Pokemon - Solo's Strange Journey

Miss Maid! The body wears her uniform!

No! It can't be!

I- I can't! No, no, no!

Clang

Please, no!

It's her clothing. Her hands. Her shoes. Where is her head?! Why?!

Splash

Her hands are ice cold.

Lifeless.

Impossible.

Why? How? Why?

Who did this?!

It's not her! No way!

She was going to be mine! Someone just took her away!

I will tear out their throat!

I need to know who did it!

Somebody screamed. They found the body.

I need to find out who screamed.

They can't be far. I sprinted here as fast as I could.

I wipe off the blood from the flashlight and turn around to look for the source of the quiet sobbing.

Her golden hair reflects back at me from the darkness. It's the old harpy. That disgusting woman is crying in the corner of the room.

I follow the bloody footsteps leading up to her.

She whimpers and covers her eyes when my light hits her in the face. "S-someone k-killed M--"

Boom! A nearby door slams open. Footsteps follow.

"Did you kill her?!" I'm screaming at her.

She whimpers again. "N-no! I found her! I swear to Almighty Sinnoh, I would never kill her!"

"What's going on?" I turn to the new voice. Victor. He carries a candle and walks straight to the corpse.

"Stop!" Lopunny prepares herself to enforce my order. "Don't you dare tamper with the evidence!"

He stops. "What's there to tamper with? It's obvious that the gardener is the killer. See?"

His long, spindly finger points out the murder weapon. A pair of enormous, bloody gardening scissors. The sharp metal glints in the darkness.

A few lines of blood show where they lay before I kicked them away in my panicked rush to Miss Maid.

There is no way the gardener would leave the murder weapon behind to incriminate himself.

"If it was the gardener, I will execute him myself. Until then, don't you fucking dare to touch anything!" I grit my teeth.

I need to gather evidence because whoever really did it, I want them to be in pain before I rip out their throat with my bare hands. I don't even care that these are Lopunny's thoughts. I will do it.

Yes. Gather evidence.

My feet stomp across the ground as I return to the scene.

I need to calm down.

Deep breaths.

Evidence number one, the gardening scissors. Obviously the murder weapon. Sharp enough to cut a thick Apricorn tree branch: A plant that is much sturdier than usual ones, due to the long time it takes to grow.

I feel sick.

A burning candle lies near the corpse. A tiny pool of wax formed itself on the cold marble floor. The pool of blood is much larger.

The- the wound-... I can't look at it.

The body lies in the middle of the foyer. Not the exact center, but it's far away from any doorways or staircases.

A second pool of blood is at her feet. This one is smaller and has already dried at the edges. Small splotches of blood are around both pools as if something had fallen into each of them.

I dropped my flashlight in the larger one. That's the source of one set of splashes. The other is unknown.

Evidence number two. This is where the head had fallen after it was cut off. Someone lifted it up, drops of blood fell down, splashed in the pool of blood, and created these patterns.

If the head was moved as it was, then there should be a trail of blood leading somewhere, but there is nothing. A container must have been prepared to transport the head.

Like a sack. A gardener would have them in heaps, usually to transport leaves.

I need to look at the wound...

This is disgusting. What sick creature would do something like this?

"Can't stomach it?" Victor asks without any of his usual condescending tone.

"... You can?"

"Of course. I worked on autopsies before."

I motion for Lopunny to let him pass, and he crouches down near her... neck; where her head used to be.

Another two sets of footsteps approach.

Lord Evershade arrives at the stairs, looks down, and stops in the middle of his walk. Only the butler's quick help prevents the older man from stumbling down the stairs, possibly to his death.

"Salandit, Riolu, make sure those two don't touch anything."

I don't have time for the witnesses right now. I need to finish collecting evidence before other people can ruin it like I already did.

Victor pokes and prods at the wound. "Interesting." Yuck. "The wound is almost perfect. The bone is cut, rather than broken, and even the trachea is still intact."

Disgusting.

In the meantime, I inspect her hands. They are immaculate. Her fingernails are clean. "I doubt there was a fight."

"How can you tell?" He looks up from his work. A drop of blood landed on his forehead.

"There would be signs on the hands. Bruises, reddened skin, debris under the fingernails from scratching." Arceus knows how bruised my hands had been after each practice battle with Buneary.

Evidence number three. No struggle. No ambush.

I want to conclude that the murderer must have been someone she trusted, but she seems to be a very trusting person. She was exemplary in her submissiveness.

Besides a little bit of blood on her back, there is nothing outstanding there either.

I take a few pictures from all sides, even the side I refuse to look at.

"Can we turn her around?"

"Want to ogle her chest one last time, eh?"

"Seriously? Now is not the time to pull jokes, Victor."

He's on my shit list. I should upgrade him to suspect.

"Come on, everyone saw how enamored you were with her. She rejected you, and you decided to take her fate into your own hands, didn't you?"

I can feel Lopunny's low temper struggling to fight against my rational thinking.

"Perhaps you should keep your idiocies to yourself, Victor, or I'm going to put your fate into my own hands. Now grab her right shoulder, and help me turn her around."

He does as told and we soon reveal a few more pieces of evidence.

A snuffed candle and a duster were hidden by her body.

She wanted to come to me after she finished cleaning the first floor. She was still doing that. The burning candle nearby is unrelated to the murder.

"Lady Evershade? Is this your candle?"

She doesn't reply. She just looks at the corpse with a thousand-yard stare. Her husband tries to get her to answer, but she is unresponsive.

I assume it is.

In that case, this is all the evidence at the scene.

I snap a few more photos, including one of the murder weapon, and one of the general location.

"Lord Evershade, besides us and the gardener, are any other people staying at your mansion?"

He startled when I said his name. "N-no. No, yes. Nina, my daughter, she's still sleeping upstairs."

She's not. She's at the top of the stairs, spying on what is happening.

"Where is the gardener?"

"Gregory? He wouldn't have done this! I swear! He is a gentle soul."

"Doesn't matter. Where is he?"

Salandit hisses at him to get the threat of consequences across.

"He's in the garden! He has his own hut where he sleeps."

"Can you go and get him? Salandit, you will follow him and make sure Lord Evershade doesn't think about running away. Also, try to protect him if the gardener tries something."

She's the best for the job. She can stay hidden in the darkness.

He looks unsure. Just as he is about to move, the butler whispers to his ears.

"C-can-- no. I mean, we should-- No, this is my house! We will relocate this discussion to the dining room. I will not have my wife look at this tragedy any longer."

"Alright. Help her move, Rupert, and then fetch the gardener."

I walk ahead into the adjacent room. I don't want to look at her corpse any longer than I need to either.

Eyes bore into my back. Their judging gazes try their hardest to intimidate me, but with Lopunny walking by my side, I do not fear them.

One of these fuckers did it.

---

I claim the seat at the head of the table, stealing Rupert's place in the process. Lopunny sits down next to me.

Sewaddle remains attentive on my arm. Riolu stands guard at the door. Salandit waits in the dark to escort Rupert.

With the flashlight, I keep the lavishly decorated room lit as the others file in.

First, Victor walks to his place, but he doesn't sit down. It's the same seat he had in the morning. He's an asshole. Worse than me. He could have done it.

Then, the butler and Rupert help Lady Evershade inside. She seems catatonic, but it could be an act.

She was mean to Miss Maid, and she has the face of a murderer.

Rupert on the other hand looks like he wouldn't hurt a fly. I like him, but I liked Domino too, on the MS Anne. I'm not making that mistake again.

The butler, Alfred... I know enough about stories to conclude the butler did it. He doesn't seem like a suspect though. Rationally speaking, I wouldn't say he was the murderer.

"What's going on here?" All of a sudden Lady Evershade snaps out of her state and glares daggers at me. "What is your pet doing on my chair?!"

"Honey, please calm down. This isn't the time for this."

"Ah." She has a faraway look on her face. I'm not sure how easy that would be to fake. "S-someone k-killed our maid. Rupert! Do something!"

"We are doing something." I interject. "I'm getting to the bottom of this, and I will bring whoever did it to justice. Sit down, Lady Evershade."

I can't legally do that. I can arrest, or kill in self-defense, but not execute. Only the royal family can order that.

But I can drag whoever did it to an Officer Jenny. Who knows? Maybe they struggle, get their hands on a knife. Lethal force would be justified.

"Lord Evershade, please go and bring the gardener. And remember, Salandit will be watching you." She lights up her back in the darkness, past the doorway.

"Yes, Mister Solo."

His wife has an evil glint in her eyes as he leaves. The butler helps her into a seat before taking his own.

Victor never sat down. "What's this about? The gardener did it. Why do you continue playing detective?"

"Because I can. Now sit down, and shut up, unless you want to talk about your alibi."

Lopunny lets out a low, threatening growl; enough to make him sit down as well.

"I was in the basement, working on my project since dinner. I didn't want to be bothered, so I kept the door locked."

No alibi.

"Where were you when Lady Evershade found the corpse?"

"I was in the middle of an experiment. Almost made a costly mistake because of her noise. It's stable now, but I need to get back to it soon."

My gaze shifts to Lady Evershade.

She glares back, her eyes sharpening like a hawk. "Rupert and I were in our bedroom. I was thirsty and wanted to get some water. That was when I found her in the lobby."

"Was it you who dropped the second candle near the corpse?"

"Yes."

Her husband is her alibi. I can check if his version matches.

Next is the butler's turn, but his attention is still firmly placed on Lady Evershade.

Wait... of course!

"Lady Evershade, why were you getting yourself water? You have a maid and a butler for those tasks."

She breaks eye contact. "Lopunny, did her heartbeat get faster just now?"

~"They don't have heartbeats."

Weird.

Either way, I don't need Lopunny to verify it. I just caught her. "Why were you really in the foyer."

"To get a glass of water!" She insists on her story. "It doesn't matter why! There is no way I could have beheaded that poor girl! Do I look like I have the strength for that?! I am dainty and cute!"

She is neither of those. But even with the sharp blades of the gardening scissors, she might have a point.

"Why don't you tell us why you missed dinner? Were you perhaps out, planning how to murder her?" Her screeching pisses me off.

"Around noon, I was enjoying the garden with her. She led me to a secluded spot where I and my pokemon trained. Miss Maid let me rest my head on her lap before leaving around the afternoon, citing her work as the reason she had to leave. The butler was supposed to pick me up for dinner."

I look at him expectantly.

"She told me to fetch you, but she never mentioned where you were in the garden, and I didn't have the time to go on a wild pokemon chase."

That is actually very understandable. I didn't expect the reason to be that simple.

"In the evening, I returned through the winter garden, where I saw her watering the plants. She promised me to have a word with the butler for failing to fetch me, and to help me settle in for the night, once she is done working. She never arrived."

The gardener and Lord Evershade arrived while I talked. They were about to sit down but something I said was shocking enough to keep them still.

"You manwhore!" Huh? "You were about to have sex with my maid!?"

Gregory the gardener looks crestfallen.

"Huh?"

"It was a euphemism! Settling into the night, what did you think was going to happen?"

"I don't know. Bring me some water? I was just going to flirt with her. I'm too young to have sex!"

"You don't look like a child."

"I'm 14."

"Ah, you're shy. I get it." Rupert nods. "I was like that too at your age."

"Hold on." Victor smacks his fist against the table. "We let a child lead the investigation!? This stops right now, I'm taking over."

"I second his opinion." The old crooked lady spews her poison. "You, Mister Solo, have done nothing but incite animosity between us! It was either you or the gardener who killed her!"

"Oh? Animosity? Don't make me laugh." I laugh anyway. "Why were you out in the middle of the night? Rupert! Tell us what your wife was doing?"

"S-she--"

"Don't you dare tell him!"

"Rupert, I will take it as an admission of guilt, if you don't tell me why she was out."

Lopunny stands up at that, Riolu also steps closer to Lady Evershade to hammer the threat home.

"S-she--" He interrupts himself. Looking at his wife to stop him, but she is too busy sweating bullets. His head hangs in shame. "She tried to poison you, Mister Solo."

"... What? Me? Why?!"

"To get ownership of your pokemon that way."

Lopunny's grip on the table fractures part of it.

"That's insane. My pokemon would rather kill all of you in retaliation, than switch sides just because you murdered me."

All of them, except Sewaddle nod.

"Now, let's get back into the investigation. We know Lady Evershade is capable of murder, so she is a suspect. The gardener is one too because it was his tool that was used to kill her."

"It wasn't me! I swear!" He shouts. "I would never hurt her, I was..."

"Yes?"

"... I was about to confess to her."

Yikes. "She's mine though."

"... Y-yes, sir..."

"What were you doing this evening?"

"I prepared supper for myself, made sure the pokemon outside wouldn't go hungry either, and then went to bed."

"Who has access to your tools?"

"J-just me and Lord Evershade."

"They are locked inside a tool shed." Lord Evershade explains. "He has the key, and I have the master key of the mansion."

"In other words, anyone who stole the key, or broke down the door otherwise, could have access to it as well."

"Ah. That is correct, Mister Solo."

Fuck. That means the murder weapon is not a good clue.

I have no idea who could have done it.

Nobody has a motive either. It was such a random, senseless act of violence. It makes no sense at all!

I need to remove suspects and focus on the remaining people.

Lord and Lady Evershade can be safely excluded, I think. Even though I will drag her to an Officer Jenny anyway, but they give each other alibis.

"Gregory?" The gardener nods. "I doubt you did it either. You don't seem dumb enough to leave the murder weapon behind when you are one of two people who have easy access to it. I think someone is trying to frame you."

I didn't notice how tense he was until he relaxed. His body shrinks into itself. "Thank you, sir. I swear, I didn't do it."

Which leaves Victor and the butler.

A young, shrill voice pipes up. "You forgot to question Alfred!"

The tiny Miss Nina Evershade partially hides behind the front door. The heads of her, Purugly, and that Buneary doll of hers peek inside.

I highly doubt she could be a suspect.

"Nina! Go back to bed!" The harpy of a mother shrieks, scaring the girl and making her run off together with Purugly.

"She is right though." I never got the other prime suspect's statement. "Alfred, Miss Maid said she wanted to talk with you before visiting me for the night. Did you see her? And what were you doing this evening?"

He gulps nervously. "I- I cleaned the kitchen after dinner. I hadn't seen her since she helped clean the table. I always clean my kitchen after each use, otherwise, I can't cook as well."

That is generally correct. A clean environment is important for a proper meal.

"Afterwards, I prepared tomorrow's gateau. It needs a few hours of rest for the moisture to become perfect. Then I went to bed. My room is downstairs, near the kitchen. I never walked past the foyer."

"But you arrived together with Lord Evershade from upstairs?"

"Yes. After I heard Lady Evershade scream, I rushed upstairs via the service stairs. Lord Evershade is my employer. I needed to make certain he is in good health."

He heard his wife scream and still rushed to help Rupert instead?

Wow.

Lady Evershade really doesn't have many friends in this house. Not surprising.

"But this means you don't have an alibi either. You, Victor, and Gregory are all prime suspects."

"What about you?" Victor sneers. "Huh? Conveniently forgetting you don't have an alibi? And you dare to accuse an esteemed scientist, you understand that, correct, boy?"

'Boy'... Plus one rank on my shit list.

"I understand that perfectly. I am a field researcher myself. And you, on the other hand, are an unknown professor from who knows where. For all we know, your title is made up."

"Made up?! I was developing breakthroughs while you were still shitting yourself!" A vein popped up on his forehead, and his greasy hair became messy during his outburst.

He wipes his hands across his hair to put them back in place. "Ahem. Since we heard every witness statement, we can now conclude that the most likely suspects are... the gardener," He forgot Gregory's name again. Prick. "And Mister Solo."

"Huh!? Me?!"

"Of course. You arrived at this mansion, and shortly after the maid was murdered. You were the last person to see her. You were second to arrive at the crime scene; you arrived even earlier than Lord Evershade when it was his wife who screamed as if she was the one being murdered."

"He has a point." Rupert admits with a frown on his face. "And I can't believe Gregory would do something like that. I've known that man my entire life."

"I can see exactly how it happened." Victor stands up and begins walking around the table. "The traveler comes to a secluded mansion in the middle of nowhere, where its dwellers simply want to be left alone. His eye catches the radiant beauty of our dear maid. Love at first sight."

He rests his arms on Gregory, massaging his shoulders while he speaks. "It's unrequited. She already fell in love with the gardener." Gregory nods. "But the villainous traveler has nothing to lose. He can do what he wants, and then, like the wind, continue his travels."

I hear my teeth scraping against each other as my jaws press themselves together. My face heats up.

Victor then travels back to his seat.

"And so, he broke into the gardener's tool shed, stole the best weapon he could find, and murdered her. If I can't have her, no one can! Isn't that what you thought, Mister Solo?"

A hand lands on my shoulder. It's Alfred. He moved behind me while I was distracted.

"Give it up, sir. We will hand you to the aura guardians as soon as the sun rises."

Rupert looks at me in disgust. Gregory is about to jump across the table and fight me from the looks of it. Little Nina shakes in fear as she watches from the doorway again.

Even Lady Evershade, the murderous bitch who wanted to kill me gloats. Her face shows a disgustingly smug sneer.

They are all against me.

Victor has won them all over.

---

"Lopunny?"

~"Yes, master?"

"Put Alfred in his place."

~"With pleasure."

Faster than anyone else in the room could react, Lopunny grabbed his arm and slammed his face against the table.

Gregory gets up to run at me, but Riolu is there to block his way with Protect, knocking him back, and then putting his feet on ice with Ice Beam.

Rupert wants to move, but a single hiss by Salandit is enough to get him to second-guess himself.

"You got a lot of things wrong, Professor Manchineel. But one little detail is a lot more incorrect than the rest."

I get up from my seat and square up against the man. He's easily ten years older than me. Possibly twenty. He's just as tall as I am, but my body is a lot sturdier than his.

"I don't need a weapon to kill everyone in this mansion. I won't do it of course, because I'm not some kind of villainous schmuck."

His arms have tensed up. I've watched Buneary brawl often enough to know exactly what's coming next.

A left hook.

I dodge it easily. It's so much slower than Buneary used to be.

A right body shot.

I could dodge it as well. But instead, I flex my stomach as much as I can and keep my back ready.

He hits a solid wall of muscle.

He looks at his hand in confusion. He felt the power behind his own punch. There is no way I should not even flinch.

A shitty scientist who never leaves his basement will not beat me up.

"And one more thing." I grip his hand before he can pull it away. "I am a guardian of aura."

With a sickening crunch, I slam my forehead against his face.

Lady Evershade gasps. Nina screams.

Victor reels back, stumbling and knocking away his chair before collapsing into a mess on the ground.

Blood immediately streams from his nose, and I toss the ever-ready emergency potion from my pants pocket on his lap.

I'm wearing my good pair of pants, so I'm glad to get rid of the extra stuff. Their pockets are way too small, unlike my very practical cargo pants.

Anyway, I return to my seat at the head of the table and remember that these people are savages from who knows how many years ago. "It's a potion. Press the button on the top, spray some on your nose, unscrew the cap, and then drink the rest."

He only does it after inspecting the spray bottle from every angle. My curio is apparently more important than his pain.

"Alfred, did you learn your place?"

The man nods, or rather, rubs his face against the table. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Lopunny, you can let him go."

As soon as he's free, he takes a couple of steps back, trying to seem unhurried, but failing to do so.

"Listen up, everyone. I did not kill Miss Maid. Anyone still doesn't believe me?"

They all shake their heads, some sooner, some later. All of them with at least some levels of fear in their eyes while doing it.

"Everyone could have gotten their hands on the murder weapon. Whatever the motive was, I can't comprehend it. The top suspects are Victor, Alfred, and Gregory; based on your missing alibis. Nobody can vouch for your stories."

"... Nobody can vouch for you either..." Victor mumbles as the potion does its job.

"What was that? Do you want to repeat it for everyone to hear?"

"... No."

"That's what I thought. Anyway, since we have three suspects, and none of you plan to confess anytime soon, it means we will need to gather more evidence."

I wait for them to nod in agreement. It only needed a couple of seconds of glaring before they got it and agreed.

"Lady Evershade, you, Purugly, Alfred, and Riolu will search through the kitchen. Check every cupboard, and every sack of flour; leave nothing unchecked. Search for signs of blood. Check the meals that are currently in preparation too for any unsanctioned ingredients."

A shiver runs down my spine at the thought of Alfred turning Miss Maid into stew.

"Riolu will make sure none of you attack each other." They nod.

I don't think it was the butler. That's why I feel safe letting the woman team up with him.

"Rupert, Gregory, and Salandit. You can look through the garden."

~"But masster! The garden is massive!"

I nod. "Focus on the tool shed. Find out if someone broke into it. Also, search through Gregory's house. If the head isn't buried, and if Gregory did do it, then it's most likely there."

Salandit's sense of smell would even find the best hiding places in his home... But once again, I don't think it was him.

My gut tells me it was Victor.

"Victor." He still looks at the potion. He left some liquid in the bottle and now inspects it in every possible manner while ignoring me. "You and I will search through the basement. I'm sure, if you are as innocent as you claim to be, we won't find her head in your room."

"Sure, sure. Whatever you say."

Arceus, please smite him. He's insufferable. So arrogant. Yuck. I hate these types of people the most.

Anyway, I give my pokemon a few final commands before I send them out to look over these people.

"Salandit, stay in the shadows. Just keep them on edge, so they won't try anything." I lower my voice to a whisper. "If they try anything, run away. Stay safe."

She nods and crawls away, heading straight for a wall. Her feet stick to it as she runs up, across the ceiling, and into the darkness of the lobby.

"Riolu, the same goes for you. Alright?" I give her head a few pets and scratches. "And try to keep me in the range of your aura."

She nods, I give her another round of petting her ears and face, and then she runs off with a wagging tail.

"Lopunny..."

I look around. Victor has switched to writing down notes. Lopunny gets closer.

"Eat this."

It's a Chesto Berry.

"I just remembered, he said he keeps a pokemon on his body. I'm sure he will attack us. Stay prepared."

She nods as well. She's inconspicuous as she pops the small blue berry into her mouth, chewing twice and swallowing it down.

I eat one too. My last two encounters with hypnosis have been bad enough. We're not getting hit by that again.

"Sewaddle?"

She's asking for her own task, I think. I haven't used her in battle yet. I don't know how strong or weak she really will be.

"Can you keep an eye out for Victor? If it looks like he plans to run away, use String Shot."

She hums a short confirmation as her head bobs up and down.

"Okay, Victor. You wasted enough of our time with the potion. Let's go to your basement."

---

I lead the way back into the foyer. Victor's steps follow me closely, but I'm not afraid. I trust Lopunny to keep her eyes on him for me.

But the first thing I do once we leave the dining hall: Is to stop.

Something perches over Miss Maid's lifeless body. I can just barely make out the shape in the dark. It's a pokemon.

I shine at it with my flashlight just to question reality.

Its shape changed the moment I could see it properly. Gone is the pokemon who loomed over her, in its place is now that Buneary doll I saw Nina carry around wherever she went.

Miss Maid's dead arms hold the stuffed pokemon close to her chest. It reminds me that she said she used to love Buneary because her father made her a doll.

Is that the same one?

... Probably. Nina demanded to have it, and her parents obliged.

At least she returned it. Perhaps there is still hope for that spoiled child.

"Are you coming? Or do you want to play with dolls?"

Victor took the lead while I was distracted.

I really hope he was the murderer. I want to kick his teeth in when he struggles during arrest.

He leads me down the same hallway that ends in the backyard. He opens an unassuming door in the middle of a bunch of other identical doors.

Behind it is a creaky old stairway leading surprisingly deep into the earth.

"Why is this basement so deep?"

"Sometimes experimentation results in the rapid disassembly of equipment." Explosions.

"When you mess up?"

His glare is priceless.

Once we reach the bottom, he puts his personal candle on a tiny table below a bronze wheel, which is attached via several gears and shafts to a box on the ceiling.

Bronze pipes lead from that box deeper into the basement.

He turns the wheel, grunting as he puts elbow grease into it.

The shafts and cogs turn. All of a sudden all sorts of lights turn on everywhere.

Some are from blue crystals, like the one in the underground, or from the Tree of Beginning. They are stored inside tubes where bronze covers rotate out of the way to let the light shine out.

Other lights are from a viscous, bright blue liquid that slowly creeps through glass pipes I hadn't seen before.

A column of fire burns inside a tall metal cylinder in the center of the basement. It contains windows to let me see inside. It's like a rocket engine inside, except it twists around as if contained by strong winds.

"That's the main generator. It spins turbines which I use to power various automatic tools."

What the fuck. It's a jet engine. And he uses it to power a lathe and some drills?

"Why not a simple steam engine?"

"Steam doesn't have enough pressure. The jet moves through the tubes at high speeds and powers turbines located wherever I need them."

That's so cool.

"What's the liquid?" As we speak, it continues to flow into the corners of the basement, lighting them up in an eerie blue shine.

"A byproduct. I didn't get around to naming it yet, but it's useful on its own."

Is it magical or radioactive?

I hope it's magic. I don't want to grow a third eye.

"Do you ever get a sunburn while near it?"

"No, it's not radioactive. But a reasonable question..." He looks at me as if in a new light. "Perhaps if you weren't as arrogant, you would have been an interesting person to meet."

Cock sucker.

"Do you mind if I just look for evidence?"

"Be my guest. But don't expect any help. I will be at my workstation trying to synthesize this miracle liquid. Do you know anything about its origins?"

He didn't even see me shake my head because he was already continuing his work.

I start looking around.

I'm doubting my intuition. He doesn't act guilty at all. He's not afraid of having someone look through his basement either.

Was it really the butler?

I check a shelve, looking behind larger objects like a globe, or a stack of books, and ignoring smaller objects like an array of different pokeballs.

But Sewaddle saw the Friend Ball and used String Shot to pull it closer, holding onto it.

"You like that ball's design?" She nods. "Good to know. I will look in Eterna City for one of them."

She beams in joy at the promise. Then her face falls when I take this pokeball away and return it to where she found it.

I notice it rolling behind the globe as I turn away. Who cares? I'm not a thief, but I won't clean up Victor's shit either.

The next place I investigate is a series of cages that contain a Maushold... family? Colony? It's technically a single pokemon. So weird.

But all four seem sickly and unhealthy. "What's with the Maushold?"

"Hm?"

I repeat the question.

"Oh. An experiment. I acquired this specimen and wanted to see what happens when I keep their parts separated while only feeding three of them. They seem to be dying at the same rate as the one who is starving."

What the fuck?

"If they survive until next week, I want to test if I can take two of them and make a new Tandemaus out of them."

That's sickening.

"Why aren't they fighting back?"

"The cages use my own steel alloy. The carbon ratio is perfect to withstand brief flashes of stress. They can't escape on their own. And they can't use moves as long as they are apart from each other. Similar to how a human couldn't fight back if you removed its arms and legs."

"Does Rupert know about these experiments?"

"... Who?"

"Lord Evershade."

"Ah. No. I don't let people down here. I only bring my successful experiments up, and that's all the convincing he needs to keep me employed."

He turns away from his workstation. A weird set of goggles is on his face and some splashes of blue fluorescent liquid have joined the blood on his face.

"I'm a status symbol to these people, you know? Lord and Lady Evershade couldn't find their way out of a wet paper bag, but now is the age of enlightenment. If they don't show off new inventions, gadgets, or discoveries to their rich friends, they will look like the idiots that they truly are."

Then he returns his attention back to the workstation. "It makes me wonder why the maid's death is being investigated at all. Usually, they would have simply blamed the gardener and went on with their rich lives."

"What do you mean? I thought Rupert knew him his entire life?"

"Sure, but that means little to his wife. He has the backbone of a Tentacool. She says jump, he asks into which ditch."

That's probably true. He seemed whipped, to say the least.

"Do you think it was the gardener?"

"No." He says with confidence. "It was the butler. On her orders. Don't believe me? Her used handkerchief of a husband let it slip she wanted to kill you. She's a cold-blooded murderer. Probably would have handed you a poisoned glass of water to drink in the morning."

He's right about that.

She wouldn't do her own killing. Poison, ordering someone else... She has access to her husband's master key.

My eyes return to the caged Maushold. They have an interesting biology. Their bodies share responsibilities. Without them touching each other, they can't even digest food.

One of them is starving, while the other three are being filled until they burst.

If Victor didn't kill Miss Maid, then he surely has killed someone else before. He's a true psychopath.

There is no way I will let him or Lady Evershade walk free today... What a sickening old chateau this has turned out to be.

I move over to the next workstation. Another set of gadgets. It looks like he's trying to build pokeballs. They all look different, but all of them look wrong.

Like, an all-red pokeball. An opened pokeball but its insides are filled with wires and pipes, rather than the mirrors and crystals I'm used to seeing.

Or another pokeball that has inverted colors. No, it's not just upside down.

"My current project." He abandoned his potion research and walked closer. Lopunny stands in the way and won't let him get to me.

"Your mechanical pokeball?"

"Hmhm. A mechanical wonder." His finger points at a specific ball in the center of the table.

Black on top, silver at the bottom, a golden seam, a golden wavy pattern on the black half, and a black button. All of it is polished and there seems to be a light glow coming from inside the seams.

Connected to it are tubes and wires. The blue liquid continuously flows into it, but nothing flows out. The wires and tubes are connected to another brass column.

It's connected to the jet pipe in the ceiling. Thick bolts keep the machine in place as something rattles inside. Probably the turbine.

A hatch can be opened to look inside.

"I wouldn't open that if I were you."

"Why not?"

"It's vacuum sealed."

"How do I equalize the pressure?"

"... I'm not telling."

Prick.

I try the most obvious thing first only to find out the hatch really doesn't open. It's sealed shut and I can't pull it open.

But one screw looks out of place, and I find a fitting wrench on the same workbench as the pokeball experiments.

I turn the screw and the rattling stop. Shortly after, air whistles as the vacuum fills itself back up to normal pressure.

My hand lands on the hatch's handle once more.

"I'm telling you; you don't want to open that hatch."

I twist the handle and open it.