Chapter Text
She runs a finger around the lip of her wine glass, pulling out an incessant, eerie whine, and smiles drearily at the sound while her Umbreon, Ebony, the sole partner she lets roam about outside of her ball, curls up near to purring at her bare feet. Outside, the sky is studded with stars; when she was younger, she thought they were holes in the black expanse like holes in a lampshade, but she knows better now. She still likes to imagine them as holes, however, still likes to think if she soared up into the sky with a large enough needle and long enough thread she could sew them all up and leave the sky ebony black. The very idea makes her smile with self-amusement.
A smile that drops as soon as the door behind her creaks open, as soon as she hears the scuttling of insectoid feet along the floor.
Ebony sits up all at once, her purring silenced, bright blue rings along her fur lighting up in trepidation. She searches the room, ruby red eyes scanning here there and everywhere. Then she catches sight of it, the fuzzy yellow and purple, and her fur stands on end. She’s not a cat, so she doesn’t hiss, but she jumps into an attack position, protective of her partner.
“Hush, Ebony.” Agatha brushes a hand along Ebony’s back, threading her fingers through her partner’s fur. “She’s not an enemy.”
Not this time.
A smaller, yellow-green fuzzball of a spider jumps onto the back of the couch, just next to Agatha, and when she reaches up her free hand to brush her fingers along its back, it zaps her with the static built between its strands of fur. She leaves her hand outstretched for it; it nibbles on her fingertips.
“If Liv ever gets tired of you—”
“I won’t.” Liv speaks amidst the chattering of spiders, the shadow she casts eclipsed by her bodyguard, a Grappleoct she’s never named who hovers behind her with its four long arm-like limbs crossed. Her husky voice carries even more weariness than normal, possibly due to the late hour. “What do you want, Agatha?”
Agatha stares at Liv’s reflection in the window across from her. She’s tired, dark bags under her eyes, but another Joltik rests atop her shoulder, nuzzles her neck, shocks her with the same subtle static the other gave Agatha. It takes another moment before Agatha’s gaze drops. “C’mon, Ebony.” She pats the couch cushion next to her, and Ebony jumps up, turns about in a circle, and then curls up. Unlike before, though, Ebony does not begin to purr; everything under her skin lies tense, taut, ready for whatever Agatha needs.
“Agatha.” Now Liv sounds frustrated. Snappish. “What do you want?”
She wets her finger and runs it along the lip of her wine glass again, pulling that same sharp whine out, one that causes the spiders – the Grappleoct – to flinch, a reaction that brings a smile to Agatha’s lips. “Not much, hon,” she murmurs. “What you did for my sister…I want you to do that for me.”
Many, many years ago, Agatha Harkness fell in love with Cian Masters.
Some years later, Cian accepted her advances.
For a time, they were happy.
Three years ago, that ended.
“This isn’t like Eve.” Liv states upright from the beginning. “I can’t fix Cian’s body. And I don’t want you dragging a corpse into my lab and dumping it on me with the sort of expectations—”
“Of course not, hon.”
Agatha cuts Liv off before she can continue, in part because the irritation already evident in Liv’s tone is causing the Joltik on the back of Agatha’s couch to grow more and more staticky, sending small jolts into Agatha’s skin. She doesn’t mind. She’s had worse. Years ago, when she’d still been running the trainer circuit, when she and Cian were both employed in the Elite Four, an errant thunderbolt hit her instead of her partner. The trainer was removed from the program immediately, and Agatha spent months in a hospital, healing, undergoing rehab, until she was finally allowed to go home. She would never be able to dance again, not like she had before.
In the end, that was fine. It meant she got more time with Cian when they got sick. And the pay…. Well, that wasn’t too bad either. Sure, she agreed to the risks when she joined the Elite Four, but the loss of an entire form of income – they covered that. Mostly.
Agatha took a deep breath in, considering her words before she said them, until Ebony butted her head against her thigh. “I propose,” she says, finally, “that we create them a new one.”
Liv remains silent for a few moments. In her reflection in the window, Agatha can see her jaw working, but she can’t tell if that’s her teeth gritting together in frustration or chewing on her cheek in thoughtful consideration. Whatever it is, Liv stops just in time to ask, “Have you found them, then? Do you have a mon in mind?”
A chuckle breaks through Agatha’s lips. In the earlier days, it might have sounded merry or dark, but now it just sounds maniacal. More a cackle than a chuckle. “You really think,” she says between bursts of laughter, “that I would ask if I didn’t already know?”
Three years ago, Cian lost their life to a sudden, unexpected heart attack.
On that day, Agatha was meant to meet them for their morning tea. It was one of the best parts of both their days, a good way to center and meditate and discuss with each other before parting. Even when Agatha wasn’t there, off on one of her tours, Cian maintained the practice. They were, in fact, the one who started it, roping Agatha into it with them when she first began to live with them.
But Agatha was awake far too late on this particular day, not getting to sleep until nearly four in the morning. If asked later, she couldn’t say just why. Something didn’t sit well with her. Her brain wouldn’t shut down. At one point, she remembered kissing Cian on their forehead before getting up on bare feet and cleaning. A bit here. A bit there. Something she thought would exhaust her, but didn’t.
Agatha slept through their morning tea, and Cian died because she was not there, and the little teacup they always used for their tea went missing.
That doesn’t mean that Agatha hasn’t seen the cup again.
Here’s the thing about ghost pokemon.
A good chunk of them are either lost souls fused together with some form of item or they absorb the life force of those around them, whether intentionally to make their flames shine brighter or unintentionally by stealing away small children and simply existing around people.
Now, only a few short months ago, Liv was able to successfully pull a stolen soul from the pokemon who nabbed it and settle it back into the body it once inhabited. Her studies into ghost pokemon and their interactions and abilities allowed her to reverse what had been done, not just to that soul but also to drain life force back from them or from other living creatures around her – pokemon, human, whatever she could find – and bring back what had been lost.
Eve was the first successful use of Liv’s research.
(Eve was the first human use of Liv’s research. Liv said it wasn’t time. Claire pushed her to do it anyway. They were all very excited when she succeeded.)
((They think she succeeded. It’s equally as possible she simply created a new form of ghost pokemon, one that fused with human bodies instead of with inanimate objects and was a much better mimic than a Mimikyu, seeing as it had its predecessor’s brain and memories to draw on. But Claire won’t let Liv run all of the tests on Eve that she wants, so there’s no way of truly knowing for sure.))
It is precisely that research Agatha intends to draw on.
It is precisely that research Agatha intends to use to bring Cian back.
The problem is that Liv hasn’t created a fully functional human body from scratch before.
But given everything else she’s done, how hard could it be?
After Liv leaves, the little teacup hovers into place. It smiles at Agatha as much as it can, even though she doesn’t look at it, even though she only sees its reflection in the window, hovering just above Ebony, who glances up at it, gives it a soft scuff of a sniff, and then lays her head back down atop her paws.
“Good to see you again, my love.”
Agatha crooks a finger, and the teacup hovers down to her lap but takes care not to touch her. She smiles, hums, and then wets her finger before running it around the cup’s lip. A high-pitched whine, similar to that from her wine glass, comes forth, mixed with another, subtler humming made in harmony with the sound. It’s like singing. Just not quite. It’s too inhuman for that.
Still, it brings a deeper smile to Agatha’s lips, one that slips away as she says, “Not much longer, angel. I’ll get you out of there soon.”