Sableye

  Hiding in people’s shadows was not Sableye’s preferred method of transportation. Particularly when it was several hundred meters above the ground. He wasn’t good with heights. Thankfully, the flight was short, and the child Elaine had told him to go after entered the biggest house Sableye had ever been in. It wasn’t only the size that impressed him either, the walls were tiled with Everrock marble and adorned with gold-framed paintings. He eyed a crystal chandelier hungrily, calculating the risk of trying to sneak a bite. He decided against it. There were several powerful presences in the building, and he didn’t need the stress of fighting them. The boy was guided into a lounge which continued the theme with lavish furniture. The upholstery was made of the finest Spinarak silk and the man sitting on the couch wore more jewels on his fingers than Sableye’s daily diet. They were of higher quality than the cheap stuff Elaine bought for him too.

  The humans spent some time talking. At one point, the girl Elaine had met earlier joined them. Curious. Sableye reminded himself, multiple times, to maintain his focus on the pokeballs Elaine wanted. They were still with the child. He had so many psychic-types with him that making any move would be problematic. They were a pain to deal with. Too perceptive. Worse, the man had an especially powerful one on his belt.

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out what it was either. The Metagross subduing the Larvitar he was supposed to bring back was one of the scariest Pokémon Sableye had ever seen. Not the strongest, but by far the cruellest. Elaine would disapprove.

  After the little torture session, he finally had his chance. All the powerful people went one way, and the pokeballs went another. He followed the man carrying them to a sealed room. The man put them in one of the many safes and left. Sableye remained behind.

  He approached the safe, letting his form become visible to the outside world. At first glance, the locking mechanism wasn’t overly complicated. He would be able to bypass it easily enough. The trouble was doing so without triggering the alarm. He wasn’t confident he could battle his way out of the mansion while protecting the pokeballs, and there was a significant difference in hiding while holding something. Especially when there was a Metagross around. The oversized computer would be able to detect the pokeballs easily.

  Sableye stood still as he let the safe encompass his focus. It was solid steel, five inches thick. It had three different bolts, needing three different keys to open. A web of wires spread through the entire thing like blood vessels. If the locks weren’t open within a certain timeframe from one another, it would trigger. More relevant to Sableye, if the lock was opened by anything other than the key, it would trigger. There was a magnetic sensor in each keyhole which would disable it. Sableye didn’t have anything magnetic on him. Phase through the door wasn’t an option either. The issue was that he couldn’t take the pokeballs out that way. Also, he learned the hard way that most modern locks had some kind of ghost detection system, which he still hadn’t wrapped his head around.

  A knock on the door behind him broke his concentration. He faded back into the shadows and waited. There was another knock and a whispered voice asking him to open. Asking him, specifically.

  After a moment of hesitation, he decided to let them in. It was a strange trap if it was one, and if it wasn’t, he could use the help. The lock on the door to the room was almost as complex as the one on the safe. If he was outside, he might have had similar troubles getting in. From the inside, there was no such security.

  The door swung open and he was faced with that girl again. Her face broke into an expression of relief when she saw him, which she quickly schooled into the smug grin she usually wore.

  “Well, thank Arceus you're actually here,” she said, walking into the room. “Crest said you hitched a ride, like I thought you might, but a lot of things could go wrong. Still, things aren’t working out too badly for a scheme I cobbled together in a day. Anyway, do you know where Auri and Wish are?”

  Sableye was slow to answer. He liked taking things at his own pace, and he still hadn’t made up his mind about the trustworthiness of the woman before him. Also, the Pidgeot should not have been able to sense him. That he did unnerved Sableye. The girl reached into her pocket and took out a polished emerald.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “I’ll give you this if you help me, and I’ll give you another later if you help me calm down Auri,” she said.

  Sableye snatched the gem out of her hand and popped it in his mouth. It had a satisfying crunch and the silky taste of a high-quality jewel. After he was done savouring it, he pointed at the safe the pokeballs were in.

  “Of course, it’s that one,” said Ducky. “Let me get my tools.”

  From another pocket, she brought out a roll of hard fabric with a selection of weirdly shaped metal sticks and an assortment of other devices. She picked out four of them and crouched beside the safe.

  “Okay, this model is tricky. If I was alone, I’d have a hard time breaking in. With you here, the thing is simpler. I’ll disable the alarm, and you push the bolts. Sounds good?”

  Sableye nodded and the girl got to tinkering. After prodding the locks a bit, she told him to go. He reached through the metal door, grasped a bolt, and shoved it to one side.

  “Quickly now, the other two.”

  He repeated it again twice, and the door to the safe unlocked, revealing its contents. No alarm was triggered. The girl had barely caught her breath when one of the two pokeballs inside burst open and a very upset Larvitar attacked them. She was worn, and still wet from earlier, so it wasn’t difficult for Sableye to hold her down. The girl, meanwhile, took out a potion and started spraying her with it.

  “I’m sorry, Auri,” said the girl. “Really, I am. But this kind of thing happens a lot more frequently than it should. The guy who lives here isn’t even all that bad relative to some of the others out there. He just wanted Wish to continue blocking Goldeen Strait so he could embezzle from the aid being sent to Crescent Town. I think he’s a little over his head, to be honest.”

  The Larvitar stopped struggling, more because of the potion than because of the girl's words. She still glared at them suspiciously. Sableye looked at her closely. She was young for a Larvitar, and probably still had trouble fully understanding the human language. The girl was wasting her breath in that case. She continued talking, though, in a soothing tone, and slowly the Larvitar began to relax. Sableye let the girl take care of her and collected the two pokeballs. The hard part of his task was complete. Now he just had to get back to Elaine.

  First, the girl owed him something. He looked at her with his large crystal eyes until she took out a ruby and tossed it to him. He was satisfied. She knew his tastes. Then she took out another and gave it to the Larvitar to munch on. That was unfair. The dumb rock had done nothing but cry all day.

  “I have a few more if you help me with one last thing,” said the girl. She had his attention.

  “We’re getting Auri and Wish out of here, but if they just disappear, I’ll have lost all the trust I gained pulling this stunt. If you stay around here for a couple of hours after I’m gone and let them see you then, the blame will shift to Elaine, and Joey for his carelessness during the mission. I feel bad for the kid, but it might be better for him in the long run. Anyway, I’ll have Crest wait in an oak tree about a kilometre down the road from the gate to the mansion. He’ll give you a ride and we can be in Rondo by nightfall. I’ll give you two rubies and a sapphire for doing that, how does that sound?”

  Sableye considered the offer. If he wasn’t protecting anything, he was confident he could escape, and two rubies did sound tasty. Elaine was far too cheap with his meals. He nodded and the girl exhaled a breath she was holding.

  “Okay, good. I’m going to sneak out of here and see you in a couple of hours. Stay safe.”

  Left alone and with nothing much to do for a while, Sableye took to wandering the mansion. The gold and gemstones filling every room really spoke to him. He suspected Elaine might call it garish. He looked at it as a buffet. With nothing better to do, for him, it might as well have been.

  Two hours later, and with a stomach that was a little queasy from fullness, it was time to act. He went back to the door to the vault and forced it open, triggering the alarm. Rushing through the shadows, he managed to avoid being seen until he reached the entrance. There, the man with the Metagross blocked the way. He only had time to register them when the Metagross shot a Flash Cannon at him. He dodged, and it ripped up the carpet in the hallway. A Shadow Sneak distracted the Metagross enough for him to use Astonish on them. They flinched, stepping back, and Sableye took the opportunity to leave by stepping on the Metagross’ head. It was an arrogant Pokémon and deserved to be lowered a peg or two. Once outside, Sableye dove into the shadows once more, and no amount of the Metagross scanning the garden could find him. It didn’t stop him from blasting every shadow with a Flash Cannon, but Sableye was more than capable of escaping. He wasn’t a champion’s Pokémon for nothing.

  True to the girl’s word, the Pidgeot was waiting for him. They met up with the girl in the sky – she was riding a Togekiss – and she gave him the promised jewels. She also handed him a note and told him to give it to Elaine when she was alone. Sableye didn’t take it until she fished out another emerald. He didn’t work for free after all.