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“Greetings, Sheeple of Jubilife!” The voice pulls everyone’s attention up to the screen above the Poketch Company, where the usual splash screen of the Conductor’s announcement was emblazoned. With a pulse, it fades away, but rather than showing the usual shadowed figure surrounded by purple and red flames, the Conductor chooses to reveal themselves, since the secret was out.
“What a game!” Volo calls out, his white suit stained by the light of the surrounding flames, running his fingers back through his hair with a manic grin. “To think you would be able to deal so quickly with the Ginkgo Guild to force me to reveal myself last night! I’d say bravo to the Galaxy Team, but that feels more like the trainiac’s shtick, so I’ll leave it to him.” From where the Pearl Clan was gathered, Akari could see Ingo shrugging as Gaeric elbows him.
Volo swings his arms up into the air triumphantly, as though drawing attention to the pulsing rift and red sky above the city. “But we approach the final precipice, Players! You’ve had grace these last few months, with no one being Erased despite poor placing. But I think the reality of the situation needs to be addressed.” He reaches into his suit, his hand sliding under the satin red shirt, and he pulls out a purple Plate. “The Producer must answer, and for him to appear, I need gather Its fragments and purify the Underground.”
The sight of the Plate makes Akari’s throat constrict, her bag feeling heavier as she pulls it closer to herself. She hears Irida’s gasp beside her, and feels Adaman place her shoulder. “Those are the same Plates you’ve been getting from the Warden’s when they were rampaging? I remember Arezu giving you one.” Akari nods, unable to take her eyes off the Plate in Volo’s hand.
“So, prepare for the final set of games, Sheeple!” Volo shouts with a laugh, putting the Plate away with a smirk. With a swish, his wrought iron wings flare out behind him, extinguishing the candles in their wake. “At this end of this, I will have all 17 Plates delivered to me! And once the land sits purified, the Producer will come to my call!” The screen shuts off, sitting black long enough to let silence hang over the gathered teams, before it flares back to life with the usual Poketch advertisements.
Adaman left the gathering first, waving his Wardens along to follow him as they return to the rest of the Diamond Clan, though Irida stays while waving her Wardens off. Ingo hesitates, looking up at the screen still, before reaching back to rub his shoulder blades as he follows the others. “Have you talked to Kamado yet?” Irida asks Akari after a moment, and the teenager shakes her head. “Come on, let’s go find him. See if he’s still on board with the truce.”
————
“Yer damn right we have that truce,” Kamado says as he slams a hand against the Pokémon Center wall. Akari has never seen the Commander this angry, a scowl etched onto his face so heavily that she feared it might stick. “That Ginkgo brat fooled us all. Not only did he take the position as a Reaper, but then he faked his death all those years ago! All the while, getting his former boss and coworkers to do his dirty work!”
“If I can ask?” Akari pipes up, flinching a bit as his intense glare is turned toward her. Swallowing the apprehension, say speaks. “No one’s explained to me the whole situation with the Ginkgo Guild, I just know that they’ve basically had the rule of the roost with the Game for years. And I’ve only ever heard of Volo when Ginter said he was the reason why they don’t ‘take any more chances’.”
Kamado gives her an incredulous look before sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. “No, I guess we focused on preparing you for the Game rather than telling you what the Guild was, hm?” Irida nods, sighing as well. Between Rei, Laventon, then later Irida and Adaman, Akari had learned plenty about the Reaper’s Game, where those who die are given a second chance at life, if they can survive a week of tasks. Normally, each week, the Team with the lowest score of points are Erased, their Souls destroyed and repurposed for new lives. However, the four teams in this Game, The Galaxy Team, the Ginkgo Guild, the Diamond Clan, and the Pearl Clan, are not native to this city or time, instead being figures of history from nearly 200 years before, and very much not dead.
“Alright,” Kamado says, crossing his arms and closing his eyes, his mustache twitching. “As Rei told you, we’ve been stuck here in your modern Jubilife’s Underground for the last 2 years. Our first week here, the winning team was the Ginkgo Guild, and as a team, they were given a single wish - To halt the erasure of those from our time until we could find out why we are here.”
“It was selfless,” Irida adds, getting a nod from Kamado. “It let us not worry about the Game as much, but instead focus on surviving while the Wardens and Captains investigated what was going on. Later, we found out that they got such a good deal because Volo was also offered a position as a Reaper, and he took it.” Akari had heard that a Player could become a Reaper, but she had assumed no one from Hisui had done so. Apparently, she was wrong.
Kamado nods sharply before picking up for Irida. “Reapers are still playing the Game, too,” he says, almost flatly. “To get points themselves to avoid Erasure, they have to take out Players. The stronger the Player, the more points you get. So, he began picking off people from the Clans and the Galaxy Team. Eventually, he got tangled up in a fight with Adaman, and lost.”
“Adaman was protecting one of the younger teens in his Clan,” Irida jumped in to add, her face pinched into a pained expression. “Volo had cornered him, and Adaman came in with Psychs flaring to save the teen. Volo wasn’t ready for real resistance, and he was, to what Adaman thought, Erased. But apparently, he somehow faked his death, and went into hiding.”
“And he must’ve been the reason things changed a year and a half ago,” Kamado grumbles, opening his eyes, turning his head to glare back at the Poketch screen. “When we got the new Game Conductor, and the weekly Erasures resumed, though at a slower pace.”
Akari looks down to the ground, processing her thoughts and this information. Taking a deep breath, she reaches into her bag, and pulls out a dull, black plate - The Dread Plate, given to her by Tuli in hopes to save her life before Volo had arrived to do just that. “I have most of the Plates now. From the coloration, he should have the Spooky Plate, the one for Ghosts.” She turns it over, glancing at the writing on the back before continuing. “If he has found a way to use them like the Wardens did while enraged by Noise, then maybe I can too.”