[Rivalry Riot]Cat and Mouse

“Just what are they up to,” Aeson grumbled under his breath, moving his hand to his chin and his eyes narrowed from where he was. 

There were signs of Team Cynic here, just little small remnants left behind, but there were no members that he could tell. His gaze turned to Knight who looked up to him in response. He was glad to have a double canine partner, not that it enhanced the dogs’ sense of smell or hearing, but it just helped with the general tracking. He moved his hand down, gently petting Knight to give his partner some reassurance. 

“I’m sure we’ll pick up on their tracks soon enough,” he muttered to Knight, narrowing his green gaze back at the items. He motioned with his hand, looking at Knight with a nod of his own. “Go on, let’s see if we can get some semblance of scent from any of those left behind items.” 

Knight gave a soft bark in response, walking forward and putting his nose to the ground, he sniffed the objects, his tail lowered and his ears perked straight up. It took a bit of sniffing, but he looked up and looked to his trainer, there were no words spoken between the two. They’ve done this plenty of times before, Knight had a scent. 

Knight was the first to take off and Aeson quickly after him, his shoes clicking against the rubble that made up the sidewalks of Brookfell. He knew that the trail wouldn’t lead him straight to the culprit more than likely, but any semblance of clues or what they were doing could lead him to a bigger bust, or maybe to someone. It had been awhile and the tracks were probably starting to get a little old. They turned corner after corner, the lights of the middle-grounds area started to fade and the buildings began to look a bit more shabbier. 

The support that held them up was failing as some had already fallen to ruins, some had broken windows or were missing doors, but none of the cynic members would be dumb enough to hide in a crumbling building that was for sure. So they continued forth, the lights from the upper city were completely snuffed out, and the only thing that helped was the poor glow of the street lamps that lit the sides.

Aeson was breathing heavily when Knight halted, sniffing around the ground while Aeson tried to catch his breath. Knight probably lost the scent, and he groaned a little himself, sitting down on a bench that was there, and one hand resting on his chest. His heart raced, he had been running for too long. Knight fervently sniffed around, but he just couldn’t seem to pick up the scent of the Cynic member. He trotted back over to Aeson and looked at him with his ears folding back a little, and his tail remaining low. He let out a few soft whines, before lightly nuzzling his head against Aesons’ hand.

I’m sorry, it doesn’t seem like I can find their scent around here. It just… it poofed. I don’t understand. Though Aeson couldn’t understand his words, he knew he would understand the whines of apologies, enjoying the soft head pats and ear scratches Aeson was providing him anyways. 

“That’s alright, we’ll find another lead, we just have to keep looking right?” He asked, knowing that without Knight picking up the scent, they might as well start over. They weren’t even near any of the hideouts - he’d assume - so they might have to go back from where they came and try again from that spot. As he stood up to get to walking, and Knight took a few steps forward, there was a voice, whispers of a sort. Aeson plastered himself against the wall to be somewhat hidden from view, Knight being against the wall as well, and both tried their best to listen in. With Aeson’s elf-like ears, it did make hearing things at a distance a little easier for him, but nothing to the degree of Knight being able to listen. 

“Yeah, No I’ll be there soon. I will be. Stop hounding my ass before I burn yours. Yeah I know I have to be thee first. Ugh shut up and bye.”

The whispered voice that they picked up on sounded angry, and had more of a gruff tone to it. The person couldn’t be much older than Aeson, at least from how the voice sounded, and so Aeson snuck around the side of the wall, trying to watch where he stepped and what he stepped on while focusing on the path he believed the voice came from. He turned his attention to Knight, who was alert and ready to battle if things went awry, and Aeson nodded to the pokemon. Well at least the two of them were on the same page then in traveling. 

Just as he rounded another corner, his boot caught a rock and he had kicked it, he freaked out on the inside, his heart racing again and his TD shifting colors slightly due to his anxiety, he moved a hand over where it was, trying to calm himself down and hide the light that barely reflected from it. He thought the man hadn’t taken notice of them, but Aeson was completely wrong. Just as they continued forward from the corner they rounded, another creature had started to follow from behind them, silently. 

There was only one cop here it seemed, one cop and his pokemon, they would be easy to deal with. But hey, he could have some fun playing with his prey before he tried to take them out, right? The cynic member smirked, following them through the shadows thanks to what his fusion was. Being a Gengar, which worked well with shadow phasing, it was easy to keep up with Aeson and his trainer. He would disappear at times to hide, when the canid pokemon would turn to look behind it and Aeson. 

He wondered how he wanted to play with Aeson; however, there were so many good choices and so many fun things he could do with the cop, playing chase was one of the things that he enjoyed best - but he’d rather be the chaser and not the one running away. 

Aeson didn’t know the danger that he was in, all he knew was that Knight kept looking back meticulously and seemed to always keep moving, never staying in one place for a long period of time, they always needed to be moving. They almost made a full circle before something exciting had happened. Off  in the distance was a noise, as if someone had ran down the alleyway and hit the trash can.

The metal spun and clinked against the ground, getting Knight to growl with his fur bristled and he approached where the noise was, but there was nothing there, not even the traces of anything being on the trash can. There wasn’t a gust of strong enough wind to knock it over either, and so both Knight and Aeson sighed. Well it could have just been a pokemon trying to mess with them, if only they knew the threat that lurked behind them. The two looked to one another but continued on their way of looking around for anything that could be tied back to Team Cynic.

That was when a random attack seemed to come from nowhere, Knight jumped to his feet, turning with his fur bristled, Aeson had jumped back, barely dodging the attack and narrowing his gaze as well. It wasn’t a pokemon attack, it had to have come from some kind of gun or illegal cyberware. It seemed they weren’t alone in this area, and he looked at Knight with a nod, so this is how they wanted to play their game. Aeson reached for his pistol and moved to unlock it so he could use it to fight with. The current bullets within were blank - he didn’t want to potentially kill someone unless he had to. He knew that Team Cynic probably would not care to kill him or Knight, but he was going prepared, and Knight was a capable fighter.

Laughter echoed around them, causing the hair on his neck to stand on end. The voice sounded haunting, almost a whisper as it circled them almost seeming to come from all directions. It would be better to find this person in a dead end, so they wouldn’t have a lot of places to run or hide. With his worries present, he looked to Knight before he moved to get onto the dog, glad that he could ride on the pokemon due to their height. 

“Let’s go Knight, seems our assailant is too shy to show his face.”

Knight ruffed, and took off running, claws digging up some of the rubble with rocks kicking behind him as he took off. The Gengar infused trainer ran after Aeson, using the shadows so he wouldn’t be seen or caught for the matter. With Knight zigzagging to cause issues for targeting purposes, the Gengar trainer grunted, he wanted a challenge, but not like this, it was pissing him off! Suddenly Knight was no longer in his sights, he took his eyes off of them for just one moment, and they were gone but they weren’t ghost types right, how the hell did they end up disappearing. He didn’t realize his powers had faded, revealing him to the open world and his wispy-like appendages he had. One hand rested on his hips and he grumbled under his breath.

“Damn, I didn’t even get to play with them,” he commented, chuckling under his breath. “Must’ve scared them enough that they turned tail and ran like cowards.”

Aeson smirked from behind the male, and moved to point his gun at the male’s back in between his shoulder blades. “On the contrary, I’m right behind you.” 

The next thing that happened was a bit fast, but Aeson remembered feeling a pain resonating from his temple just above his nose, having been headbutted by the culprit. While he winced and stumbled backwards, the assailant also let out a sound in pain when Knight reared up to attack him, fangs sinking into the man’s leg as purple-hued blood slipped from the bite marks on his leg, the assailant managed to phase a bit to get his leg out of Knight’s mouth. Once Aeson was recovered, the game had been turned around and both were at an advantage. They could follow the dribble of blood from the man who was running - or doing his best after being bitten.

Or they could just follow the scent, either way, Aeson smirked and started to run after the man with Knight at his side, green eyes glancing down at the dog with a proud look to his eyes. “I’m sorry you had to bite a human,” he said between breaths. “But I’m glad you had my back bud, this isn’t going to be easy. Even with a minor injury like that, he’s going to be one hell of a pain to track down and bring in!”

Knight ruffed back at him, fur moving in the wind, though his gaze remained narrowed. We’ll do our best to get him, or some kind of ID. Unless he has back up, this shouldn’t be too hard.

Aeson was sure their ‘friend’ had pokemon at his disposal if he wished to use them, but they would also cross that when they got to it. As they approached what seemed like a dead end, following the blood trail, he held his gun up at the man, and his eyes narrowed at him.

“This is the end of the line for you, it would be better for all of us if you turned yourself in peacefully.”

The cynic member seemed to smirk, hand reaching into his pocket to pull out small, spherical objects - Aeson couldn’t make out what they were, they could indeed be anything! The man chuckled, his voice growing creepier and almost distorted as he talked, his eyes almost seemed to glow in the darkness, just adding to the threatening imagery he wanted to place in their minds.

“No little man,” he replied, his eyes holding almost a look of mania in them. “We’ve only just gotten started.”