Tracking License: Property Flipping in Lower Brookfell

Deep in the Brookfell Tunnels, a squatter crouched in front of a door. She worked urgently at the lockbox that secured the building.

 

"One...three...one...two. Got it."

 

The indicator LED flashed green twice, then the deadbolts holding the door shut released with an audible -click-. Myra opened the door, and peered into...darkness. Rustling, skittering, chittering darkness.

 

Myra expected this. The building had been abandoned for months, after an earthquake had severed its connections to the power grid. By showing up for an abandoned property auction (inexplicably held in person at 7am on Saturday morning, when any decent human being should be asleep), Myra had bought the rights for a song, and 237 credits.

 

She was now.....a property owner! Potentially, a home owner! A member of the (ugh) petit-bourgeoisie!

 

Small apartment building? Brookfellian architecture did not necessarily match exteriors to interiors, and Myra's winning bid hadn't been high enough to purchase the blueprints for the building, just uncontested property rights. So the original purpose of the building, Myra was unclear on. An ancient sodium lamp illuminated a moldering sign on the side of the building that _just might_ have the letters "-O-T-E-" on the side.

 

The ancient sodium lamps posted on the street outside threw a bright rectangle of light into the empty vestibule of the old hotel. Wings raised and held forward like protective shields, Argo pushed past his partner to enter the lobby first. He  could see just fine in the darkness, and what he could see, he didn't like. The absol/noctowl hissed a challenge, an eerie wail with a rising pitch to warn any wild pokemon inside that a hunter was coming in.

 

"Yes, yes, you're very scary." Myra agreed dryly. "Best way to introduce ourselves to the new roommates, threats of violence. How are they going to help us find the generator room, now?" Myra had been told by the auctioneer that there was supposed to be an backup generator on-site. The sooner this place could be well-lit with working ventilation, the better.

 

Four zubat covered in shaggy black-and-white zigzagoon fur detached from the ceiling and flew out the open door, scolding Argo with shrill squeaks as they did so. He swiped at them with clawed talons as they passed, but his heart wasn't in it.

 

Before fully entering the darkness, Myra cracked two glowsticks to life. She hung one around Argo's neck and held the other aloft herself. They delved further into the old hotel, down a narrow hallway dusted with the colorless flecks of old wallpaper that had peeled off the walls. She tried a door: unlocked!

 

"Fuagh, ough, that's *awful!*" Myra grimaced, waved her hand in front of her face. There was absolutely no way the little red bandanna in her bag was going to protect either of them against the stale, acrid, air in this stairwell. Argo was sensitive to poisons as a fairy-type, and sensitive to bad air as an avian; he coughed and hissed in displeasure at the rank stench.

 

Nobody, pokemon or human, was happy in the industrial stairwell that day. A seething yellow carpet of joltik-grubbin surged out from holes in the wall, from  undersides of stairs,  from open pipes. Some were even larger: a charjabug trundled forward on tiny fluffy spider legs, swaying in a threat display. It would protect its hive-mates! No-one would steal their precious electricity!

 

And there was electricity here, Myra realized: along the walls were emergency LED lights, casting harsh shadows but illuminating the descending stairs below. The generator must be nearby!

 

Sudden sensation: pin-and-needle prickles seized her scalp, squeezed her bones. The air was ionizing. Myra hopped backwards to the doorframe and let Argo do his work.

 

Preternaturally attuned to the danger in his own way, Argo had already dashed forward to intercept the electrical discharge. He croaked in discomfort as the energy seared and frazzled him; but it didn't matter. Electricity didn't hurt as much as it used to. Argo advanced on the Charjatik.

 

Along the owlish pokemon's back, every white feather gleamed, then began to softly glow. Argo trilled softly, calling down the moon into a place its pure energy had never reached. The aura of mystic light swirled and circled around the griffon, then raced away in all directions just as it reached the peak of brightness. The smaller grubs screeed and skittered away, but the larger green bug remained. With a crackle of static, it began to charge up for another attack. Argo flapped his wings once, twice, rising into the air only to plunge down with talons extended, a pressure wave of air slashing out ahead of his claws.

 

With the wild Pokemon occupied, Myra scanned out the area more thoroughly. The lower the stairs, the more frequently the lights appeared. Whereas up here, the severed wires only sparked and faintly crackled. It didn't feel right. The better food was obviously below, but the whole hive instead stayed on the higher floors. And there weren't as many Charja- as should be expected. Something....ominous was at the bottom of these stairs.

 

In the battle, Argo had seized ahold of the chargatik with his talons, rolling around, kicking with his back legs, and finally tossing the electric insect over the railing. The wild pokemon screeched in indignation, then crawled up the wall and disappeared into a bolthole.

 

Myra treated Argo's wounds with a potion and, with echoing steps, they descended the rest of the way down the hotel stairs. At the bottom, faded stickers warned that the room beyond the next door was the electrical room, HAZARDOUS, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, etc. But as of 7:45am Saturday morning, Myra was  authorized personnel. 

 

"Jackpot."

 

But her hair stood on end when she placed her hands to open the door. A premonition of danger. A very, familiar kind of premonition. Oh. So that's what was in the generator room. Of course. But combined with the smell, then...

 

Stark fluorescent lighting illuminated a generator room swirling with lurid purple miasma. Squatting in the middle of the space was the generator, a turbine-type noisily roaring away with a horrible crackle. And the same violet aura surrounded the generator, a blank-eyed face with fanged teeth flickering into visibility in the violet aura.

 

There was a rotom living in the generator. Judging by the color--and the smell--a rotom/poison fusion of some kind. It had claimed the entire electrical room as its territory, terrorizing the bug-types that would have otherwise nested down here.

 

Myra patted Argo's flank. "Show it your new move," she urged.

 

Argo, who wanted nothing to do with the poisonous air down here, didn't need to be told twice. He spread his wings and croaked, swaying back and forth as he advanced towards the possessed generator. Again, the Noctosol summoned the energy of moonlight deep underground. But this was a different type of move. With a disciplined mental effort, Argo focused the gleaming moonlight close around his body. Wings fluttering and constantly in motion, Argo darted and danced around the squat Turbine-Rotom. Lines of energy traced and trailed behind him as he continued the Lunar Dance, the energy building and building until, with a final swipe of the claw, Argo struck at the Rotom.

 

The rotom's purple plasma body stretched out and away from the generator it occupied, twisting around to strike out with shadowy claws. Away from the turbine, Myra could see that it had not one, but two faces--like a Weezing. She'd suspected something of the sort, but it was good to have it confirmed.

 

Free to attack more freely now that it was away from the previous generator, Argo struck back with slashes of his own, crackling with dark energies. His goal was to overwhelm and intimidate the Rotomeezing until it would release its hold on the precious generator, or--

 

A gently-lobbed pokeball entered the purple energy field that comprised the rotom-fusion's body. Exactly as advertised the red ball opened up, and the wild pokemon's energy coalesced into a swirling mass inside the ball. The pokeball shook once, twice...

 

Myra grabbed the shaking pokeball, opened the door, and hurled it into the stairwell like it was a live grenade. If it was going to break free, she was going to let the hungry Charjatiks deal with their weakened foe. She'd never needed to *win* the fight, she just needed the pokemon out of the generator room.

 

Myra wiped sweat off her brow and heaved in relief. Argo's job was done, and hers could begin.