The Wary Man's Refuge

“Chill out, freak, I told ya, I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about!”

“Your leader,” Frederick repeated, teeth clenched in frustration. “No gang of brigands simply materializes, organized and uniformed, out of nothing for gods' sake!” He held the panicking youth up, one armed, by the collar of his shirt, Shepard held firmly in the other. His remaining would-be-assailants— dispatched swiftly with the blunt face of his sword— now scrambled horrified to their feet, fleeing the deranged swordsman as soon as they could (more or less) stand. The trapped thug swallowed, hard.

“L-listen, man, I don't... I-I'm not high up enough, alright?! I got my crew, sure, but we all just got— there's always somebody above us, okay? Nobody knows who's at the top, nobody's ever— MNF!”

Frederick's sword hand jerked, unbidden, as Shepard's sash extended. The thug was cut off mid-sentence, the fabric wrapping itself around his mouth and squeezing— hard. Frederick frowned; he couldn't very well ruin the effect he created, but gods, she always liked to operate a step too far. The young man's eyelids fluttered for a moment as Frederick felt a buzz of energy travel through the sash and into his weapon, vibrating prickly under his sword hand. She was tasting him, he knew, just as she had tasted Frederick, not too long ago.

He forced his expression stony, unreadable. “Well?” Shepard loosened her hold on the young man, the long, arm-like sash fluttering back to inanimate. She considered, briefly, before replying to her partner with a soft chime. Truth.

“Wh-what the fuck...”

Frederick let go of the man's collar, holding back bitter disappointment. He supposed it would have been a little too easy for a lead to just fall into his lap like this, but... well. At the very least, he could try to see that Alola had one less gang terrorizing its streets.

“Do you have a family?” The question came out sounding more foreboding than Frederick really meant, judging by the youth's terrified, emphatic nod. “Get back to them, then. And tell your fellows they'll not find any easy targets from here on out. Understood?” The young man nodded again, though by Frederick's estimation, he seemed too scared to move— certainly not without Frederick's say so. He sighed as he Shepard back into her sheath, and gave the thug a small, curt nod. That was permission enough, it seemed, and the young man bolted out of the alley as fast as his shaky legs would carry him.

“That was... appreciated,” Frederick said, as soon as he was satisfied the thug was out of earshot. “But unbecoming of you.” Shepard rolled her single eye at her wielder, tinkling back an annoyed reply. “No, milady, I am most certainly not scolding you, but fear is a blunt instrument which must be wielded with care, and— beg pardon! I'll thank you not to compare me to a nursemaid!”

The two may very well have bickered into the day, had a sudden presence not caught Shepard's attention. She let out a low warning chime, and (with a touch of embarrassment), Frederick noticed it too. They were being watched. Reflexively, his hand went to Shepard's hilt, drawing her up so that a glimpse of steel was visible to their “guest.”

It was early morning when Frederick pushed his way into the library— exactly to the minute at opening, had anyone cared to time him. He had dressed in plainclothes; a clean white button down, tasteful black trousers, and the tie he'd arrived in Unova with. As much as it disquieted him to be out of his armor, he knew he would have stuck out like a sore, well-protected thumb. Even so, the blindingly well-polished living sword at his side retracted somewhat from whatever subtlety he'd created... a glaring oversight Frederick chose curtly to ignore. After all, he needed some protection.

He walked through the library with purpose, brushing off the occasional, slightly baffled “can I help you?” as he scanned the building for a silver-haired young... aha!

Fittingly, the first thing he woke to was a battle.

Frederick allowed himself a moment of panic— a hasty inventory of himself, where he was, and even his identity dredged up frighteningly little— but he willed this moment to pass. A battlefield opened around him, familiar in its chaos but alien in its trappings. People flooded out of monstrous buildings in various states of damage and disrepair, lights flickering and burning garishly around him like so much spellfire. Had his armor not made him a rather imposing, trippable object sprawled out on the pavement, he most definitely would have been trampled by the throngs of panicked, running footfalls.

Groaning, he pulled himself to staggering feet, taking in the chaos all around him. Portals opened like awful, gaping maws across the cityscape, spitting monsters of all shapes howling into the panicked populace. His gaze flitted around the scene, desperately surveying for any resource to make use of, when he spotted a blade, discarded nearby on the street in an unceremonious heap. He needed a weapon— that much he knew— and he stumbled forward under the disastrous assumption that perhaps this blade had been his.

His guess was wrong.

As his hand groped for and grasped the hilt, the blade gave an awful shutter. What he'd taken to be a gem embedded near the sword's guard was in fact a single, horrible eye which stared at him in outrage. A painful, metallic scream filled his ears at once. Horrified, he attempted to throw the sword far away, but immediately found that the thing gripped him back. A long, blue sash extended from the pommel and wrapped itself vicelike up and around his arm. Its touch had an unnatural, unmistakably magical coldness to it; even through his thick armor, it burned, made his head reel and his whole being feel less substantial. A cursed blade, he thought to himself, a soul eater.

Like a thick veil being placed over his eyes, his vision of the bizarre city faltered. Dimly he was aware of bodies pushing past him, of screams both  human and bestial surrounding him at all sides. Would he die here? Alone and uncertain and... of no use to anyone? Anger prickled inside him at the thought.

No. Not like this, not while a city and her people burned. Teeth gritted, he drove the living blade hard into the ground, sending a hard shiver up his arm. Its screeching stopped and for a moment, it looked genuinely surprised.

“Firstly, how dare you!” he bellowed reproachfully. “Siphoning my life-force like a common swamp water leech...! Have you any pride as a warrior?!” The sword's grip on his arm remained but loosened, and the sash made a faint up and down sort of motion. A shrug.

“Hmph,” he murmured in quiet, vague approval. “From your... initial response, I imagine startled you. So I shan't begrudge you for the reaction. Perhaps you find yourself equally confused by these circumstances. However,” he turned, motioning with a slight nod of his head to the portals intermittently spitting out their strange beasts.

“Someone needs to see these people safely evacuated. As things are, they are little more than frightened sheep rushing the pen. I'd be a fool to face those beasts unarmed, of course, so... might we combine our strength, for the time being?”

The sword stared up at him, unblinking. After a brief deliberation, its grip on the man's arm went slack. It chirruped— its chime-like voice infinitely more pleasant than before— and gave his hand a sort of consolatory pat with the end of its sash. He cleared his throat, loudly and unnecessarily.