Another Town, Another Problem

[no_love_potions]

A

Everyone's probably seen the ad at some point or another. It's been in the newspapers for around about a year now and passed around here and there on business cards. Small, unassuming but the subject of a few mumbles among people who actually notice it. And who can blame them, while the format isn't exactly an attention grabber the content is probably unusual enough. A simple address beneath a block of plain, boring text.

HARRY DRESDEN - WIZARD AND PRIVATE DETECTIVE
Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties or Other Entertainment

The address points to a simple office on the third floor of a building in Union's business district. A frosted glass window on the door proudly displays the same name and title as the ad. Anybody venturing inside will find a musky old office containing little more than a worn old desk with a few equally worn chairs in front of a small window with a wonderful view of the brick wall next door, a couple of filing cabinets and a couch against one wall that looks very much like it had been dragged off a curb somewhere. A ceiling fan squeaks obnoxiously overhead.

More important is probably the tall man stretched out on that couch. One hand dangling off the side next to an empty coffee cup resting on its side and a magazine over his face muffling his snoring. A Lillipup snoozes away curled up on his chest.

... Business is slow.


B.

There's a man wandering around the streets of Union. A very, very tall man in a long black leather duster and otherwise plain clothes and sneakers. Mouse the Lillipup trots along at his side as he weaves and wanders his way through the streets.

It's a pretty strange sight as the man doesn't seem to have any idea where the heck he's going. Just kind of weaving around randomly on the streets and sidewalks, even doubling back and looping around here and there. Is he blind? Maybe. That'd certainly explain the tinted glasses he's wearing despite the sun beginning to dip over the horizon.

Maybe he's just piss drunk.

Blind or not, he's not particularly watching where he's going so you'd better watch out if you cross his path unless you want to get run over. Or you can stop him if you're feeling more curious.

Comments

[no_love_potions]

Seeing the former garrison commander here was already something of a shock to the system to begin with. The last he'd heard of her, she'd been captured and hauled off as a prisoner to some pit he wasn't even sure he could find. He'd tried to vouch and argue for her, but in the end his arguments that she deserved leniency or at least a fair trial had fallen on deaf ears and he'd had no choice but to accept that she was lost. Another casualty who didn't deserve the fate handed to her.

Because even if he didn't know what that fate was, he could make a decent guess.

Surprise gave way to a whole different kind of wide-eyed expression when she went for her sword, and snarled out that simple declaration. It didn't take a genius to put the pieces together. If she was here then that meant she had to have escaped somehow and that meant seeing someone like him... someone who'd been part of the Sanctuary Resistance. Well, this could go very badly.

"Whoah-- whoah, hey!" He shifted back a step, right hand moving toward the blasting rod in his coat and his other coming up in front of him. She didn't draw her weapon yet so neither did he, but he wasn't about to be caught unarmed. "I'm not here to take you anywhere. I'm just here, trying to make a living just like you, alright? War's over. We're just two people who ran into each other who don't want anything to get ugly so just... take it easy, okay?

[demenscantrix]

Her body shifted, turning to one side to narrow her profile like any good fencer, and she watched him with a kind of wary apprehension. This wasn't like it was before, though, she wasn't afraid of any mage. The air around her sparkled a little, a shield of energy ready to form if he came at her or drew that rod. And given that Gigans couldn't be Earthkin, a pretty big damn clue about what happened.

But she's still rational, if somewhat cold. For the moment, anyway. Her voice came out hard, a commander's bark rather than as the casual voice she'd grown used to of late.

"Why are you here, then, Dresden? If not to retrieve me for your masters, what brings you here? Looking for more victims? Spreading the Council's influence to a better place?"

[no_love_potions]

The crackle of energy in the air around her was a dead giveaway, fully confirming his suspicions of what had become of her. For a moment, he couldn't help the swell of regret rising in his chest. They'd been on opposite sides, sure, but he'd actually liked her well enough. As much as he could like the person currently running the occupation. She certainly hadn't been as bad as others who had come before and after her. Not enough to deserve this.

Still, this whole situation wasn't getting better real fast. Something dark crossed his eyes for a moment when she dealt her accusations, referred to the Council as his "masters." He stood silent for a moment and then lowered his hand slowly.

She wanted to know what brought him here? Might as well give her the truth.

"Someone lost a Skitty."

[demenscantrix]

She stopped there, hand sliding away from her sword and falling to her side. Harry never was very good at lying. At least, not to her. She thought. But then she probably wouldn't know if he was or wasn't, with her general capacity to understand people somewhat skewed by her own belief that she was far, far more perceptive than she actually was. And his hand lowered away from the staff, so. It was probably okay, right?

The energy shield winked out, and her whole body slumped forward at his explanation. Just a bit. Because...

"What...? Are you serious? You traveled all the way from Sanctuary for a lost Skitty?"

...That's not quite right, Nero.

[no_love_potions]

That was the trick to being a "good" liar. It wasn't so much in what you said or how you said it but in letting somebody think they had you pegged. And in Nero's case, she thought she had everybody pegged so it was a little easier to get things by her. Most of the time anyway.

In this case, it looked like the truth really did set him free though. When Nero's shield winked out and her posture shifted he dropped his own defensive stance, letting his own tension run out a little.

"Not exactly. I did that because I suddenly went from a useful pain in the ass to just a regular pain in the ass in Sanctuary." He reached up, plucking the glasses from his forehead. If Nero looked close enough she could probably see the little tuft of pink fur wound around one of the arms. "I'm out here, right now, because somebody lost their Skitty."

He shrugged.

"Just trying to pay the bills."

[demenscantrix]

Nero quite honestly had to take a moment to process all of that. Harry Dresden had left Sanctuary and come to Union. Harry Dresden was working in Union, up to his old tricks. and Harry Dresden was not here to reclaim her for the Mages. That much was clear, or he'd have looked a little less confused to see her. When she needed to be, she was pretty perceptive, and when it came to her own safety she'd gotten much much more paranoid.

"You left, and came to Union because the Mages turned against you."

That actually clicked in her head, remembering what her intelligence had on him specifically. He was never in the Council's graces for some reason and that had at least been partially why she'd been more lenient with him than she would have one in good standing. And more to the point, it helped corroborate his story further.

"You've been here how long?

[no_love_potions]

He gave her that moment gladly, see the wheels start to turn in her head. A moment ago he'd been worried that he'd been about to get a sword swung at his head, not having any idea just what had been done to her head. He wouldn't have put it past the old bastards in Sanctuary to send her after him.

She was pretty sharp though, despite... well, despite herself at times. Now that he knew she'd come out of it pretty much herself he didn't doubt she'd put the pieces together.

"A little under a year. I've been keeping my head down, minding my own business." Gods knew that was never going to last forever. "What about you? Last I heard you got captured... I didn't know where they took you."

[demenscantrix]

Once the pieces did fall into place, lots of things connected. Nero was far from stupid, she just let other things get in the way, but with something to focus on that was pressing, she was able to put together a much bigger picture. Little things becoming big things, and she's making connections.

"I wasn't captured," came her first response, and not without a hint of anger in it. "Galba, my lieutenant, drugged me and handed me over to them. You might recall it was him who took charge after my 'disappearance' and if half of what I've heard from other Sanctuary residents here in Union is true he undid everything positive I worked on in just six months."

She looked at him with a positively frosted smile, unafraid to meet his eyes. "I was changed. I do not remember what they did, but I was taken underground, and I consider the block on my memory a mercy. But...as with all things, nothing can last forever. Union's attack on the city jostled my cage, and I had retained enough of my sanity and sense of self to take advantage of that. My gaoler is dead, and her master is as well. I fled into the wilds then, and arrived here in Union two months ago with Agrippa."

Her Lotad aide, a little firebrand protester himself, had been no end of trouble for everyone who crossed his path.

"I reside here now, as a citizen of Union."

[no_love_potions]

Harry listened to Nero's story silently. It was the first time he'd actually gotten the whole story... or any part of the story, really. Any time he'd attempted to confront the Mages Council back home he'd been told in no uncertain terms that the fate of the former garrison commander was absolutely none of his business. In increasingly angry tones each time.

"Hell's bells." He muttered, rubbing his unshaved chin and letting out a slow breath. "You heard right. That bastard made a real mess of things when he took over. Things were... pretty dicey for awhile there."

To say the least.

"Sounds like we have some catching up to do. I'd ask if you wanted to grab some coffee but," he holds up the glasses again, "I have a job I need to finish before I can do that."

[demenscantrix]

"You...want to have coffee with me?" Nero blinks around a hopeful smile, thoroughly surprised by the invitation. She couldn't have been more surprised if she'd been hit in the face with a shovel. A former thorn in her side becoming a potential friend?

"I...would accept the invitation. If you wish, I'll even help you locate the missing Skitty. I've learned my way around Union quite well these last few weeks."

[no_love_potions]

"Why not? War's over, right? And I think we'd both feel better about being on good terms instead of looking over our shoulders for each other." Besides which, his fight had always been against Gigas, not so much her. Being on different sides had meant he'd had little choice but to be an irritation but the truth was he thought she'd wanted to do the right thing. That counted for something in his books.

"I'd appreciate it. I know my way around too and I cooked up a variant of my usual tracking spell for this one but, well," he glanced down at the glasses in his hand and frowned at them a bit, "this Skitty really gets around."

[demenscantrix]

“You have a point there, Dresden.” She’d never taken a personal affront to anything he’d done that wasn’t an obvious prank. War did things, but Harry had never hurt her and that had meant something to her. Hearing it said though, made her grin in delight and just…latch onto his arm.

“We’ll find your quarry in no time. I’ve always had an eye for tracking, and while this Pokemon is using the urban environment to obfuscate itself, it cannot hide for long.”

Of course she’d start bragging immediately too. Partly because she’d passed by a park full of the darn things already today, and she assumed it’s likely there.

“Come with me!”

[no_love_potions]

He would have agreed had he had the chance to. Before he got the chance for anything like that, Nero was suddenly there latching onto his free arm. The sudden lunge got a surprised oof from him and he wobbled a little, blinking in surprise at the woman. Mouse hopped a little and quickly scampered to the other side of his trainer, peering up at Nero curiously.

"Uh...." A perfectly eloquent response that was, but he regained himself quickly and cleared his throat. Apparently this was probably just going to be something else to adjust to. "I was just thinking the same thing."

Did he really have a choice given this situation? Or was he about to get dragged off wherever Nero wanted to go one way or the other?

Either way, he'd go with it. He sure was out of ideas.

[demenscantrix]

"Just trust me!"

Nero started to tug him along, Sextus trotting along at one side, whickering curiously at his trainer. She was being odd again, it seemed. Though, they're not going too far at least, with the woman pulling him through a few side streets until they reached a park. One of the many, many Pokemon gathering spots in the city, and this one just happens to be overrun by Skitty. Dozens of the things, a few Meowth and Purrloin as well, but mostly? Skitty.

"See! It's bound to be in there. If you have a way to distinguish it."

[no_love_potions]

Trust her? He wasn't quite sure how much he could agree to that just yet but for the moment, he could at least go along with her on this one. So he let her tug him through the streets, Mouse rushing along just behind them to keep up. Fortunately, with those freakish long legs of his, Harry had little trouble keeping pace with the energetic young woman.

When they finally arrived at the park, he slumped briefly as he stared at the mob of Skitties out there before him. Skitties as far as the eye could see, everywhere he looked. Slowly, he brought up his sunglasses and put them back on.

"Oh, boy...." He grimaced as he looked down at the ground and then turned his head from side to side, following the glittering trail left by his tracking spell as it wound around and around in every which way. "This could take awhile. Make sure I don't run into anything."