Chapter 117: Briv's Gone Missing + Quarter Finals
The night air carried salt and copper.
Briv stepped out of the stadium's eastern service entrance, away from the floodlights and the screaming crowds and the endless parade of trainers and journalists and hangers-on. His ears rang with the ghost of applause. His chest still thrummed with the afterglow of Patricia's victory—the way she had stood on that platform, trembling but unbroken, her eyes blazing with something that looked almost like defiance.
She had won.
She had actually won.
He walked without destination, letting his feet carry him along the canal that wound behind the arena complex. The water glowed faintly—bioluminescent algae that the city cultivated for aesthetic purposes—and the floating bridges above cast perfect reflections on its surface, doubling the world into something surreal and strange.
Aethelburg at night was a different beast entirely.
By day, the capital was all crystalline towers and gleaming infrastructure, a monument to progress and power and the relentless forward march of civilization. By night, it became something older. Something quieter. The canals turned to ribbons of silver and blue. The bridges became constellations. The towers faded into silhouettes against a sky that never quite went dark, not with all the lights, not with all the energy humming through every circuit and conduit and carefully cultivated garden.
Briv liked it better this way.
He found a bench along the canal's edge—weathered stone, still warm from the day's heat—and sat down heavily. His legs ached. His back ached. His head ached. He had spent the entire day on his feet, watching match after match, cataloging strategies, studying opponents, trying to pretend that he wasn't dying inside every time he looked at the bracket and saw his name absent from it.
Last year's champion.
This year's spectator.
He pulled out his phone. Three messages from Patricia, two from Nicola, one from Dariana. All variations on the same theme: Where are you? Are you okay? We're worried.
He would answer them in a minute.
He just needed to breathe first.
The canal rippled. A school of Finneon drifted past, their wings catching the light, their bodies glowing faintly in the darkness. Briv watched them go, and something in his chest loosened—just a little, just enough.
"You're Briv Ambertone."
The voice came from behind him.
Briv turned.
Three figures stood on the path—silhouettes against the glow of the distant stadium, their faces hidden in shadow. They wore dark clothing, practical and unmarked, and they moved with the kind of precision that suggested training. Military. Or something like it.
The one in the center stepped forward.
He was tall—taller than the other two, taller than anyone Briv had seen in the arena earlier. His black hair was swept back from a face that might have been carved from marble, all sharp angles and cold symmetry. His dark-blue eyes reflected the canal light like frozen lakes.
Briv's blood ran cold.
Niklaus Eterngust.
"Eclipse Squad," Briv said. His voice came out steadier than he felt. "I was wondering when you'd show up."
Niklaus smiled.
It was not a pleasant expression.
"You've been watching us," he said. "We've been watching you."
"Flattering."
"Not particularly." Niklaus tilted his head. "You're last year's champion. You eliminated three of our operatives in the qualifying rounds. You've been asking questions about our organization. You've been... persistent."
Briv stood up slowly.
His hand drifted toward his belt—toward the Poké Balls that hung there, familiar and reassuring. His team. His partners. His friends.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.
"You do." Niklaus took another step forward. "But it doesn't matter. What matters is that you've become a liability. A loose end. A variable we can no longer afford to account for."
The other two figures moved.
They flanked Niklaus now—a man and a woman, both wearing the same dark clothing, both carrying something that Briv didn't recognize. It looked like a weapon. It looked like a weapon that had no business existing.
"What is that?" Briv asked.
"This?" Niklaus glanced at the device in the woman's hands. "This is a prototype. A gift from our research division. We call it the Eclipse Lens."
The woman raised the device.
It hummed.
Briv's hand closed around Infernape's Poké Ball.
"I don't think so," he said.
He threw.
Infernape materialized in a burst of orange and white—lean and powerful, its blue facial markings sharp in the canal light, its golden armor gleaming, the flame atop its head blazing with defiant fury. It didn't wait for orders. It simply crouched low, its body humming with explosive energy, its eyes fixed on the three figures before it.
Niklaus didn't flinch.
"Interesting," he said. "You think your Pokémon can protect you."
"I know they can."
"You're wrong."
The woman fired.
The Eclipse Lens emitted a beam of pure white light—a stream of energy that cut through the air like a blade. It hit Infernape square in the chest, and the fire type screamed—not in pain, not in fury, but in something else entirely. Something that sounded almost like surprise.
And then it vanished.
Not fell. Not fled. Not retreated into its Poké Ball.
Vanished.
One moment it was there, blazing and defiant. The next, it was gone—leaving nothing behind but a faint shimmer of light and the echo of its scream.
Briv's heart stopped.
"Infernape!"
He reached for another Poké Ball.
The woman fired again.
Luxray materialized—and vanished before it could even roar.
Torterra. Gone.
Empoleon. Gone.
Gabite. Gone.
Lucario. Gone.
Six Poké Balls. Six partners. Six friends.
All of them vanished.
Briv stood alone on the canal path, his hands empty, his heart pounding, his breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps.
"What did you do?" he whispered. "What did you do to them?"
Niklaus stepped closer.
"They're not dead," he said. "They're not hurt. They're simply... elsewhere. A pocket dimension of our own design. A place where they can't interfere."
"Bring them back."
"No."
"Bring them BACK!"
Niklaus's expression didn't change.
"You're in no position to make demands, Mr. Ambertone." He gestured, and the woman raised the Eclipse Lens again. "You've been a thorn in our side for too long. You've asked questions you shouldn't have asked. You've interfered with operations you shouldn't have known existed. And now..."
The device hummed.
"...now you're going to disappear."
Briv's eyes widened.
"You can't—"
"We can."
"People will notice. Patricia will notice. Nicola will—"
"Let them notice." Niklaus's voice was cold. "Let them search. Let them wonder. By the time they find any answers, it will be too late."
The woman fired.
The beam hit Briv square in the chest.
It didn't hurt.
That was the strangest part. It didn't hurt at all. It felt like falling—like the moment between sleep and waking, like the instant before a dream begins. His body dissolved. His thoughts scattered. His consciousness stretched and thinned and faded like smoke in the wind.
And then—
Nothing.
Patricia felt it before she understood it.
A sudden emptiness. A cold spot in her chest. A silence where there should have been sound.
She was standing in the trainers' section, waiting for Briv to come back, her phone in her hand, her thumb hovering over his name. She had sent three messages. He hadn't answered any of them.
That wasn't like him.
"Has anyone seen Briv?" she asked.
Nicola looked up from her own phone. "He said he was going for a walk."
"That was an hour ago."
"He probably just needed some air." Nicola's voice was calm, but her eyes were sharp. "You know how he gets after—"
"He always answers." Patricia's voice cracked. "Always. Even when he's angry. Even when he's upset. He always answers."
Dariana appeared beside them, her dark eyes troubled. "I saw him leave through the east entrance. He was alone."
"Alone?"
"He told me he needed to clear his head."
Patricia's hand tightened around her phone.
Something was wrong.
Something was very, very wrong.
Samuel found them ten minutes later.
He was breathless—dreadlocks wild, colorful clothing disheveled, his usual mellow demeanor replaced by something urgent and afraid.
"Something happened," he said. "Something bad."
"What do you mean?"
"I was walking by the canal. I saw—" He stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. "I saw three people in Eclipse Squad uniforms. They had a weapon. Something I've never seen before. And they were using it on—"
He stopped again.
"On who?" Patricia demanded. "On who, Samuel?"
"On Briv."
The world stopped.
"What?" Patricia's voice was barely a whisper. "What do you mean they were using it on Briv?"
"I mean they fired it at him. And he—" Samuel's voice broke. "He vanished. Just... vanished. Like he was never there."
Patricia's knees buckled.
Nicola caught her before she fell.
"That's not possible," Nicola said. Her voice was hard, controlled, but her hands were shaking. "People don't just vanish."
"I know what I saw."
"You might have—"
"I know what I saw, Nicola."
Dariana stepped between them, her expression fierce. "Enough. We need to find out what happened. We need to—"
"We need to find him," Patricia said. She was on her feet again, her eyes blazing, her hands clenched into fists. "We need to find him and we need to make them pay."
"And how do you propose we do that?" Nicola's voice was sharp. "We don't know where they took him. We don't know what that weapon was. We don't even know if he's—"
She stopped.
She couldn't say it.
She couldn't even think it.
"He's alive," Patricia said. "I know he's alive. I can feel it."
"Patricia—"
"I can feel it."
The screens above the stadium flickered.
The bracket updated.
The Quarterfinals were set.
And somewhere in the city, in the shadows between the crystal towers and the floating bridges and the glowing canals, the Eclipse Squad was celebrating.
They had eliminated a variable.
They had removed a threat.
They had made the last champion disappear.
And there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Except there was.
Patricia turned to face the stadium.
Her eyes were wet.
Her hands were steady.
"We can't search for him," she said. "Not yet. Not while the League is still underway."
"Patricia—"
"I know." She cut Nicola off. "I know how it sounds. I know how it feels. But if we abandon the tournament now, we lose everything. We lose our standing. We lose our platform. We lose our ability to fight back."
She paused.
"And we lose our chance to find out what the Eclipse Squad is really after."
Nicola stared at her.
Then she nodded.
"You're right," she said. "I hate it. But you're right."
Dariana's jaw tightened. "So what do we do?"
"We fight," Patricia said. "We win. We keep our eyes open and our ears to the ground and we look for any sign of where they took him."
"And if we don't find anything?"
Patricia's expression hardened.
"Then we make them tell us."
The crowd roared.
The Quarterfinals had begun.
But somewhere in the darkness, in a place between dimensions, in a silence that wasn't quite silence, Briv Ambertone was still falling.
=====
(quarter finals draw:
Iris VS Dariana =
Niklaus VS Bianca =
Patricia VS Nicola =
Belle VS Gwen =)
The screen swallowed the light.
Briv's name had been there minutes ago—a ghost of a bracket slot, already eliminated, already crossed out. Now the entire display rippled and reformed into something new.
The Quarterfinals.
Eight names.
Four matches.
Patricia's hands were still shaking when the announcer's voice boomed through the stadium speakers. She hadn't moved from her seat. Hadn't blinked. Hadn't breathed properly since Samuel had spoken those words—vanished, just vanished, like he was never there.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! THE QUARTERFINALS DRAW IS NOW COMPLETE!"
The crowd erupted.
Patricia didn't hear them.
"PLEASE DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO THE MAIN SCREEN FOR THE OFFICIAL BRACKET!"
The giant display flickered. Names rearranged themselves with mechanical precision—sliding, locking, forming the geometry of destiny.
IRIS VS DARIANA
NIKLAUS VS BIANCA
PATRICIA VS NICOLA
BELLE VS GWEN
The stadium noise faded to a dull roar in Patricia's ears.
She stared at the screen.
She stared at her own name.
She stared at Nicola's name beside it.
"No," she whispered.
Nicola was already on her feet, her sharp brown eyes fixed on the bracket, her jaw tight enough to crack teeth. She didn't speak. Didn't move. Just stood there, rigid as carved stone, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
Dariana broke the silence first.
"Well," she said. Her voice was carefully neutral. "That's..."
"Don't," Nicola said.
"I wasn't going to—"
"Don't say it's fine. Don't say it's just a draw. Don't say anything."
Dariana's dark eyes softened. She reached out—touched Nicola's shoulder gently—and Nicola flinched like the contact burned.
"I'm not going to say any of that," Dariana said quietly. "I was going to say that this is going to be one hell of a match."
Nicola's laugh was sharp and humorless.
"One hell of a match," she repeated. "My best friend just disappeared. The man I—" She stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "Briv is gone. And now I have to fight his girlfriend in the quarterfinals."
Patricia finally looked at her.
Their eyes met.
Something passed between them—something complicated and painful and impossibly heavy.
"I'm not going to go easy on you," Patricia said.
Nicola's expression flickered.
"Good," she said. "I'd hate to think you'd insult me like that."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Neither was I."
They stood there, two women carved from the same stubborn stone, and the air between them crackled with something that wasn't quite hostility.
Samuel cleared his throat.
"Uh," he said. "Should we... talk about the other matches?"
Dariana nodded slowly. "Iris versus me. That's..." She exhaled. "That's going to be interesting."
"Iris is a dragon specialist," Samuel said. "You've got Glaceon, Gastrodon, Gallade, Toxicroak, Pachirisu, Vespiquen. No dragons."
"I'm aware."
"Just saying."
"I'm aware, Samuel."
He held up his hands. "Okay. Okay. Just trying to help."
Dariana's expression softened. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm just—"
"Scared," Samuel finished. "We all are."
Patricia's phone buzzed.
She looked down.
A message from an unknown number.
She opened it.
Her blood ran cold.
The Eclipse Squad thanks you for your cooperation. The variable has been removed. The tournament will proceed as planned.
She didn't realize she'd dropped her phone until Nicola picked it up.
"What is it?" Nicola asked. Then she read the screen. Her face went pale. "Patricia—"
"They took him." Patricia's voice was barely audible. "They actually took him."
"We don't know that—"
"They took him, Nicola."
Samuel stepped closer. "What does it say?"
Patricia grabbed the phone back and shoved it at him. He read it. His expression crumpled.
"Variable," he whispered. "They called him a variable."
"Like he's nothing." Patricia's voice cracked. "Like he's just—just a piece on a board. Like he's not a person. Like he's not—"
She stopped.
She couldn't finish.
Dariana moved beside her, her arm wrapping around Patricia's shoulders. "We're going to find him."
"How?"
"I don't know yet. But we will."
"You can't promise that."
Dariana's jaw tightened. "I know. But I'm promising anyway."
The announcer's voice returned, drowning out their conversation.
"THE QUARTERFINALS WILL BEGIN TOMORROW EVENING! FIRST MATCH: IRIS VERSUS DARIANA! SECOND MATCH: NIKLAUS VERSUS BIANCA! THIRD MATCH: PATRICIA VERSUS NICOLA! FOURTH MATCH: BELLE VERSUS GWEN!"
The crowd cheered.
The names blazed on the screen.
Patricia stared at hers.
Patricia Crownleaf versus Nicola Sunfall.
Two friends.
Two rivals.
Two women who had spent years pushing each other to be better, faster, stronger.
And now they would face each other in the quarterfinals—while the man they both loved was somewhere else entirely, trapped in a dimension that didn't exist, at the mercy of people who called him a variable.
"We need a plan," Dariana said.
"We need a lot of things," Nicola replied.
"But first we need a plan."
"Fine." Nicola's voice was steel. "Here's the plan: we fight. We win. We keep our eyes open and our ears to the ground. We look for any sign of where they took him."
Patricia nodded slowly. "And if we don't find anything?"
Nicola's eyes hardened.
"Then we make them tell us."
The words hung in the air—a promise, a threat, a prayer.
Samuel's phone buzzed.
He glanced down, read the message, and his expression shifted—something urgent, something almost hopeful.
"What is it?" Dariana asked.
"It's from Bianca," Samuel said. "She wants to meet. Says she has information about the Eclipse Squad."
The three women turned to him.
"What kind of information?" Patricia demanded.
"She didn't say. Just that it's important. And that we need to be careful."
Nicola's eyes narrowed. "Bianca. The psychologist. She's fighting Niklaus tomorrow."
"She is."
"And now she wants to talk to us."
"Apparently."
Patricia's hand tightened around her phone.
"Then we talk to her," she said. "But we do it carefully. We don't know who's watching."
"We never know who's watching," Dariana muttered.
"That's the point."
The screens above the stadium flickered again.
The bracket updated.
The Quarterfinals were set.
And somewhere in the city, in the shadows between the crystal towers and the floating bridges and the glowing canals, a young woman with long wavy blonde hair and dark intelligent eyes was walking toward a meeting that would change everything.
Bianca didn't believe in coincidence.
She believed in patterns.
She believed in the spaces between words, the silences between questions, the truths that people revealed without meaning to. She had spent years studying the human mind—first as a curiosity, then as a calling—and she had learned to trust her instincts.
Her instincts were screaming now.
Something was very, very wrong.
She had watched the Round of Sixteen from the trainers' section, her eyes moving between the matches and the crowd, cataloging faces, tracking movements, trying to understand the shape of the tournament. She had seen Niklaus Eterngust defeat Ennui with cold precision. She had seen Elsa fall to Patricia Crownleaf in a match that should have been impossible.
And she had seen the Eclipse Squad operatives moving through the crowd like sharks in still water.
She had seen them leave through the east entrance.
She had seen Briv Ambertone follow.
She was going to find out what happened next.
Her phone buzzed.
She glanced down.
A message from an unknown number.
Stop digging. You don't want to find what you're looking for.
She smiled.
It was not a pleasant expression.
She typed a response.
Too late. I already know where to dig.
She put the phone away.
She kept walking.
The night was young.
The tournament was far from over.
And Bianca had a match to win.
But first, she had information to share.
And people to warn.
The city of Aethelburg glowed around her—crystal towers, floating bridges, glowing canals—a monument to progress and power and the relentless forward march of civilization. But beneath the surface, in the shadows between the light, something was stirring.
Something dark.
Something patient.
Something that had been waiting for decades.
And it had just made its first move.
Patricia, Nicola, Dariana, and Samuel found Bianca waiting at a small café near the canal's edge.
The place was quiet—almost deserted, the other tables empty, the lone waiter leaning against the counter with the weary expression of someone who had worked too many late nights. Bianca sat at a corner table, her hands wrapped around a cup of tea, her dark eyes fixed on the water beyond.
She didn't look up when they approached.
"I was wondering when you'd get here," she said.
"You said you had information," Patricia replied.
"I do."
"About what?"
Bianca finally looked at them.
Her expression was calm. Measured. Careful.
"About the Eclipse Squad," she said. "About what they're really doing here. And about what happened to Briv Ambertone."
Nicola's jaw tightened. "You know where he is?"
"No." Bianca's voice was steady. "But I know what took him. And I know why."
"Then tell us."
Bianca gestured to the empty chairs.
"Sit down," she said. "This is going to take a while."
They sat.
The waiter disappeared.
The canal rippled.
And Bianca began to speak.
"There's a weapon," she said. "A device. The Eclipse Squad calls it the Lens. It doesn't kill people. It doesn't hurt them. It just... moves them. To a dimension of their own design. A pocket universe. A place that doesn't exist in any conventional sense."
"How do you know this?" Dariana asked.
"Because I've seen it before. Three years ago, a researcher at the University of Aethelburg was working on temporal displacement theory. She disappeared. No traces. No evidence. Just... gone. The case was closed after six months."
"And you think the Eclipse Squad—"
"I think the Eclipse Squad had her killed. Or worse. Their technology is decades ahead of anything we have. That doesn't happen by accident."
Patricia leaned forward. "Can he be brought back?"
Bianca hesitated.
"Possibly," she said. "But it would require access to their technology. Their research. Their people."
"Then that's what we do."
"It's not that simple."
"I don't care."
Bianca's expression softened. "I know you don't. But if you go after them blindly, you'll end up like Briv. You'll end up worse."
"So what do you suggest?"
Bianca was silent for a moment.
"I suggest we fight," she said. "We win. We use the tournament as a platform—as a cover—to gather intelligence. We find out everything we can about the Eclipse Squad. And then, when we're ready, we strike."
Nicola's eyes narrowed. "And you think we can do that? Four trainers against an organization?"
"I think you'd be surprised what four trainers can do." Bianca's smile was thin. "Especially when one of them is a psychologist who knows how to read people."
Patricia looked at her.
Then at Nicola.
Then at Dariana and Samuel.
"All right," she said. "We do it your way. But if anything happens to him—"
"It won't."
"You don't know that."
"No." Bianca's voice was quiet. "But I know that standing here arguing about it won't help him. We need to move. We need to act. We need to be smarter than them."
She stood up.
Her tea was cold.
"I have a match tomorrow," she said. "Against Niklaus Eterngust. I'm going to win. And when I do, I'm going to make him tell me everything he knows."
"How?"
Bianca's smile widened.
"Because I know how to read people," she said. "And I know how to break them."
She walked away.
The four trainers sat in silence.
The canal rippled.
The night deepened.