REF- A Ghostly Savior

Diana let out a sigh as she opened her eyes. If she squinted, she could somehow make out some dark shapes of abandoned furniture with minimal light in the room. The silhouette of r a covered sofa on the other end of the room, light peering from below the doorway, and subtle talk on the other end. Discussing the terms of her ransom, no doubt. She wasn’t unfamiliar with being tied up in dark rooms at least, though usually far from these circumstances, though. An unsuspecting gang had caught her and her Serviper by surprise- ambushing them as they exited a club in Grovehart for a quick breather and wrapped a pillowcase over her head. Her Serviper, old as he was, was caught by surprise just as much and couldn’t prevent being pinned by some of the Pokemon the gang members threw out either. It was a quick but sloppy kidnapping, she had to admit.

Diana had heard about the kidnappings and illegal backyard sale of stolen pedigree pokemon- possibly even funded some of them herself unknowingly. After the Nera outbreak the Pedigrees came in short supply- what with every pokemon in the wild now becoming fused. Naturally, she never thought they’d get in that situation herself. Diana Laine? Famous art collector- through any means necessary- kidnapped for her pokemon? Who would dare steal from her? Well, it turns out, when you’re alone in a dark alley in the late afternoon you’re just as much of a target as anyone else. She felt the rope burn against her shoulders as she moved, twisting and turning to find any possible way to loosen them at all. Despite all that, she felt more worried for her Seviper. Vewil, her pokemon since childhood had been with her through thick and thin. He was a rock in her life and the one thing she vowed to protect no matter what. 

Luckily, or unluckily for others, Diana had a difficult past as a prestigious daughter of a top dog criminal, and thus even with her discomfort in the situation, it wasn’t at all the first time she’d been kidnapped and roped up. She knew how to deal with things like this- and so did her Seviper. All things considered- today was going to be a worse day for her kidnappers than for them. The rope loosened ever so slightly, but enough so that Diana could rub herself against the furniture behind her and get herself untied. Her hand rubbed her shoulder and she let out a noise of a mild complaint before gathering herself, standing up on her heels and patting off the dust from her designer dress.

“Now, let’s see about this thing then.”

Her hand instantly went to the TD to the side of her head, tapping it quietly. She wasn’t connected to any emergency services anymore- with it being hacked and all- but she definitely still had some tricks up her sleeve. One of them was that she could track the location of her Seviper with a small chip implanted underneath its scales. The corner of her eyesight lit up just a little, enough to show her the exact distance between her and Vewil. He was still in the same building. She walked over to the door, putting her head against the wood for just a moment to listen out for any guards or the like, before trying the lock. Diana wasn’t getting through that way any time soon. With a click of her tongue, she looked around, trying to find anything she could pry the door open with. It was hard to navigate through the dark, however- and what little light she had from underneath the door wasn’t at all helpful. Her hands stumbled across the furniture, gently prodding and poking for any items she could recognize by touch alone. Some books, clothes– nothing of value. She remembered at that moment a hairpin in her hair- it was dark and not noticeable unless one went through it with their hands. And as she did just that, she let out a sigh of relief at finding it still in its position. Sloppy.

Twisting it in her hands she walked over to the door once more and knelt down to pick the lock. While it wasn’t in any way up to snuff to an actual lockpicking kit, it did the job relatively easy- and quick- and it wasn’t long before Diana was standing in the lit hallway. LED’s ran along the bottom of the wall illuminating it. Luckily, it seemed empty- and which each step she took the distance between her and Vewil grew smaller and smaller. 

“Hey!”

A man shouted behind her and Diana cursed under her breath as she ran, the click of her heels loud against the tiles of the hallway- with the booming footsteps of the man behind her. She could hear him behind her speak through an earpiece- no doubt calling in reinforcements and informing them of her escape. He cornered her eventually, smirking as he thought he had her and grabbed her arm. Diana struggled against his hold- but she knew something they evidently didn’t.

“Sorry, lad. I don’t have time for you.”

She smirked before pulling her arm back, bringing his to her face and digging her fangs into his skin. If there was one thing she had done after the Nera outbreak, it was to purposefully fuse herself with the essence of a Seviper nera. Precisely for situations like this. The man screamed and stumbled back, holding his arm and cursing before his eyes rolled back and he fell to the floor. Diana brushed the poison from her mouth with the edge of her thumb. Her mind went back to the distance tracker- and to her shock it seemed that Vewil was being taken further and further away from her at a rapid pace. There was no way she could keep up with that under normal circumstances. 

She couldn’t help it, but panic set in- and she found herself hurriedly trying every door to attempt to figure out the layout of the place, only to remain unsuccessful in doing so. Her eyes drifted back to the tracker over and over- the sight of it making her sick to her stomach. The last thing she remembered, then– was the ding of the elevator behind her and others running up to her.

Then, it went black.

When she came to some modicum of thought and self-awareness, she was laid in one of Grovehart’s parks- Vewil beside her making concerned noises and the light from the upcoming dawn chasing away the shadows. Reviewing her TD later that evening, she found that the data of it had been corrupted in a way that she couldn’t explain. It was something that probably could happen with a hacked system, but the timing of it was odd and peculiar. Diana had to be seen by doctors that were easily bribed, at which point she had been notified that her fusion status had seemed to accelerate beyond the simplicity she had before. Desperate for proper answers, she demanded that the doctors explained and showed her exactly what that meant. They in turn administered a drug that triggered her fight or flight, and as Diana felt her heart race so too did her lower half grow in a weird serpentine way. It wasn’t hard for her to recognize the Seviper patterning along …. Her tail. What was the most surprising part was the small, ghost-like illusions that brandished her hair. Alongside her permanent fusion, she had also seemed to acquire a ghost type Nera. She could only assume that it was a Nera that they had kept in the building or wherever they had kept Vewil, intending to use it on the Pedigree to create what they called a Delta nowadays.

She left the doctor’s office that day several hours later- having to wait out the permanent fusion’s effects and with more questions and speculations than she had arriving. But… she couldn’t help think of all the possibilities that a permanent fusion opened her up to… and she looked forward to controlling it.