingly to form. And even then nothing she could offer would really cover the sight before them.

"These are clocks, Officer Zeke," she offers an answer after a moment, her tone painfully humourless because she can't bring herself to joke.

She turns on her heel to helplessly look at the Lucario as if he could somehow give an answer for the both of them, but the Pokemon seems to barely notice, mesmerised by the clock faces, ears perked up to listen carefully. He turns back to them after several moments of stillness so quickly that Persephone flinches.

He raises a hand to his ear, and Persephone follows the direction - listening closely to the ticking. It is off; by a second or so, the ticking is unsynced between the clocks and almost distorted. Something electric and unnatural, foreign considering that the clocks looked dated and decidedly not high-tech.


"Can you hear it?" Persephone asks slowly, unsure as to why her voice drops to a whisper.

The bizarre mushroom Pokemon follows its trainer's orders and just like that, as though a switch has been flicked to off, the ticking stops. Persephone furrows her brow and cocks her head sideways in thought, leaning forward slightly to listen for ticking.

There is no reasonable explanation as to why the sleep-inducing attack should work on a piece of technology, but the fact that the ticking had audibly stopped from that particular source was undeniable.

After several heartbeats, Persephone looks to Zeke with abject helplessness, shoulder raised in a plaintive half-shrug. Maybe she got ahead of herself, giving him the impression that she knows more than she does or has some highly specialised unique knowledge about hauntings.

"Is it... asleep?" The suggestion is stupid and she knows it, she wants to swallow the words. Though on second thought, Zeke surely wouldn't have used the spore if he didn't think it would have some sort of effect. The notion gives Persephone pause, and she sheds her caution and levels alongside Zeke and his Pokemon to examine that particular clock closer.

"If something is inside, we can draw it out, right?" She knows of Pokemon like this; Pokemon like Porygon evolution chain that exist of of corporeal form and can occupy data and the like. Making a home inside furnishings is nothing unusual in isolation, only the scale of it - a room occupied by nothing but clocks? - was a concern. A bridge they'll cross if they get to it.

Gently, as though touching something so fragile it would otherwise shatter in her hands, Persephone reaches for the clock and unhooks it from the wall, placing it gingerly on the floor at their feet. It is no longer ticking, but nor is it quiet. It is, undoubtedly, slumbering, evident in the little ghost of snore it made at her touch.

Despite how archaic the clock looks, a shiver of electricity runs across the clock-face and Persephone pulls back sharply. Either the clock itself is a shell for what is inside or the being is occupying the clock's very fibers. Only one way to find out.

"Smash it," she tells her Lucario, and he obliges with a swift and powerful kick.