Distantly he heard Locke Jamison ’s wondering about the source and nature of the eerie tune, but Thomas paid it no mind. As much as it made his blood run cold, a song was a song was a song. Some simply evoked feelings more strongly than others.

Would he come to regret this? Most likely. But there was little in his life, he’d learned, that he had not come to regret.

Likewise he didn’t slow when the young man called after him to not split the party, but was, instead, already reaching the destination and beginning to follow the spectre’s leads, opening cabinets, checking for loose fixtures or fittings, peeking under rugs. Anything that may be deceptively hiding something else.

Perhaps this restless trenchancy is his punishment for not feeling fear properly. But he did not suffer through years of the finest Galarian education to lose his cool in the face of a scary song and a handful of panicked shades. Outwardly, at least, he exudes an air of all business. Mentally, however, he pictures a spluttering fuse, and a spark slowly crawling up it.

Static barks over the intercom and the tune is silenced. Thomas stands, craning his head to look towards the speaker box attached to the wall.

“Well. That’s one good thing, at least.”

His gaze drops to Locke Jamison . “I’ve not found anything of interest. I believe the last place we have to search is the sea fossil collection. Shall we?”

But he is already on the move. The mist buoys around him like petticoats of a lady's dress.

3Q8kjuG|

Locke Jamison luka chêne Eris Halla
thomas has his palpitoad out. goes to investigate the sea fossils room.
palpitoad uses mist to check for wisps.
i am Useless gomenasorry

☉

Thomas has never been one for standing still. It’s a skill that’s been trained into him, one iron-wrought from years of practice. Like mortals against their inevitable demise, he fights against it, regularly.

He comes around another corner, revealing someone who is very much alive.

“A-hah,” he says, faux cheer woven into his voice, “is this the unruly spectre that haunts these halls?” His smile is small but bright.

Helena spooks a Carbink out of a hall closet, smashing the accordion doors and sending one slamming against the opposite wall. It teeters, then falls with another loud noise. Thomas zaps the stunned creature with a Pokeball as the abandoned abode relapses to silence.

THEO BECKETT
normal / fairy / ghost
catch attempt carbink
holy shit im so sorry

☉

Exploring old, decrepit places like this piqued Thomas’ interest in many ways: the inherent danger was always a challenge, especially for someone with his pre-existing conditions. Less physically, he enjoyed the solitude, the aura of time bygone, as though the movement of the world had skipped this place and left it tinged with collected energy of everything it had touched but not moved with.

He was also quite fond of the supernatural, especially during these months.

Molly lingers behind him, her perpetual frown an ever-present comportment in his life. If it were up to her he would be at home, laying down, resting. Forever. Sometimes he wondered if she’d rather he be dead.

Helena, meanwhile, was flitting incorporeally in-and-out of walls and ceilings, frightening a pair of teens making out in a dark corner and cackling madly as they fled. Thomas tsk’ed at her meddling, stepped around a mysterious puddle, and pressed on.

The eerie sounds of someone singing a very windchime cover of In A Gadda Da Vida echoed down a corridor. Intrigued, Thomas headed towards the sound-- and almost trips over someone lingering in the near-dark.

“Apologies,” he says, fighting down a wince at the twinge in his bad leg, “I didn’t see you there. On account of you sitting on the floor. In the dark.” He added that last bit for posterity’s sake.

Sunset fast approached and the lilac of the evening was muted between concrete walls.

Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Are you well?”

@9
SORRY FOR THE WAIT holy butts

☉

The unfortunate fact of the matter was his toolset was rather limited and he was the very picture of the proverbial lame duck. What he lacked in useful associates, however, he hoped he more than made up for in charisma and confidence, insofar as he cared. Which wasn’t much. But no one likes to feel useless.

luka chêne protests that they doth be moving too quickly, and it raises a fair point. He has been approaching this more like an escape room than a true investigation, as though there was a time limit, or a record to beat. But it only makes sense given that he still thinks this is a game and the clues have been set there for them to find.

“I believe the complications come when you consider what a ghost truly is,” he answers Luka’s question with his practiced and gentle professor’s voice, the kind oft employed to lead confused students to their own conclusions-- a weapon well-honed and trained for his deep cover. “Ghost-type Pokemon have their own rules. But a ghost in another sense may not be quite so bound.”

Or maybe they are-- bound, literally, to this spot in this realm in this plane of existence. But to think that a lifetime of service to the flesh is all that is to be looked forward to in the afterlife, simply reflected through a cold, intangible mirror? Boring.

Follies, dear narrator, certainly.

Contrary to all popular belief, Locke proves the most useful, presenting an odd keystone that begins to shift and take on a peculiar hue. In a blink, Thomas’ eyes are drawn from the slowly pulsating light to bring surrounded by a flurry of black shades. Drawers and display cases rattle and shake; carpets and rugs flip up at their edges.

“Perhaps the ghost has lost its car keys?” he suggests, though the lilting mirth once prevalent in his tone has since faded.

The discordant notes of the music box trilling through the intercom do finally cause his breath to catch. He is a practiced professional, though, so it simply continues shortly thereafter.

A chill does, however, run down his spine.

Kilbourne makes a strangled cry of fright, mist still pouring from him in uncontrolled waves.

“I believe I shall help the spirits look,” he says, as though it is the most commonplace thing, the most helpful suggestion, and strikes out towards the meteorite displays. “Anyone care to join me?”

twKx2NZE

Locke Jamison luka chêne Eris Halla
thomas has his palpitoad out. going to check the meteorite collection
palpitoad uses mist to check for wisps
i am Useless gomenasorry

☉

They come around a corner, Helena fading in and out of view; she’s a rippling illusion, undulating with lines of invisibility. A habit borne out of boredom.

“I’m sorry, am I not entertaining enough for you?” Thomas asks, a touch incredulous; he tests the strength of the first of a set of stairs with his cane, then begins to ascend.

The Mismagius snickers, somewhat menacingly, in response.

At the top of the stairs Thomas is faced with a Haunter, looming out of the nothing. It is only his mental fortitude that stops him from startling and falling backwards; instead, he faces the Ghost-type with a wry grin, and Helena quickly brings it to heel with shadow ball.

“I will admit,” he commented to no one in particular, stepping past the downed Haunter and zapping it in a Pokeball, “that I was hoping for bit more of a thrill.”

Helena grins in agreement.

THEO BECKETT
normal / fairy / ghost
catch attempt haunter

☉

The last man was armed with a Pokemon which, in this world, was the norm. That so many of his compatriots touted guns and blades was the exception to the rule.

It was a Sneasel, and though fast and deadly, it wasn’t prepared for the simple brute force of Peter, charging into it. The Sharp Claw Pokemon aimed the devices for which it was named at Thomas’ gut but was broadsided by the big, burly form of Nightingale’s Gabite bodying it into a chair.

Now defenseless as his Pokemon wrestled with the much larger dragon, the thug hesitated, stuck somewhere between fleeing and staying to fight. It would be his undoing. Thomas stepped forward and, in a fluid, practiced movement, slipped the line of his cane around the back of the thug’s neck. With a flick of his wrist, it snapped to the thug’s throat, the end of it meeting Thomas’ hand behind his own head. A quick, jagged movement caught the man’s chin and snapped it almost one hundred and eighty degrees, dropping him like a sack of wet kittens.

Peter finished the Sneasel off with a large chomp to the head, crushing the smaller dual-types cranium between his jaws. He stood, viscera sliding in the spaces between his teeth. Thomas recalled him.

“Unfortunate for them,” he said, in the quiet that followed.

Zev Harcourt

☉

Thomas angled his head back to look at Locke, a small smile playing across his features. The young man did seem rather frightened, which Thomas found saddening and endearing in equal measure. He was worldly enough to understand that many of those he met in Hoenn were not summarily untouched by hardships or trauma, though he couldn’t stop himself from wondering if, perhaps, this was not the best sort of activity to be undertaking with such heavy skeletons to bear.

Then he thought back to all the times he engaged in various affairs generally thought inappropriate for someone of his stature and history and decided Locke was just fine, actually.

Kilbourne dutifully bathed the area in mist, wobbling a little back and forth as he did a small loop.

The other adult in the party makes an indignified squeak and Thomas has to hide a chuckle under a sudden cough-- which is easy, given how used to the practice he is. It was not malicious, or mocking; it was just an adorable sound.

She was certainly quite into it, wasn't she?

He was just about to ask if anyone had found anything when a strange noise barks out of the voicebox, oddly discordant in the quiet room. Kilbourne jumps, creating ripples in the fog, and Thomas feels the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up; his smile widens, and then he is taken by a real cough, one he has to fish his handkerchief out for and cover his mouth, turning away in politeness.

Once the jag has subsided, he turns back to the party, folding his handkerchief up and stuffing it back in his vest pocket.

“Apologies,” he says, voice slightly hoarse, “that startled me.” He could hear the voicebox message bleeding dissonantly throughout the rest of the museum, an echo getting gradually smaller and smaller.

He looks at Eris, smiling once more. “How thrilling! They really spared no expense, did they?” He points with his cane back towards the museum proper. “Shall we do a bit more poking around? Perhaps by the rocket?” His voice is heavy on the sarcastic intonation.

Kilbourne kept putting out mist as they trawled back into the entry and up the stairs towards the aerospace exhibit, too afraid to turn it off.

lRQqIt09

Locke Jamison luka chêne Eris Halla
thomas has his palpitoad out. goes to investigate the aerospace exhibit.
palpitoad uses mist to check for wisps.
i am Useless gomenasorry

☉

It is a haunted house, insofar as it is a house, and it has ghosts. Thomas feels that matches the criteria pretty well.

He stares down a long, empty, poorly decorated hallway, spiderwebs clogging the corners, flooring peeling up at the seams.

“Atrocious sense of decor,” he comments, to no one, shaking out his handkerchief (making sure not the use the one rigged with chloroform, of course) and barking two sharp coughs into it, likely brought upon by the copious amounts of dust swirling about.

He steps back into the great room proper, turning to look at his Mismagius with bright eyes.

“Let’s see what mischief we can get up to, shall we?”

THEO BECKETT
normal / fairy / ghost

☉