Jay's New Job
So we figured that Giratina, enterprising son of a gun that he is, would probably not have put all his eggs in one basket in regards to trying to get his nightchild - therefore, a lot of other giratina blessed knocking around doing funky little things
Like creating demons? yeah, sure, absolutely
Guess who was watching Supernatural when they were fleshing out this particular thing
~
As the twins and Soise ran out of sight, I smiled and turned back to examine the stalls again. I’d need to get a gift for Phoe, and since we were here… didn’t really know what to get her, though.
“Hey… Jayden? What do eight year olds like?”
He laughed and shrugged, upsetting the fletchling on his shoulder. “It depends. I liked birds, Skyla liked planes…”
“And I liked… hell, I can’t even remember. Attacking Candice with bulbasaur plushies, I think.”
“Plushies might be a good place to start.”
I nodded and we make our way through to the plushie stalls of the market.
“Just… probably best not to tell the twins. We don’t really have the room for more plushies.”
“I don’t know, you could always take the beds out of one of the cabins.”
“That’s a fairly sensible suggestion, Brith, but I’m going to have to let it slide.” I grinned.
We looked through the stacks of plushies of pokémon from all over. So many choices… hard to pick just one. Plus, I really didn’t know her all that well. I picked up a zangoose, feeling the softness of its fur.
Something prickled at the back of my head and I shook my head. It didn’t leave. I rubbed at it, frowning.
“Something wrong?”
“Are you going to pay for that?”
“Huh?” I looked up.
“That plush. Paying for it?” The stall owner was watching me, a hand held out.
“Right… sorry.” I shook my head and concentrated, but the prickling wouldn’t leave. “Jayden – can you handle this?” I passed him the plush. “There’s something… I’ve got to do.”
“Jay?” He looked bewildered as I left him, pushing through the crowds.
“Brith, can you feel that?”
“Feel what?” She was at my side in an instant, looking around.
“Something… something’s happening.”
Brith closed her eyes, aura sensors vibrating slightly.
“There.” We both pointed at the same time, to a nearby alley. Exchanging worried looks, we stalked over to it and looked down.
I could hear murmuring coming from the other end, but it wasn’t words I knew. And the prickling was getting worse. Exchanging a glance with Brith, I set the rucksack down and motioned for Vulp and Sesser to stay and guard. The two of them nodded and settled there as we left.
There were the sounds of a scuffle, or someone struggling… and a chant in a language I didn’t know. We sped up, and I lifted a needle from the inside pocket of my coat.
And… well, that was a strange sight to walk in on. An older man, dressed in black – looked like a priest – walking around the outside of a circle, reciting the chant. Inside the circle, a… a thing. Looking sort of like a snake, twisting and writhing and trying to… break free, I supposed. But it wasn’t going over the circle.
Brith flicked an ear, lowering her fists slightly. The man kept his chant going, and the black scales shed away from – that was a woman in there, a human!
“What are you doing?”
The man broke off his chant, looking up. “Well. Ah – you wouldn’t understand.”
“I think I understand fairly well.” I narrowed my eyes. “What are you doing with her?”
“Blue.”
His eyes widened as I took a step towards him. “Just – she has a demon in her, I must remove it!”
I glanced at the woman. Her shape was changing again, snake-like then scorpion-like then crab-like… it looked familiar.
“Distortion,” I whispered.
“You know it?”
“I’m familiar.” I gestured to the circle. “What’s with the get up?”
“Just – let me finish this first.” He turned back to his book and continued the chant.
“Blue.” Brith tugged at my sleeve. “Look.”
I glanced back. She was holding an old paper, from a few weeks back. The front page had a picture of a circle… like this one. A chalk-drawn body in the middle of it. Blood obliterating many of the marks.
What was going on?
“The ritual isn’t working… well, this will stop you.”
Looking back, I gasped as the man drew out a knife and stepped over the boundary of the circle, towards the struggling woman.
“No!” I leapt forward and tackled him out of the circle, the knife clattering to the ground.
“What are you doing?” he gasped, struggling under my weight. “I must finish this!”
“Not by killing her!”
There was a fluttering of paper and the sound of something getting punched back. “Blue, some attention here!”
I looked around. Brith was between us and the woman, but she wasn’t really a woman anymore. More a sort of… zubat-venipede cross with skorupi pincers. Right.
“This might be my bad, but I will not let you kill her,” I muttered, springing to my feet and pulling out another needle.
“The knife, the knife!” He gestured to it, not getting up. “That will kill it.”
“And her.” I frowned, leaping forward. “Not on my watch.”
I took my place beside Brith and the woman hissed at me.
“You… I know you.” She tensed up, all bug armour and arching tail.
“Never met you before in my life.”
“Ah… but you are the Guardian. Well, well, well…”
“This is more than a demon,” Brith whispered. “That’s him. That’s actually him.”
“But… Joanna – Phoe.” I frowned.
“I wouldn’t put all my eggs in one basket, would I? Not like you have.”
The woman raised a hand to point at me, and spines flew from her fingertips. I raised an arm and armour flashed into place, the spines shattering uselessly against it.
“This is a good basket, though,” someone spoke through me. That was a crap analogy, but I appreciated the sentiment. “You try too hard… and it dilutes the power.” I slashed a hand across, the needle becoming a sword in the instant it took for the woman to grow herself armour.
She was flung to the side and hit thin air, crumpling to the ground. What?
“You… what are you?”
I ignored the man, stepping over to the woman. “You have your NightChild, Giratina. Leave here.”
“Ah, but I like my playthings…” She pulled herself to her feet and hissed at me, growing spines.
“And we don’t play.” I parried her next attack, stepping to the side and slamming my shield into her back.
She couldn’t leave the circle. Interesting. I paced its edge, keeping an eye on her as she hissed and morphed in the centre of it.
“No – wait!” Brith yelled and I turned, not fast enough to see the knife fly through the air.
I certainly heard it hit, though. A solid thunk, followed by coughing gasps. I spun back around – wings flaring for balance – and watched as the woman sank to her knees, coughing up blood. All distortion left her and she was just a woman, bleeding out on the ground.
“Hold him,” I snapped, stepping into the circle to kneel down by the woman.
There wasn’t anything we could do, and for a moment I was transported back to Castelia, to the last time I had watched someone die. I lifted up her head, supporting her against my – still armoured – leg.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I was too weak.”
“No, it’s alright,” I replied. “You were strong, he didn’t get through.”
“The things – he made me do.” She coughed up blood. “I released – so many demons. I’m sorry.”
Demons. I’d heard stories about them, everyone had. Hadn’t thought that they were real, though. I laid her down carefully and took hold of the knife, pulling it from her stomach.
“Right. You’d better explain things now.” I stood up, turning around.
Brith had the man in a headlock, but he was limp and unresisting.
“You – what are you?”
“The Guardian,” I replied. “And you’ve been doing my job badly.”
“We – well, I was told I had to!”
“By whom?” It was quite a nice knife, if a bit… bloody.
He hung his head. “The voice. Please – I can help you. I’m – I’m supposed to teach you.”
“Teach me what?”
“How to exorcise them. You may have the NightChild under your wing, but there are other marked out there, many demons. You have to hunt them.”
“The pay’s going to be crap, isn’t it?” I glanced to Brith. “Release him.”
She let him drop.
“Take the bag back to the ship, will you? Tell Jayden I’m… busy.”
Brith nodded. “Be careful.” She left.
He stood up, shakily, and looked around for his book.
“So. Teach me.”
“Let’s – get out of here first.”
“What, don’t want to be rewarded for your service to the community?”
He laughed nervously.
“Fine.” I stepped forward and grabbed his collar. “Hold on.” Spreading my ice wings, I pulled us into the sky. “Where do you live?”
He gulped and screamed. I shook him.
“Concentrate.”
“Th – there.” He jabbed a hand downwards. “In that block. With the balcony.”
Excellent. I landed on the balcony and let him go, shrugging away the armour and the wings with a sigh. That stuff hurt.
He fumbled with the door and finally got it open. “This – this way.”
I followed him in, sheathing my needles.
He was asleep – I could hear him snoring from the next room. I got up, making as little noise as possible, and cleared all the books, all the equipment he had, into several bags. It was still dark, but I knew where the docks were from here. Should I bother leaving a note…?
No. He would know. But – I grinned – maybe a message. Unsheathing one of my needles, I stabbed it into the centre of the chalk circle he’d drawn out to show me. This was my job now, not his.
Opening the sliding windows, I pulled the bags out and breathed in the night air. Let’s see if this would work… concentrating, I tried to pull on some measure of change – tried to pull on some wings.
It was slow going. Hard work, I hadn’t had to do anything like this in a long time.
But I got there. Wings for arms, talons for feet. The… harpy form. Well, it worked.
Awkwardly, I took the bags in my feet, gripping them tight. Then I hopped up and spread my wings before stepping into the sky.
I fell, first, before I got the hang of beating my wings. Even then it was haphazard, and I couldn’t get higher than the buildings again.
So I dropped into the street with a thud and picked up the bags in my hands. I’d just walk back.
Jayden was waiting on the ship – the lights were on in the main cabin. I stepped up the plank and over Ray and pushed the door open awkwardly.
“Jay!” He was there in an instant, catching the door. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah – yeah, I’m fine.” I nodded, pushing the bags into the nearest corner.
“What are they?” He looked down at them as I closed the door.
“Ah – tools of the trade.” I hugged him, stealing warmth.
He hugged me back, pressing his lips to my forehead. “Brith didn’t say much.”
“This is going to need something to drink.” But I didn’t want to let him go.
“Right. Well… we can handle it.”
Eventually I had to, and we sat down at the table with a couple of glasses and a bottle of whiskey. It was definitely a whiskey explanation.
“Demons are real,” he said eventually.
I nodded, playing with my glass.
“And… there are other Giratina Marked.”
I nodded again.
“And… right.”
“And it’s my job to hunt them down and get rid of them,” I said quietly, downing what was left.
“Well.” Jayden blinked and shook his head. “Alright then.”
I looked up at him. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” He smiled, but I could see it was forced. “We’ll manage. You know what you need to about it, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Just… not how to find them.”
“We can work that out.” He leant back in his chair. “I suppose it explains why you still have all the power stuff.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t used that since Nyx’s Night,” I replied, frowning. “I didn’t know.”
“You haven’t noticed…?”
“Noticed what?”
He leant forward, reaching for the bottle. “Every so often I see the shadow of wings, or there’s water dripping around you. And not just when you’ve been in the sea, or washing yourself.”
I frowned. “No… I hadn’t noticed.”
“Maybe that’s something to do with these demons.”
I nodded, yawning. “Maybe.”
“You can start in the morning.” He stood up, helping me up as well.
“The hours are going to be shite. The pay’s even worse.”
“Nothing new, then.” Jayden laughed softly.