Call the Detective

Villains

Sage always assumed that after she would pass out, someone would rush her to some kind of hospital. She never imagined that she'd wake up in a dark room handcuffed to a chair. Not only that, but the chair was nailed to the floor, trapping her.
"Hello? Where am I?" she called out into the darkness. A pink Vivillon fluttered toward her and landed on her lap. 
"Who's there?" she whispered and shook her legs to get the pokemon off.

"Don't disrespect my Pokemon. Right now, you're no more important than them," a sweet yet very intimidating voice called. Sage shuddered slightly as what she assumed to be the woman's other pokemon. An Aromatisse, a Comfey and a Primarina all wandered into the light and inspected Sage from a distance. 
"Who are you? Why am I here?" Sage hissed, scowling harder than she thought was possible. A beautiful woman pulled a chair into the light in front of Sage and sat down, cross-legged, in front of her. She was wearing a beautiful designer dress, her black hair draping over her shoulders and almost looking purple in the light. 

There was no way she was younger than thirty, as traces of young beauty was stretched over her face beneath the mask of makeup she was wearing. 
"So many questions, that's a little rude, don't you think?" the woman sighed and held a delicate hand out for her Vivillon to land on so that she could lightly stroke its head. Sage narrowed her eyes. 

"Okay, let's start with the first one. Who are you?" she demanded, her feet twitching. The woman rolled her eyes and shrugged, 
"I prefered the second question. You're here because you broke into our building. This place is extremely restricted, and we don't go easy on people that break our rules," she whispered and let the pokemon flutter to land on the head of the Primarina, "my poor little Vivi was terribly stressed when she heard we had a break-in! I just had to volunteer to keep an eye out for you to reassure her." 

Sage pouted, 
"I want a name. Your first one is fine," she snapped. Still, the woman shook her head and clicked her tongue.
"Fine! At least now I know there's something fishy about this Méchant Foundation. Who's your boss? Where's this 'Monsieur Méchant' based?" Sage pushed. The woman seemed to get a bit annoyed, 

"You're very curious, aren't you? That's not the best quality, you know. I once knew a curious woman. She quickly met her death," she scowled and stood up to light a candle. This was when Sage realised the light source above her head was a Chandelure. The lady held a match over its head and lit a beautifully smelling pink candle before wandering over to the window behind her. 
"Here," she whispered, "he's based here if you must know. I don't know why you'd ever want to meet him though. If you do, your life will take a turn for the worst one way or another. It did for me."

Sage raised her eyebrow, 
"How? You seem to love acting all menacing." 
The woman smiled to herself and shrugged. Her finger wiped a spot of dirt on the window as she gazed out into the rain. 
"You adapt over time. Now, why don't you answer some of my questions, hmm? Were you here with anyone else we have to worry about?" she asked and turned to a giant wardrobe to pull out some different designer clothing. 

Sage's mind darted to Lauren. Oh man, what would she be doing now without her? Was she alright? 
"No. I came alone," she replied. The woman nodded and quickly changed her blue dress into a shorter white one. 
"So why did you break in? Was it really a humble accident or were you looking for someone in particular?" was her second question as she decorated her hair with a white veil.

"What's with the veil? You going to a funeral?" Sage asked, dodging the question with her judgemental gaze. The woman scowled at Sage and clipped it into her hair. 
"I'll be heading to yours if you try and avoid my questions again. What were you looking for?" 
Sage flinched and she nodded, 
"Honestly? I was looking for people like you. The leaders of the Méchant Foundation, as I assume you are, of course," she admitted. 

The woman pouted, 
"Boring. Well, here you are. Where we've taken you is crawling with our admins, such as myself. You can always spot us. We're usually the ones that don't look like bodyguards or the ones that aren't wearing a uniform," she nodded and slowly turned to lead her pokemon out of the door,
"I think I'll leave you here for a bit. I have business elsewhere," she said and picked up a gun painted bright white off of the coat hanger next to the door. Sage's neck was strained to look, but she managed to flash the woman a final scowl before the door shut and the world was shut off from the young detective. The only sound was the drumming sound of the rain on the window and the burning of the candle a few feet away from her. 

Okay, she had to get this cuff off. For some reason, they'd only cuffed one of her arms and one of her legs to the chair. Pretty stupid, did they never consider they captive may be able to lockpick and have a hairpin in their hair?
Regardless, Sage pulled her hair out of its tight bun to fall over her shoulders, a sharp hair-pin being held in her hand. 

Quickly, she rattled at her wrist cuff's lock and managed to get it open. Perfect! With that moment of relief, she did the same for her ankle. Once free Sage immediately began inspecting the room. It wasn't anything special, other than the giant designer wardrobe and ancient-looking desk. 
She pulled open the desk draws and shuffled through some papers, it was just a bunch of bank statements and receipts, and underneath it, all was a collection of black sketchbooks. She started with the oldest looking one, flicking through sketches of models and Spewpa, then slowly they turned into drawings of a tall looking man in his twenties, and a younger-looking version of the woman dancing with what she assumed to be the Vivillon from earlier. 

Then the drawings began to get a little disturbing. There were sketches upon sketches of a scientist-looking woman going through multiple forms of torture. 
"This woman is a psychopath," she whispered. And dropped the sketchbooks to look for something more useful. 

"Bingo!" Sage's face lit up when she found a multitude of letters addressed to 'Sir Méchant'. 
At first, they were just letters of welcome and congratulations on becoming a senior member of the Méchant Foundation. Then the mood began to shift into the tasks the woman had to see through. Needless to say, they weren't very honourable. She pocketed them, now knowing the woman's name. 

"Alright. Now let's see if I can get out of here." 
She tried to crack open the window, but it was shut tight with no way of opening it. Her only option was to go through the building. No, this was too dangerous. She wasn't wearing whatever uniform the woman was on about and wasn't wearing any extravagant clothing-

Her gaze turned to the wardrobe and a grin flickered across her face. 
Immediately, she darted toward it and rummaged through it. She couldn't see any type of uniform, so just pulled out a giant purple dress and a white scarf and sunglasses. 
She pulled on the dress and wrapped the scarf over her mouth and placed the sunglasses on her face. To protect her fingerprints, she also grabbed some white gloves and pulled them over her hands before running over to the door and leaving the room. 

The halls were just as draining and dingy as before. She didn't know exactly which way she was headed but held her breath at the sight of the woman that had knocked her out before and the lady from the casino party two nights ago, Ashley, walking out of a different room. Slowly, Sage turned around on her heels and began walking in the opposite direction of the intimidating woman. 
"Abbie, you need to stop loitering around here, you know?" Sage heard from behind her. It seemed to be the voice of that Ashely woman, "especially since you're taking over the business when your dad kicks the bucket." 
Sage assumed the woman that had knocked her out before was Abbie and hid behind the corner to listen. Abbie groaned. 

"Could you not? The boss isn't that old. He's still got, like, ten years in him," she snapped back. Ashley clicked her tongue. 
"Fifty isn't young, Abbie. And that other kid of his isn't even old enough to drink. Honestly, you should start thinking about asking if he's willing to bump you up to top-man," she advised. Abbie seemed to be angry as there was no reply. 
"Boss is the greatest man that ever lived, how could I replace him?" she finally hissed and it sounded as though she stormed away. 

Sage blinked, this Abbie person was the daughter of Sir Méchant? Interesting. Knowing she wouldn't discover any new information, Sage spotted an open window and looked out over the city. She sort of recognised it, and jumped out of the window, slipping down the drainpipe and landing in Bleu Plaza. 
I'll make a note of that, she told herself and ran down the street toward her detective station under the glowing moonlight. 

One thing was for sure though, there wasn't anything ordinary about the Méchant Foundation, and it was certainly full of psychotic villains.