Mister Gible's Marvelous Misadventures: Iron Man(let) and The Guild's Secrets
It was a night like any other at the Clover Guild, most teams were sleeping while others were out in Capim Town or even fulfilling requests. Hans, in particular, was pulling himself out of his room, going out for some water and a talk with Noodle had become a habit at this point.
Mr. Gible noticed this, of course, it would be difficult not to hear all the noise his teammate made just to get out of bed, "He won't move by himself unless it means getting alone time with the cat," the short dragon murmured, watching his partner's pink tail slide out of view, "I wonder what those two get up to at these hours."
He stood up from his cotton bed and looked out the window, "The moon is still quite high in the sky," he grinned, "that means it's time!" he let out a low-pitched laugh. Mr. Gible unfastened the power band slightly before sliding it down his body, then picked it up and put it back on over himself, using it like a proper headband.
The short dragon peeked out to the curved hallway that gave way to the second floor lounge, his first target of the night. He sneaked past the neighboring rooms as silently as he could and reached the library within a few steps, before entering, he casted a glance to the door next to it. It looked slightly different to those leading to guildmembers' quarters and, given the distance to the rooms next to it, led to a place that was clearly too small to house a team or even a single pokemon. He was a former detective after all, something so obvious wouldn't escape his clever intuition, the thought drew a toothy grin on his pointy face. Mr. Gible slowly pushed open the door, hoping to find whatever he was looking for, but nothing could prepare him for what he was about to see.
He stumbled back a few steps in shock, "No, this can't be!"
A french maid costume hanged inside, along with a few brooms and other cleaning instruments, "Ah, must be MI6's property," he confidently stated, "Why would they leave their uniforms in such an easy to find place? I doubt there's any useful intel here." he continued, moving closer and closer to the clothing piece, "But... it wouldn't hurt to look around a little..."
He reached out, grasped the piece of clothing and brought his face close, then buried his nose into the fabric and took a long, deep sniff.
***
"So 'kek' is what you say when something is really funny?" Noodle asked while staring at nothing in particular, sitting near the guild's entrance next to Hans, as usual.
"Yeah, it's to say that you're laughing loudly... without actually doing it," the pink dragonair replied hesitantly, "It's a word that only really works when you read it."
"Huh, I hear it all the time inside the guild."
"Well, almost all of our guildmates are four—uh... Humans, most of them are humans," he quickly fixed his slip-up, "Now that we can't use it like before, we might as well say it out loud. I'm pretty sure you've seen it in the bulletin boards too."
"Yeah! But I've also seen it on books, why is that? Books aren't funny."
Hans let out a confused yawn, "I didn't even know we had writers in here."
Noodle perked her ears up in surprise, "Really? You should go someday, it may make you smarter!"
**
Mr. Gible shut the broom closet door and slipped into the library with closed eyes, trying to get them used to the dark so he could read without drawing attention, at least that's what he thought. He walked towards one of the bookshelves with extended arms and lifted his eyelids once he felt book covers on his paws.
"Tch. Those bastards lied! I can't see shit!" he angrily whispered to himself, "Still... I've come this far, one of them has to be a secret room switch!"
Right after saying his thoughts out loud, he started pulling out random books only to swiftly put them back in place when seeing that they didn't give way to a hidden place. A few seconds into the quick book-shuffling, he remembered that books contain things—maybe they left some useful intel on a page.
"Archeology, basic dungeoneering, berry cooking guide..." he read the covers of a few random books, the dragon thought they were too mundane to contain anything useful, so he turned to a shelf at the very back of the room. Compared to what he just saw, these were much more unique. "'Fifty Shades of Grime', 'The Delibomber Manifesto'... 'Kiyo Gets Trolled'... that one doesn't even look like a book, who writes these?!" Mr. Gible asked himself before grabbing a bundle of pages tied by strings that just happened to be between some of the previous works. He flipped through them, only to find multiple depictions of bald men with glasses making a wide variety of expressions, "Huh," he muttered before leaving the pages back where he found them.
Mr. Gible put the last book back where it belonged and moved away from that bookshelf, then decided to look around the rest of the library. That was until he heard footsteps outside the room. Quickly and almost instinctively, he grabbed the closest thing to him—a book about minerals and pokemon, lifted it over his head and moved close to the door, ready to strike whoever saw him in there.
He stared at he open door, holding his breath without blinking, his arms quickly grew tired of barely keeping the heavy book over his body. Mr. Gible let out a short sigh of relief when seeing the guild's local sleepwalker passing by, "The dog, phew," despite that, he remained on the attacking stance he had taken, "Arms... So tired..." the dragon whispered, shortly after, the book slid from his grip and fell on the floor with a loud thud.
He got momentarily staggered before sprinting out of the library without hesitation, running past the map room and straight into the stairwell. The short pokemon quickly climbed up the steps to the third floor.
***
"Mhm, so humans used to write on bulletin boards all the time."
"Yeah, it was a little different back then but the... spirit is intact," A crestfallen Hans replied one of many questions, unable to tell if his partner's words about becoming smarter were in good faith.
"Which makes the guild like a little version of the human world," Noodle stated, which sounded more like she was noting it down rather than chatting with her partner.
"I guess it is, and even though I wasn't the biggest fan of people before..." he started rambling, "I've met more of them here in a few days than in a lifetime, and yet I don't know how to talk to anyone but you and Mr. Gible," before continuing, he shot her a fleeting glance and realized his words were falling on deaf ears. The green feline was staring up at the sky in a state of concentration he'd never seen before, "...Noodle?" Hans hesitantly asked.
She shot him a side glance before responding, "Oh, I was just... watching something," she stopped to scratch her muzzle before continuing, "Stay here for a minute, I have to... check something out," she abruptly stood up and quickly walked away without another word.
Hans was speechless, he watched Noodle walk away while muttering a half-hearted "Okay," and simply lied there. He wondered why her behaviour changed so suddenly, thinking that, maybe he was venting his insecurities too much again. No, this wasn't about him—not everything could be, there was definitely something going on here, something strange.
It didn't take long before he felt the unstoppable urge to follow her. He pulled himself through the grass, slow as always but with an unusual energy pushing him forward. He wondered if this may be the kind of incentive he needed to learn how to properly move in that cursed body, so he followed the path his partner took.
**
Mr. Gible almost stumbled over as he rushed off the final step leading to the top floor, he looked around, making sure no one saw him get there before thinking about his next move. It wasn't in his plans to come here—he didn't even know what was up here, only recalling the guildmaster's room and a few guildmates' quarters. He chose to explore the former, thinking that if there was any intel to be hidden, the guildmaster would most definitely have it.
The dragon walked up to the double doors and extended an arm, ready to barge into the room without a hint of doubt in his body, and then he didn't. His paw stopped itself before touching the door, almost as if something unsern was preventing him fron pushing it open, he blinked in amazement while feeling his body tense up. Mr. Gible recalled the first time he was in that room, he remembered how the guildmaster read all his thoughts about the place and the despair he felt. He looked at his arm and realized that the force holding him back was his own willpower—his body wouldn't allow him to go in there again. A chill ran down his spine while he nervously glanced around, "Come on... i-it's just a door," he tried to convince himself while an anxious look washed over his face. He immediately turned around and walked away, heading down the stairwell without looking back, "Fuck this place!" he managed to mumble in a very shaky tone.
Back down on the second floor, Mr. Gible paced around the lounge while thinking his next move "Calm down Gible, calm down," he let out a few deep breaths before continuing, now standing in front of the map room door, "Malcolm will know if go in there," he moved to the neighboring mail room, "...that Line One guy sure acts strange sometimes..." despite his suspicion, he walked away towards the stairs once again, "that little blue bear is awfully protective of his kitchen, he must be hiding something... though the dog may be down there too, that fanny pack makes him much harder to track," Mr. Gible stood in front of the steps for a few minutes, thinking about what he would do, but most importantly, what his alibi would be should he get caught. After being so deep in thought to not notice Ross sleepwalking past him, Mr. Gible set course towards Beast's kitchen, determined to find something that would sate his craving for mystery.
***
Hans crawled through the blades of grass towards the direction Noodle ran off to, he quickly started feeling exhausted from all that movement his body had grown unaccustomed to, and to make things worse, he was very sleep deprived. After a few minutes, he heard voices coming from a nearby treeline that made him stop, trying to eavesdrop while not making any noise.
"What about... and..."
"Not a... dealt with..."
Unable to hear clearly, Hans moved closer to the unknown voices, his curiosity got the better of him even if he knew that he could get caught. Besides, he wasn't even sure if his body would withstand the way back because of how tired he was, so he might as well risk it.
"Applin is gone so—"
The sound suddenly stopped and silence filled the snake's ears before a familiar voice rang through the air.
"I told you to stay back at the guild."
Only after hearing Noodle did he realize that a four-meter-long pink snake is not very hard to spot, especially not when he's out in the open. The grass rustled with multiple footsteps before a pawniard stepped into view.
"Pink guy," another familiar voice called out from its hiding spot, "How curious!"
"Pink... guy...?" Hans repeated after it, thinking back to the times he drank water from the pond on the guild's garden before a voice called out for him—the very same voice lurking in the trees in front of him, "So I'm not going insane...?"
Shortly after saying those words, Hans became overwhelmed by thoughts, why was Noodle meeting up with these people in the middle of the night? Why was one of them watching him from afar? He was so deep in thought that he barely realized how close the Pawniard had got. He watched powerlessly as it lifted its foot and stomped his face.
Darkness flooded his view. Pain stung his face as he grunted in hurt and yet, he didn't faint, that somehow wasn't enough to knock him out. He lowly opened his eyes, feeling shaky and dizzy, he couldn't do anything but watch. Like always, he was utterly helpless.
"You idiot! Why do you even have the seeds on your bag!" The voice scolded the pawniard, sounding very distant even if it was only meters away from Hans. The pawniard had moved near the treeline to discuss with the other pokemon, all of this while his partner watched the scene unfold. It didn't take long for the dark-type pokemon to approach again. This time, he felt metallic claws forcing his mouth open and shut, he could faintly feel something small shattering into a million pieces inside his maw and, soon enough, the world sank into pure darkness again.
**
"Nobody wants him," Mr. Gible sang in a hushed tone as he stepped down the stairs to the bottom floor, "He just stares at the world," something he would never do in public, but did all the time by himself, "Planning his vengeance," this time, to clear his head from the unreasonable fear the top floor gave him, and to push himself forward, "That he will soon unfurl!" and so, matching the beat playing in his head, he moved past the mess hall and into Beast's kitchen.
"Hm, looks normal, too normal " Gible muttered to himself while snooping around the dark room, "They're really damn good at keeping secrets, huh..." he commented before leaving out a long yawn—wandering around the guild in a body that's small and unfit like his was too exhausting. Besides, it had been a while since he got up and didn't get much sleep, he had to speed up his search or risk passing out.
Mr. Gible went to the basement through the stairs on the food storage room, after looking around and finding nothing he deemed worth inspecting, he walked the short hallway connecting the underground food storage with the bigger, stocked item storage room. Mr. Gible let out a sigh of defeat and gave up on his search, he refused to look around a room that was so huge in his current state. Feeling his body beg for some rest, he climbed back up to the kitchen, having decided to continue searching the place another day—or rather, night.
He followed back the same path back, walking out the kitchen and through the mess hall to reach the stairwell. Mr. Gible rubbed his sleepy eyes as he came out of the latter room, his pace slowing down considerably. Once he took his paws off his face, Noodle walked into the guild, carrying Hans on her arms instead of using the usual vine.
They stared at each other for a short moment before the floragato spoke first, "Kept you waiting, huh?" she asked with a knowing, almost mocking tone—something unlike her, "Did you get hungry and decided to ransack the kitchen?" she grinned, "You know there's apples on our bag so you don't have to come all the way here."
"I'm tired of eating apples all the time," he played along, eyeing the snoring pink pokemon.
"Thought we had a few berries too..."
"Not bitter ones," the gible groggily muttered.
"That's fair, Beast has a bigger variety on his kitchen," she stated, as if having been there already, "You look pretty tired, maybe you ate a sleep seed?" a faint grin tugged at her mouth after those words.
"What happened to him?"
Noodle looked down at the dragonair, "Oh well, our friend here lost the battle against sleep, so I'm carrying him to bed," she faced Mr. Gible again, "That's what friends do, right?"
"I suppose," he replied, narrowing his eyes before looking away, "What a coincidence, I was going to do the same thing."
"What, carry him to bed?" she flashed the gible a faint smirk before turning to the stairs, "Last time you did that, it looked like you were struggling..." Noodle trailed off before walking up the steps.
Mr. Gible stood there as she walked up and away, slowly processing what just happened. He slowly went up the stairs, replaying the previous conversation in his head. After getting inside and into his own cotton bed, he couldn't bat an eye despite his previous drowsiness. The blue dragon was offset by that brief chat and he didn't know why. There was certainly something going on with his partners but there wasn't a clue of what, and yet, something told him that he had to look into it. Mr. Gible felt like his thirst for mystery could be sated within his own team, his closest circle of friends.
Only one thing was certain: he wasn't going to sleep.