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Description
Dagger awoke with a start as he always did; he had the same haunting dream he would never become accustomed to. The bloody scene of him murdering his human partner Maria replayed in his mind behind closed eyes. He sat up quickly, but banged his head against a hard metal surface overhead. It was unexpected to say the least and Dagger fell back on his bed, cringing only slightly only slightly from the surprise. His head felt like it was filled with cotton, pressing his thoughts together into a jumbled mess. It didn't feel right at all and it soon became silently clear why when he threw his eyes open. Not even a foot above him hung a metal riveted ceiling. Careful not to bang his head again, Dagger sat up on his elbows and looked around. He was lying on a very old looking, decrepit bed that was welded into the wall for support on his left side. On his right side, the edge of the plain mattress dipped over into empty space. Dagger shuffled his way to the edge and peered over the side. Everything was clearly not what he expected to see when he first woke up. A ladder at the foot of the bed led to a hard metal floor that moaned involuntarily from some unknown stress. Dagger slinked over to the ladder and quickly climbed down. His feet reached the bottom and he let go without another glance.

Beneath the bed he had mysteriously woken up on was another bed that was welded into the wall and had the plainest looking mattress set much like the top bunk. Dagger turned his gaze to the rest of the cold, silent room to analyze his surroundings. The room reminded him of a 3rd class cabin on a cruise ship much like the ones he had seen in Castelia City in Unova. Much like the bunk beds, everything was plain looking and antique; an old cast iron stove sat next to the foot of the bunk beds. To the wall on the left was sturdy iron door. Dagger stepped up to the looming portal, placing a hand on the cold metal. He tried the handle on the door, but with little surprise it would not budge. His eyes wandered to an odd machine that was bolted onto the wall on the left side of door. It looked like a simple keypad lock with a blank display and two LED lights; a red lit one and a green unlit one. He ran his left hand over the device and noticed a red thick metal bracelet attached to his arm.

Dagger was somewhat surprised that the trinket his not been cut off by his arm blades, but so far everything came as a little or no surprise. Upon closer inspection of the bracelet the face of the accessory bore a '2' that seemed to be carefully yet crudely carved into the cool metal. Just to be sure, Dagger pried at the bracelet and even tried to cut it away with his other arm blade, but to no avail. With nothing more to check out along the second wall, Dagger paced back to the center of the dark quarters.

On the third wall was a locked closet in one corner that seemed to be bolted in place and a sink that was more toward the middle of the wall. The sink itself had no special features except for a layer of grime that suggested that it had been cleaned in a good while. Though above the sink hung a similarly plain and grimy mirror. Dagger did a double take on the mirror and on his own reflection. His usual blank stare was now more of a half dead tired expression. His features were a bit drawn and much paler against his natural tone. His eyes were still the lucid blue that he had come to know, but there was even less light to them. As if the glassy texture said that there was a missing piece somewhere. It was then a memory resurfaced; the last thing he remembered before he woke up in the dirty ship cabin.

-Flashback-

It was just after sunset, where the edge of the sky to the west held the last few lines of oranges and reds of the dying sunlight. Everything was quiet save for the calling chirps of the Kriketot and Kriketune choir. Dagger had spent the after training alone on the outskirts of the forest near the Everant ranch. After a long, hard workout like his, he was pretty drained yet satisfied in his results of reducing 5 giant boulders to rubble. Dagger stretched a bit, ready to head back to the ranch after his workout. Though something caught the corner of his eye, but before he could focus on what it was, the shadow disappeared. He stared at the spot he saw the shadow move from for a few moments, but dismissed it thinking it was his eyes playing tricks.

Dagger took a step back toward the ranch's direction and heard a twig snap in the woods behind him. He spun around, arm blades bared and ready to fight. The woods remained silent and he lowered his arms. He turned to continue his walk when he felt a sharp sting in his back. Before he even knew it, Dagger was already on the ground fighting to stay conscious. He lost and slipped into darkness.

-Back to the present (whenever that might be; seriously I got no idea what time this is or what time it is now. My alarm clock is broken and I can't find my cellphone…wait, I should be writing something else, crap)-

There was no denying it; he had been kidnapped for who knows what purpose and by a mysterious who knows what. He had a momentarily lapse of worry and fear roll over him before shaking the feeling away and returning his concentration to the environment. Dagger did another once over of the mirror. In the bottom right corner was a jumble of letters smudged into the grime.

'Qeb afdfqxi ollqfp qeb hbv'

The letters were as clear as day, but their meaning was lost to the Gallade. The only wall left in the room was left nearly bear and devoid of any furniture. The wall only had a single porthole window, but of course peering out of the window was useless. There was nothing but cool blue darkness that was ocean water outside, a bit strange that the cabin was below sea level though.

*crack*

Dagger inhaled a sharp breath when he saw the glass of the window now holding small spider vein like lines.

*crack, chink*

He knew what was coming as the cracks stretched to the outside of the circular window.

*crack…splash*

The glass finally gave in and let loose a furious jet of water. Dagger turned away to avoid a few pieces of glass that were sent flying. The water quickly lapped up to Dagger's feet and now the race was on for him to find a way out, or drown.

His eyes darted left and right for any hits on how to escape and fell on the locked closet from before. The lock looked fairly old and rusty and gave almost no resistance when Dagger cut it off. Inside he found two suitcases that had combination locks embedded in them for another puzzle. Dagger really didn't have all that much time to really figure out the lowly combinations and just sliced the suitcases open along the seams with his blade arms. The first suitcase held a set of three red plates with seemingly random numbers carved into them.

763    1
5546   3
65211   2

In the other suitcase sat a folder with a piece of paper paperclipped to the inside. There wasn't much to it as the only thing scribbled in suspicious red ink was:

'Q=T'

The cipher was easy to understand and Dagger trudged through the rising water back to the mirror. The jumbled letter soon became a clear message with the cipher.

'The digital root is the key'

As soon as Dagger finished decoding the first puzzle, he tossed the folder away not needing it anymore and examined the red plates again. His training in code cracking from PEF was his greatest weapon now.

7+6+3=16; 1+6=7
6+5+2+1+1=15; 1+5=6
5+5+4+6=20; 2+0=2

The simple code was no match for the cool headed Gallade, though the water level had risen to Daggers waist and the danger was still on. He swiftly tapped the 7, 6, and 2 keys in quick succession on the door's locking mechanism. The green LED bulb lit up and the door swung open. Water poured out tugging Dagger along with it and out into a grand hallway flourished with luxurious tile flooring and a grand staircase that looked like it had been meticulously carved to hold as much detail as possible. Dagger spun around and slammed the cabin door he came from shut. The sound of creaking metal jerked Dagger's attention to the opposing wall. Another door much like his own swung open and drenched the floor even further so than it was.

"F*ck that was close," a furious looking Infernape stumbled out of the doorway and quickly shut the door behind him.

As soon as the Infernape turned around to see Dagger staring back, he stepped into a battle stance and growled at the Gallade. Dagger positioned himself into his own stance, ready to defend himself against the seemingly crazy Infernape.

"Hey you, what the hell was the big idea of stuffing me into a room where I almost drowned?!" the crazed Infernape screamed.

Dagger cocked an eyebrow in confusion, "I don't know what you talking about."

"Bullsh-" the Infernape was cut off as three more doors swung open along opposing walls and let out a couple more pokemon.

"Holy crap, what kind of sick bastard tries to create their own version of a 'Saw' deathtrap like that?!" an angry Luxray spat.

"That would be this asshole, Claw," The Infernape jerked a thumb in Dagger's direction.

Dagger crossed his arms and rolled his eyes at the two pokemon who glared at him, "Again, I don't know what you're talking about considering I just went through the same ordeal as you."

"Master!" a Zangoose latched onto another Infernape that wore an eye patch and kevlar vest once they were up and about after escaping what Dagger thought was the same situation he had been in.

"Ow, Xanthe," the Infernape nearly fell over, "What did I say about personal space?"

"Oh right," the Zangoose uncurled her arms from around the Infernape's neck, blushing sheepishly, "sorry master."

"Hey asshole, you gonna fess up, or am I gonna have to beat the shit out of you first," the first Infernape continued to yell at Dagger.

Things became even more hectic when two more doors flew open; the first one releasing a young looking, yet royally pissed off Vulpix, and the second with a Swampert and Dewott tumbling out from a nearly flooded room.

"Hey," the Swampert sputtered as he got up from the ground with his Dewott friend, "Did you guys just barely escape from a room flooding with water with your lives?"

Everyone gave varying degrees of acknowledgement.

"Just checking."

"What the f*ck is going on here?!" the Luxray demanded angrily.

There was loud clank and one final door near the end of the grand hall burst open with great force along with a small blue, unmoving figure that splashed to the floor.

Dagger gasped; he mentally shouted for himself to calm down, but it was difficult to properly think as he recognized the small Dewott with her signature yellow spiral seashell necklace. One of his friends and teammates.

"Rachael!" shouted the male Dewott wearing a pair of short blades on his back.

Both he and Dagger ran to the other side of the room where Rachael lay unconscious.

"Rachael please be okay, I can't lose you!" the male Dewott pleaded, his arms embracing the unconscious Rachael.

Dagger realized who the Dewott was and knelt down beside him, "So you were the boy she was talking about fondly about."

The Dewott known as Taichi solemnly nodded as it was the only thing he could do besides breaking down entirely. Dagger extended his arms to Taichi who accepted the gesture and laid Rachael down in front of the Gallade.

"Just be calm," Dagger said, his concentration building as his hand glowed with a faint purple light over Rachael's body, "She'll be alright."

"It'll be okay Rachael," Taichi said as he gently stroked Rachael's head softly, "We're gonna fix you up and I'm gonna make whoever's responsible for this pay dearly."

Dagger looked down on Rachael and agreed with Taichi's words in his mind. He wasn't going to let anyone he cared about be hurt again, for Maria's sake.

Description
Dagger awoke with a start as he always did; he had the same haunting dream he would never become accustomed to. The bloody scene of him murdering his human partner Maria replayed in his mind behind closed eyes. He sat up quickly, but banged his head against a hard metal surface overhead. It was unexpected to say the least and Dagger fell back on his bed, cringing only slightly only slightly from the surprise. His head felt like it was filled with cotton, pressing his thoughts together into a jumbled mess. It didn't feel right at all and it soon became silently clear why when he threw his eyes open. Not even a foot above him hung a metal riveted ceiling. Careful not to bang his head again, Dagger sat up on his elbows and looked around. He was lying on a very old looking, decrepit bed that was welded into the wall for support on his left side. On his right side, the edge of the plain mattress dipped over into empty space. Dagger shuffled his way to the edge and peered over the side. Everything was clearly not what he expected to see when he first woke up. A ladder at the foot of the bed led to a hard metal floor that moaned involuntarily from some unknown stress. Dagger slinked over to the ladder and quickly climbed down. His feet reached the bottom and he let go without another glance.

Beneath the bed he had mysteriously woken up on was another bed that was welded into the wall and had the plainest looking mattress set much like the top bunk. Dagger turned his gaze to the rest of the cold, silent room to analyze his surroundings. The room reminded him of a 3rd class cabin on a cruise ship much like the ones he had seen in Castelia City in Unova. Much like the bunk beds, everything was plain looking and antique; an old cast iron stove sat next to the foot of the bunk beds. To the wall on the left was sturdy iron door. Dagger stepped up to the looming portal, placing a hand on the cold metal. He tried the handle on the door, but with little surprise it would not budge. His eyes wandered to an odd machine that was bolted onto the wall on the left side of door. It looked like a simple keypad lock with a blank display and two LED lights; a red lit one and a green unlit one. He ran his left hand over the device and noticed a red thick metal bracelet attached to his arm.

Dagger was somewhat surprised that the trinket his not been cut off by his arm blades, but so far everything came as a little or no surprise. Upon closer inspection of the bracelet the face of the accessory bore a '2' that seemed to be carefully yet crudely carved into the cool metal. Just to be sure, Dagger pried at the bracelet and even tried to cut it away with his other arm blade, but to no avail. With nothing more to check out along the second wall, Dagger paced back to the center of the dark quarters.

On the third wall was a locked closet in one corner that seemed to be bolted in place and a sink that was more toward the middle of the wall. The sink itself had no special features except for a layer of grime that suggested that it had been cleaned in a good while. Though above the sink hung a similarly plain and grimy mirror. Dagger did a double take on the mirror and on his own reflection. His usual blank stare was now more of a half dead tired expression. His features were a bit drawn and much paler against his natural tone. His eyes were still the lucid blue that he had come to know, but there was even less light to them. As if the glassy texture said that there was a missing piece somewhere. It was then a memory resurfaced; the last thing he remembered before he woke up in the dirty ship cabin.

-Flashback-

It was just after sunset, where the edge of the sky to the west held the last few lines of oranges and reds of the dying sunlight. Everything was quiet save for the calling chirps of the Kriketot and Kriketune choir. Dagger had spent the after training alone on the outskirts of the forest near the Everant ranch. After a long, hard workout like his, he was pretty drained yet satisfied in his results of reducing 5 giant boulders to rubble. Dagger stretched a bit, ready to head back to the ranch after his workout. Though something caught the corner of his eye, but before he could focus on what it was, the shadow disappeared. He stared at the spot he saw the shadow move from for a few moments, but dismissed it thinking it was his eyes playing tricks.

Dagger took a step back toward the ranch's direction and heard a twig snap in the woods behind him. He spun around, arm blades bared and ready to fight. The woods remained silent and he lowered his arms. He turned to continue his walk when he felt a sharp sting in his back. Before he even knew it, Dagger was already on the ground fighting to stay conscious. He lost and slipped into darkness.

-Back to the present (whenever that might be; seriously I got no idea what time this is or what time it is now. My alarm clock is broken and I can't find my cellphone…wait, I should be writing something else, crap)-

There was no denying it; he had been kidnapped for who knows what purpose and by a mysterious who knows what. He had a momentarily lapse of worry and fear roll over him before shaking the feeling away and returning his concentration to the environment. Dagger did another once over of the mirror. In the bottom right corner was a jumble of letters smudged into the grime.

'Qeb afdfqxi ollqfp qeb hbv'

The letters were as clear as day, but their meaning was lost to the Gallade. The only wall left in the room was left nearly bear and devoid of any furniture. The wall only had a single porthole window, but of course peering out of the window was useless. There was nothing but cool blue darkness that was ocean water outside, a bit strange that the cabin was below sea level though.

*crack*

Dagger inhaled a sharp breath when he saw the glass of the window now holding small spider vein like lines.

*crack, chink*

He knew what was coming as the cracks stretched to the outside of the circular window.

*crack…splash*

The glass finally gave in and let loose a furious jet of water. Dagger turned away to avoid a few pieces of glass that were sent flying. The water quickly lapped up to Dagger's feet and now the race was on for him to find a way out, or drown.

His eyes darted left and right for any hits on how to escape and fell on the locked closet from before. The lock looked fairly old and rusty and gave almost no resistance when Dagger cut it off. Inside he found two suitcases that had combination locks embedded in them for another puzzle. Dagger really didn't have all that much time to really figure out the lowly combinations and just sliced the suitcases open along the seams with his blade arms. The first suitcase held a set of three red plates with seemingly random numbers carved into them.

763    1
5546   3
65211   2

In the other suitcase sat a folder with a piece of paper paperclipped to the inside. There wasn't much to it as the only thing scribbled in suspicious red ink was:

'Q=T'

The cipher was easy to understand and Dagger trudged through the rising water back to the mirror. The jumbled letter soon became a clear message with the cipher.

'The digital root is the key'

As soon as Dagger finished decoding the first puzzle, he tossed the folder away not needing it anymore and examined the red plates again. His training in code cracking from PEF was his greatest weapon now.

7+6+3=16; 1+6=7
6+5+2+1+1=15; 1+5=6
5+5+4+6=20; 2+0=2

The simple code was no match for the cool headed Gallade, though the water level had risen to Daggers waist and the danger was still on. He swiftly tapped the 7, 6, and 2 keys in quick succession on the door's locking mechanism. The green LED bulb lit up and the door swung open. Water poured out tugging Dagger along with it and out into a grand hallway flourished with luxurious tile flooring and a grand staircase that looked like it had been meticulously carved to hold as much detail as possible. Dagger spun around and slammed the cabin door he came from shut. The sound of creaking metal jerked Dagger's attention to the opposing wall. Another door much like his own swung open and drenched the floor even further so than it was.

"F*ck that was close," a furious looking Infernape stumbled out of the doorway and quickly shut the door behind him.

As soon as the Infernape turned around to see Dagger staring back, he stepped into a battle stance and growled at the Gallade. Dagger positioned himself into his own stance, ready to defend himself against the seemingly crazy Infernape.

"Hey you, what the hell was the big idea of stuffing me into a room where I almost drowned?!" the crazed Infernape screamed.

Dagger cocked an eyebrow in confusion, "I don't know what you talking about."

"Bullsh-" the Infernape was cut off as three more doors swung open along opposing walls and let out a couple more pokemon.

"Holy crap, what kind of sick bastard tries to create their own version of a 'Saw' deathtrap like that?!" an angry Luxray spat.

"That would be this asshole, Claw," The Infernape jerked a thumb in Dagger's direction.

Dagger crossed his arms and rolled his eyes at the two pokemon who glared at him, "Again, I don't know what you're talking about considering I just went through the same ordeal as you."

"Master!" a Zangoose latched onto another Infernape that wore an eye patch and kevlar vest once they were up and about after escaping what Dagger thought was the same situation he had been in.

"Ow, Xanthe," the Infernape nearly fell over, "What did I say about personal space?"

"Oh right," the Zangoose uncurled her arms from around the Infernape's neck, blushing sheepishly, "sorry master."

"Hey asshole, you gonna fess up, or am I gonna have to beat the shit out of you first," the first Infernape continued to yell at Dagger.

Things became even more hectic when two more doors flew open; the first one releasing a young looking, yet royally pissed off Vulpix, and the second with a Swampert and Dewott tumbling out from a nearly flooded room.

"Hey," the Swampert sputtered as he got up from the ground with his Dewott friend, "Did you guys just barely escape from a room flooding with water with your lives?"

Everyone gave varying degrees of acknowledgement.

"Just checking."

"What the f*ck is going on here?!" the Luxray demanded angrily.

There was loud clank and one final door near the end of the grand hall burst open with great force along with a small blue, unmoving figure that splashed to the floor.

Dagger gasped; he mentally shouted for himself to calm down, but it was difficult to properly think as he recognized the small Dewott with her signature yellow spiral seashell necklace. One of his friends and teammates.

"Rachael!" shouted the male Dewott wearing a pair of short blades on his back.

Both he and Dagger ran to the other side of the room where Rachael lay unconscious.

"Rachael please be okay, I can't lose you!" the male Dewott pleaded, his arms embracing the unconscious Rachael.

Dagger realized who the Dewott was and knelt down beside him, "So you were the boy she was talking about fondly about."

The Dewott known as Taichi solemnly nodded as it was the only thing he could do besides breaking down entirely. Dagger extended his arms to Taichi who accepted the gesture and laid Rachael down in front of the Gallade.

"Just be calm," Dagger said, his concentration building as his hand glowed with a faint purple light over Rachael's body, "She'll be alright."

"It'll be okay Rachael," Taichi said as he gently stroked Rachael's head softly, "We're gonna fix you up and I'm gonna make whoever's responsible for this pay dearly."

Dagger looked down on Rachael and agreed with Taichi's words in his mind. He wasn't going to let anyone he cared about be hurt again, for Maria's sake.