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The light of Tatenda's monitor wrestled the only other light in the room for the temperature of the room's illumination. The numbers weren't adding up and it was well past his bedtime; more coffee was simply not going to help him. Maybe it was time that he gave this particular engineering problem a rest for the night.
A glance at the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen revealed that it was 02:27. He had to be up in roughly four hours to get ready for a meeting at eight o'clock. By all measures, it was time to lay off the stimulants and go to bed.
“I'm surprised you're still up.”
The voice is both chillingly familiar and explains its own presence. No pokémon was going to ward off Jagdish Tsukinaka, unless someone held a gun to its head - and as it were, if one had a gun, one would be infinitely better off aiming it at Jagdish directly.
Sure enough, a glance reveals that's exactly who's visiting, evidently having let himself in - probably by gesturing to Tatenda's companion pokémon to kindly open the balcony door through the glass pane after noticing that the light was still on.
The first sigh was meant for these stubborn calculations, which just won't do, what he wants. Then his head rises, long, black, only some millimetres thick dreads noiseless following the motion, when he turns his face towards the voice speaking to him - must be him, no one else was here.
A short glance to the pokémon that does not seem to know what to do with himself, as if nervous, knowing he isn't supposed to just open doors late at night. But a slight smirk on the dark man's face shows he is not really angry, but understands his decision.
Given the fact that there never was any decision to be made. Jagdish's will will always have to be followed. So he lifts himself from the chair after turning around with it, his dark brown eyes with their golden veining showing a fascinating structure focused at his visitor. “I must have known you'd visit me,” he returns with a fine smile on his rather thin lips compared to the normally thicker ones of his people. “Pleasure to meet you again, Jagdish. It must be really urgent for you to visit me at this time.”
A little gesture invites the guest to follow him to some very comfortable looking seats, while he turn on some indirect light along the back of the couch. “May I offer you something?”
“I'm still nocturnal, my friend,” the unbidden visitor reveals with mild amusement. “I wouldn't have let myself in if you'd turned the light off, but… not to beat around the bush, I recently came into possession of something you might find interesting… and I'd be rather curious if you can figure out a counter for it, as it's stirred up a bit of a fuss with the Council.” His right hand rises, revealing a few inches worth of a narrow, black cylinder, balanced on one end against the inside of Jagdish's thumb, near the other end between his index and ring finger. It tells Tatenda nothing - but a moment later, it's casually being thrown his way. “It's a weapon.” And, sure enough, catching it, Tatenda can tell the ends of it apart and discover a mechanism to activate it… and a few cryptic settings to play with.
Not yet seated, Tatenda catches this strange device, still glancing at Jagdish, his look in parts sceptical, until his rather unusual eyes lead the way for his fingers to explore this thing in detail. As always his touch seems rather tender and caring, but still objective. His knowledge about mechanisms is shown, when he in fact does not yet activate it, until every part of it is carefully studied. “What is it for?”, he asks in a low, warm voice that reminds of a velvet touch, just without the normal seductive intention other people would express with it.
“It's a whip,” Jagdish informs him. “It has some interesting properties you might want to explore, though,” he adds. “Though you're a bright lad, I have a hunch you have a theory about those already.” Motion mostly silent, he shifts to half of a crouch, extending a delicate hand to scritch at the head of the Sneasel that's been trying hesitantly to get his attention.
Like always, when he does some physical 'work', Tatenda uses only one hand to wrap part of his braided hair around the rest at the back of his neck, restraining them from falling into his view and onto the thing he studies. To have better light he goes back to his desk, sitting down on his office chair and turning on the desk lamp. Still he does not activate the device, just look at it closely to get all the details. “A whip …”, he slowly replies, focused on what he's doing.
Then again he stands up, turning his back to his visitor and his companion to best not harm them, when pushing this one button that seems to be the activating one.
Abruptly, three wires unfurl from the inside of the device, falling against the floor like a listless artwork, a thin illumination emanating from them only barely visible in the light, a desaturated beige. Each wire looks to be approximately two metres long, but the glow is peculiar… and, given Jagdish's statement that this upset the Council, a creeping suspicion begins to occur Tatenda as to what might be causing it.
Motionless standing he looks at what was revealed from this thing now, but only his jaw starts to move, pressing his teeth together as if he tries to ease the upcoming tension that way. “Impossible,” he whispers rather to himself than to anyone else in this room. One elegant sidestep later the desk lamp stops lighting up the scene and the slender body wrapped in comfortable loose clothes of dark turquoise and violet.
A part of him, the researcher, wins the inner fight and the almost black thumb moves slightly to manipulate the device's settings.
Sure enough, the sheen changes to a dim red. And confirming that gut feeling prompts his pokémon companion to suddenly look alert and crowd subtly closer to Jagdish's left leg, keeping an attentive eye on those three lines.
Tatenda swallows slightly, his throat much too dry to really do so, after looking back to Barafai. “I'm sorry, Barafu …” Another fine movement of his fingers to change settings, trying to find the position his campanion might like better.
“Who made this?” His eyes focusing on Jagdish, more or less looking over hos own shoulder to stand between the weapon and the alerted pokémon.
✘ IN PROGRESS