Mischief Managed [Halloween S4 2019]

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Tonight was going to be fun, Chance thought to himself with a snicker. He spent quite a fair amount of time on just collecting data about the kill-joys of the evening, now was the time to act against them! He couldn't do this alone, however, fortunately, he knew exactly who to ask along with him. It took him all day to put together the note for Osiris, even more just to sneak it into the dratini's room without his mother noticing.

...That was probably very illegal to do, but what did he care? He was gonna be the world's best outlaw! The zorua donned his cape and flash emblem, slapped on his false-oversized fangs, and picked up the pumpkin shaped basket. The innards of the carrier was empty, however, so he flipped the object up onto his head-effectively transforming it into a hat.

He sneaked out of the house and into town square, a careful and cautious eye looked to and fro. This was a Top! Secret! Meeting! He had to make sure nobody was following him...Once he was satisified with his three second search, he slipped into the alleyway he told Osiris about. He searched around the boxes and barrels briefly before he located the one he scouted out several days before. A grin stretched across his expression, the "X" he marked on the crate still ready. He reached his fore-paws up onto the edge. With a keen and careful eye, he made a move to jump in...

Of course, he failed. The box flipped over with the wrong move and trapped him inside. A surprised cry escaped him as he dashed forward in a blind panic. He rammed into the side of the box and sent it flying with him across the alleyway. the box struck another barrel. The rumbling sound of wood struck fear into him as he heard something heavy drop on top of his box.

...

uh-oh.

"Oh yeah, he's fine. He yanked himself out and we got out of there pretty quick," Osiris said, feeling like he was lying through his teeth. Everything he said was technically true, but he felt like such a dirtbag and so helpless for having to do as Kiba's alter-ego said. Even if it was for Kiba's own good; that line of thinking just made him feel like Evil Kiba, and he couldn't resist a shiver of distaste.

As for the rest of that, he didn't want to lie. "And... yeah. D'you remember that move I blasted on the mightyena, back in Everpsring?" he asked, picking and choosing his specifics. "It's called Dragon Rage, and it's better against things that aren't so... hardy, or tough, you know? He hit you hard right off the bat, like a sneak attack, and then it was just me and him. He kinda ran circles around me until I got lucky with a good shot, and then he was down and out." the dratini finished, owning up to getting lucky.

Osiris was pretty sure at this point what he was doing wrong as far as battling went. His go-to strategy was to just hit things, and if that didn't work he'd try a different method of that. But both Evil Kiba and the nameless jolteon outsmarted him; the former outmaneuvered him and used the environment against him before he could realize it, and the latter was a cruel, malicious kind of smart. Using pokemon as living shields was just gross, but it was effective until he gave it up. Osiris had to use his head more often, get tactical with the tactical guys, and then his better tools wouldn't have to carry him to victory.

This dice is not existing.

The dratini certainly didn't make it all sound very cool...but Chance was almost certain that Osiris was just being modest! It can't have gone that horribly, right? He hadn't seen the full extent of his wounds, but he'd probably be back in action after a good day's rest-like a cold or something! Chance couldn't bear to wipe the stupid excited grin off his face.

"That must have been sooo scary," he commented, "But I bet he won't be messin around with YOU any time soon after that, that Dragon Rage of your's is kinda terrifying! I bet even a slowpoke'd feel it right quick if you hit one with it." He stopped suddenly. His mouth snapped shut, the smile faded, and his eyes widened. Silence took over as he seemed to freeze in place, his injured paw in the air since he had to use it for gesturing as he spoke. He couldn't keep still with all this excitement, but that suddenly dipped from 100 all the way back down to 0 in a matter of a second.

"...We should totally see if there's a slowpoke in town that'll let us test on it." He finally resumed as quickly as he stopped with his ever-so brilliant plan after his moment of pure genius. His tail wagged back and forth just behind him, seeing as that was the only part of him that could move about without causing any serious bouts of pain.

Watching Kiba freeze up like that had him feeling guilty; the bandages he wore and memories from last night were bad enough reminders, but now his friend couldn't even be as boisterous and expressive as normal without enduring pain. As soon as Osiris healed, he had to get back out there and make real progress. Enough of this screwing around in dungeons looking for fun trouble - he needed a practice regimen and real goals.

"I don't think I've ever seen a slowpoke," Osiris ruefully admitted, running through a check-list of all the different pokemon he'd met. "It's a handy trick, but I'll need to replace it with something better at some point. Someone like your mom would shrug it off without flinching, I bet." the dratini said, his gaze drifting to the blanket on the bedding absently as he thought. There was no way she would let him test any move on her, but maybe Kiba's mom could point him in the right direction? She seemed pretty absurdly powerful, and doubtlessly, she would have picked apart both Evil Kiba and the jolteon without breaking a sweat.

... That was worth considering, yeah.

He opened his mouth to prattle on about what little he knew about Slowpoke, but stopped. Whatever fun and excitement he felt was sucked right on out of him with the draitini's response. His expression fell along with his ears as his brow knitted together. The tone of the dragon type finally registered to him. There was definitely something wrong, Osiris wasn't acting like himself...at least it seemed like it to him. Generally any sort of negative mood equaled "not themselves" to him.

"Hey," he started off with trying to give the wyrm a nudge with the uninjured part of his paw, "What's up? Did the jolteon say something mean-o-or the skiddo...or what?" He used a much softer voice with Orisis, which felt a little strange to him. He rarely ever used this tone with anyone. It was the same kind of voice he used on Emmelyn whenever she cried...and a mimic of what his mom used when he did as well.

His eyes flicked along the dratini's body. He could see the scars, but they looked just about healed. So pain wasn't exactly an issue...right? So what was it?

What the - did Kiba just do something considerate? Osiris drew back at this, surprised and suddenly not a hundred percent sure he wasn't dealing with Evil Kiba. But the genuine sincerity in his friend's expression crushed that, and any thoughts of being dishonest with him disintegrated immediately.

"It was the same jolteon that you told me about," he revealed, his voice as grave as a kid's his age could be. "There's no doubt in my mind about it. He talked, and the way he talked at you when he was... you know, hurting you, it made it pretty obvious. It was the same guy." The implications of this would be obvious even to Kiba - he had a stalker on his hands. Maybe it was just an awful coincidence that they crossed paths again, but Osiris rather doubted it. Kiba's alter ego was right. There were bad pokemon hunting his friend.

And Osiris was going to help fight them off, crush them indisputably, and toss their sorry butts right into jail just to spite that smug personality living in Kiba's mind. There wouldn't be any cause for concern as long as they handled business. "I guess I'm just thinking of ways to get tougher, so it's not so close nex-... if there's a next time, you know." he added clumsily, finishing his explanation. He imagined that the jerk inside of Kiba would disagree with sharing this information with the zorua, but Kiba had every right in the world to know that people held grudges against him because of his parents.

...Oh. Well, that seemed like important information that should have been brought up a lot sooner. Chance didn't mind though, it's not like he held it from him for weeks. It'd hardly been a day and he was knocked out for most of it after all. The words got to him, however, it gave him the implication that perhaps Osiris wasn't being modest and they had barely escaped with their lives.

"Oh..." his reflected the thought aloud, "Well...my dad's really tough, so you could probably ask him for advice. I heard one of his teammates are also pretty good too, Skylar I think her name was. She might be a lot easier to find though. My dad likes to travel a lot and go fight big scary things all the time, so he's never really around." The zorua looked upwards a little as he gave a hum. The gears in his brain were turning. If Osiris wanted to think about ways to get stronger, then he'd help him. All in all he just wanted a friend at that moment, so even if it wasn't fun and games, it was better than thinking about the fact that he plain didn't remember any of that encounter.

"Uhh...my mom's pretty strong too, but I don't think she really likes fighting in the first place. Oh-and there's this Lucario in the guild who seems pretty strong, but she's kind of a jerk. Oh-OH! There's also this guy that used to be in Grassveil that my dad's friends with. He's up in Aileron, but he comes back and visits every now and then. He's supposed to be good too! I also heard about this gengar that was in the guild, but I haven't seen him around lately...Izumi's pretty strong too i've heard, but she's a shopkeep so she can't be that good I don't think?"

He prattled on and on about all of the people he knew of. Going around disguised as various pokemon opened the window for quite a lot of information to him-specifically disguising himself as his dad. While he didn't know everything, he was about ready to go over every little bit of information he'd ever caught on the wind with this dratini.

Woah. Maybe the zorua was on to something when he said his dad was a big deal - he had some connections. There weren't any names dropped, but knowing so many professionally strong pokemon was a big deal. He'd once met a jigglypuff that had a sister who was a guild member, and at the time that was impressive to him, but this blew that out of the water. Both of Kiba's parents were powerful, and they apparently had an army of family friends who could whoop some serious butt.

It kind of made him wonder why Kiba was so woefully under-protected. Surely, they knew someone who was both cool enough to hang out with so they didn't feel like a babysitter but was also tough enough to chase off any ne'er-do-wells. He didn't know anyone like that personally, but at the moment, he just craved improvement, so... "Your mom's the strongest person I've ever seen," he said confidently. It stung a little bit to discount Zircon like that, but he was in jail, ergo not really an option. "I'm already majoring in Battling classes at the academy, but I think I'll ask her a few things next time I see her."

Going with just his gut, Osiris thought that the bouffalant she fried could have posed some problems to the nameless jolteon. If he could get even a fraction of the power she used that day through some advice or training or something, that'd be a major step in the right direction. "... if that's not weird or anything." he tacked on after a few moments. It was a weird feeling, but for some reason, he only wanted to do it if Kiba was alright with it.

Osiris wanted to talk to his mom. His paws shifted as tension returned to him, his injured paw reminded him not to move it as he did. The zorua couldn't help a nervous laugh, "Haaa...yeah...uh...there's nothing really wrong with that but uh..." He trailed off as he struggled to find the right words to explain it.

"It's just...she's prooooobably not going to be happy next time we see her," he admitted, "Since I uh...didn't go home last night." He could already imagine the flare in her eyes. The growl in her tone already haunted him, which sent a shiver down his spine. Even if he was injured, he knew his mother would not show mercy on him. He'd be picked up by the scruff, stuffed into her hair, and never permitted to leave. He'd be so grounded, that he'd never be able to leave her immediate area.

"She's so going to kill me..." His smile wavered before it dropped into a frown. He didn't look forward to it. It was an inevitability he was going to have to face, but that didn't mean he was going to enjoy it. "Hey I can just live here now, right?" he forced himself to laugh.

"Well... yeah," Osiris smoothly agreed. "If you want. My mom'll probably find out and tell your mom eventually, but you can come and stay over anytime you want still." the dratini offered, incredibly at ease with the idea of Kiba hanging around more. If multiple side-by-side life-or-death situations didn't help you make friends, what else could? As far as he was concerned, he and this zorua were tight.

Still, there was some real worry in his friends' tone, and he wanted to address it seriously. "But we're not gonna be in any trouble," the dratini went on. "I talked to my mom a little last night after we got patched up and told her what happened. We got attacked, Kiba. That's not our fault. I'll have my mom talk to your mom and everything." Iris did his best to soothe the dark-type's worries. In his opinion, it was a pretty open-and-closed case. And the last time he checked, Kiba's mom was pretty reasonable. He only had the one interaction to judge with, but she didn't come off as mean to her kids or anything.

In hindsight, some of her stranger decisions now made some actual sense. Her fame as a fighter might be why she and Kiba disguised themselves when they dropped him off that night.

That seemed a lot better. He was worried he was going to have to face his mom alone. The zorua breathed a sigh of relief, but the irksome feeling of dread and anxiety remained. His tail wrapped around him before he allowed himself to flop back into the bed, certain to stay off of his injured side. A ripple of pain still punished him, but he imagined that doing it nice and slow would have drawn it out.

"Right...thanks," he responded with gratitude. A pause hung in the air as he gave the situation some thought. His voice lowered to a near-whisper once he spoke up again, "You know...your mom's really cool too, right? My ma probably would have reacted completely differently to all of this." As in, throw the dratini home and panic over only him. It's a good thing Osiris's mom was so nice!

This dice is not existing.

Seeing Kiba relax made him relax, and for that, he was grateful. It was weird, but the experiences he had last night with his alter-ego and the jolteon almost made him feel... responsible for Kiba, in a way. It was kind of a gross feeling because Osiris knew in his head that the zorua didn't need coddling or extra-looking after, but he couldn't shake the sensation. Maybe it was because his only experiences with the dark-type so far involved mortal danger, but seeing him at ease let Osiris breathe easy for a moment. He simpy chalked it up to wanting to have his friend's back, and reminded himself that he'd never be a control freak like Evil Kiba.

His friend's words did give him pause, though. "... yeah," he agreed after a moment of thought. "She is pretty cool." There were a lot of different ways the dragonair could have reacted. She could have panicked, kicked the other kid out, gone hunting for their attacker and leave them vulnerable, so on and so forth. But she took care of them—both of them—and kept her cool all the while. Now that he'd gone without it a few times, Osiris appreciated the sense of security he felt around his mom. And, you know, his mom in general.

"I hear voices in here," a gentle voice sounded from outside, tinged with just enough playfulness not to be grim. Sure enough, with a click, the door creaked open and his mom's head poked through. Speak of the devil and she shall appear, it seemed. "How are we this morning?" the dragonair asked, a significant tone to her voice. Judging from the way she looked them over, it was pretty obvious she was referring to their various injuries.

Osiris just wriggled in a noodley impression of a shrug, with a self-deprecating expression - he had little scars to boast, considering how dratini shed their skin so often, even if he hurt like hell. At that, the mother's gaze fell onto the zorua in the room, tender but expectant to hear from him.

The zorua's mouth opened to say more, but immediately snapped shut as soon as Osiris's mom's voice rang from the door. Without a second to wait or even a knock, the door opened with the peek of a dragonair. A sudden wave of feeling exposed overcame him. This dragonair knew him as an Eevee, not a zorua.

He failed to think about how the dragonair definitely saw him as a zorua while bandaging him up and decided to take action. Despite the pain that it brought, he ducked under the blankets as soon as he heard the door move. His answer to the dragonair came in the form of a strained yip that was quickly silenced. The zorua's form under the blanket was quickly replaced. He seemed much smaller and a lot fluffier than before. The illusion of an eevee was cast once again before he dared to poke his head out just enough to look at Osiris's mom.

"Uh...could be better?" he squeaked.

It was a little bit late for the shapeshifting thing, Osiris figured. It spoke to how he seemed to be aware of his... status, for lack of a better word, as a target. Did he already know that people went after him because of his dad? One had to give him props for consistency, either way. And even under pressure, disguising himself seemed to be easy for him - maybe it was a move or something? He'd have to ask one of these days.

"That's a shame," the dragonair said, trying and failing to fight a smile at the zorua's attempt at anonymity. She had questions, sure, but given what Sidonia had done for her family, she didn't plan on asking. "But I'm certain you're going to be alright, dear. No permanent damage done that I could see." she assuaged, drifting into the room fully now. Osiris breathed a sigh of relief at that information.

The dragon-type seemed to be aware of how timid and uncomfortable the disguised eevee was, but lingered for a moment. "I wanted to ask about your mom, sweetie," Saige revealed, a little more serious now. "When I met her, she didn't give me any way to contact her, and I don't imagine she's been told about what happened to you. Do you know how to get ahold of her?" she asked, drifting a little bit closer but paying the dark-type a pretty respectable distance.

The zorua was completely unaware of his status as a target in reality. It was normal for him to roam around without a disguise if need be, since the idea of Sova being with a Zoroark of all things wasn't common knowledge. Very few people knew who his dad was, and even fewer his mom. His fear rooted more so from the fact that his mom would certainly expect him to upkeep the ruse. If he was an eevee around this Dragonair while around Osiris, then that's what he needed to keep.

It still hadn't exactly occurred to him how pointless his concerns were, but at the very least he could answer the dragonair's questions...somewhat. "O-Oh..." he spoke, "Yeah she uh...probably doesn't know. I could go home and see if she's there, but I don't really know where she goes all day..." He's usually too busy getting out of the house himself. He never really saw Mirage around unless it was in the morning or the dead of night...or if she showed up to personally parentharass him.

"Uh...I could take you there...?" He offered.

"If she's home, that would make this a lot simpler," the dragonair said, contemplating the offer. "There's no harm in a quick trip, as long as I bring you with me." she went on, glancing at Osiris as she said that. It wasn't hard to figure out why - rogue jolteon on the loose and all that.

He wondered if the electric-type would be hunting him now, too. "I can tell her what happened best, too. Since uh, I was there." the dratini contributed, only slightly hesitant. All the secrecy around Kiba's family made it feel a little bit weird that they were just going to go to his house all of a sudden. Like he was cheating at a game or something. But he was glad for the opportunity.

"It's not too far, is it?" she questioned the apparent eevee - that was all that was keeping her from agreeing. It wouldn't be too far of a stretch to assume Kiba's mother would come here in search of her son once she exhausted all other options, and if they were out searching for her at the same time, that would just be inefficient.