Private/Closed Grave of the Forgotten

[BurbleBurble]

Well, at least the rockets seemed to like his suggestion! They could've said "Piss off, kid." or something of the sort, but instead the answer was semi-passive aggressive! "Oh, what? You don't like Weavile? That's rich coming from a Pokemon hugger like you." Gerald had taken note of his somewhat intimidating grin he plastered on his face...and the fact he called him a Pokemon hugger. While he thought up of a witty retort, the man continued on his spiel. "But really, if we'd brought Bisharp, this place would be one heck of a bloody mess. And that'd be just the opposite of my mission adjective."

There went the witty retort. He obviously had other things to talk do than listen to Gerald...which was good, because he was having trouble thinking of a decent comeback. The man kept on talking, revealing himself to be Thomas (He made a mental note of that name, in case he needed to forward that to the police later, though he doubted they were going to be of much use) and culminating in pissing off Nine. A battle to blow off steam. Well, he got that. A huge cloud of steam, actually. Unsurprisingly, Ice and fire did not mix, and a puff of steam was created. There was some technical term for that, wasn't there? was it evaporation? No...maybe he should've done those last two years of high school. But right now was not the time for this, as Nine interrupted his thoughts.

'Everyone, follow me! Run straight and fast!'

So what did Gerald do? The manly thing! Hauling ass. Dear god, he never ran so fast. He could hear the cries and jeers of a battle going on behind him, Curt obviously wanted to try to fight back. Gerald was fairly sure June could hold off a few, and maybe Puff, but not the oodles of them. He followed Nine and Cassie, who happened to be riding Nine (Man, they were stronger than they looked.). The smell of smoke filled Gerald's nostrils, as Curt roasted Weavile after Weavile behind him. But alas, the end of the line came when the forest narrowed into a gorge, with one way out. A cave, labelled 'Dead Man's Drop' by the local vandals. Those are words that do not well together! Now was also not a time to consider this though! Curt was in view, still fighting off the rockets, seemingly holding his own. Gerald was aware of the fact Curt could hold them off for awhile, but they probably had other Pokemon. Perhaps he should've asked Thomas that rather than the Bisharp question...

Anyways, the cave was quite dark. He thought of potentially using June or Empty for light, but that would attract attention to himself...something he did not want right now. He heard a scraping and yelp of Nine ahead, potentially warning him of some threat. Perhaps the drop? In a very unwise choice, he ran towards the source of the sound. And promptly fell off the titular drop.

"Shit."

As he tumbled down the rock face, he heard vibration from above, and followed by ripping sound. He didn't understand what the vibration was, but he did figure out what the ripping was: his backpack, and the subsequent contents, or half empty super potion bottles, his dull knife, the crushed Granola bars, still packaged, half eaten carrots, and his empty-rolled camera. Why did he always have to be curious? Before he could answer his own question, his chest greeted the stone floor. "Ow."

Rubbing his head, he stood up and gazed around the even darker depths of Dead Man's Drop. Two saffron eyes gazed back at him. "O-oh! Hello there..." What if it was...a Luxray? Oh god, maybe that's why they called it Dead Man's Drop! You drop, and then you become the feast of some beast lurking in the dark...shivers went up his spine as he backed against the sloped cliff wall.

 

[Curtkid]

"OW! SHIT! DAMN IT! GUAAAAH!", Curt cried as he tumbled from Whips. Their decent hadn't gone as smoothly as they hoped, Team Rocket apparently didn't take kindly to being made fools of and attempted to shoot them down all their way down into the abyss. Thankfully Whips, despite only having been a Dragonite for a few months, was able to skillfully avoid the numerous Ice Beams, Sludge Bombs, and even a Thunderbolt from the Raticate (which Curt had to admit was impressive, Thunderbolt was very difficult to teach to a Raticate). Unfortunately, said very recent evolution into a Dragonite didn't give Whips much time to become skilled at the art of flying, as such, Whips' jerky dodging caused him to go spiraling out of control, throwing Embertail and Whips just a few feet above the ground.

"Uggggh, Embertail, Whips, you guys O.K?", Curt mumbled, head still spinning as he tried to pick himself up, it was a fairly straight forward question, but still one that needed to be asked. Checking himself over, he realized that his left arm and shoulder was a little scratched up (of course, his dominant arm got damaged...), but other then that, he was no worse for wear. Embertail was in slightly better condition then him, the tiny dragons scales protecting him from the rocks, the Charmander was on his feet before Curt was in fact, and giving his friend a friendly growl asking him if he was O.K. As for Whips, his scales were thicker then Embertails, the landing didn't even phase him, he was already back up and ready to go.

"Yeah I'm fine Embertail, just glad you guys are alright, and hey, that means we're safe, no way they're going to follow us through that! YOU HEAR THAT YOU ROCKET BASTARDS, YOU ALL CAN GO SUCK A CHODE! WE A'INT TAKEN YOUR CRAP TODAY!!!!", Curt screamed to the out of sight Team Rocket squad above, even though they probably couldn't hear them, and they certainty weren't going to follow them in, navigating through the spike rocks to this point without a decently skilled flying Pokemon was a death sentence, and Curt doubted that Thomas Admin ass brought enough flying Pokemon to accommodate everyone of his grunts. Nope, they were safe and Curt was enjoying a brief high on the successful escape, Embertail wasn't one to stay out of a celebration and let out his own, celebratory growl. Whips was significantly more somber, he was happy that they were able to escape mostly unharmed, but was still upset that they were, once again, forced to run from Team Rocket. Still, they were safe, a and as far as the party was concerned, that was good enough for them, and now that the initial adrenaline rush of escaping had passed, they were free to take in their surroundings.

"O.K, so...wait, Cassie, Gerald and....some guy I've never seen before...eh, are you alright?", Curt asked as he and Embertail headed over to the other members of his party (or atleast the currently located ones). Whips decided to keep a looked out just in case anyone else, party member, Rocket, or otherwise managed to come by. They decided it would be best to introduce themselves to their new arrival first, at first they thought they should check up on Gerald, but he seemed to be being tended to by the mans Umbreon. Carefully and slowly, as to avoid startling the new arrival, he seemed friendly, but he didn't want to risk startling him.

"Well, uh, um, h-", Curt began before....

"ERRRO, AHM EMBERTAIL!", Curts Charmander friend said, extending his claw to the man for a handshake. One day he would let Curt be the first one to make an introduction, but that day was not today.

Embertai, come on! Ugh, sorry about-, uh, h-hello, I'm Curt, I see you've met Embertail, and the Dragonite over there is Whips", Curt said pointing to the Dragonite, who gave a quick grunt in response, "so, is that Umbreon your partner, if so, that's pretty impressive Umbreon are pretty rare Pokemon, must have a close bond with you if you managed to make it evolve, anywho, how's Cassie, she holding up fine?". Curt thought a simple complement to the trainer would be a good way to break the ice and show them his genuinely good intentions, plus he really wanted to make sure Cassie was alright, Gerald seemed a little less worse for wear, just confused if nothing else. The rest of Curt's team just hopes Jacob was O.K, they even hoped that other new guy they just meet was fairing well.

"Alright then, so do you live here...in....this...oh Arceus no, NO! Not ANOTHER freaking cave!!!!", Curt yelled, putting his hands on his head in an over dramatic display, "NO NO NO! We're done with caves, after the last three times we went into one of this hell holes of nature we all agreed: we don't do caves anymore! Embertail, Whips, we don't do caves anymore right guys?!

"Y-Yea!", Embertail said, he still had his atypical cheerful smile, but there was a very rare hint of worry in the Charmanders eyes.

"Gehh...", Whips growled, he didn't like admit fear (and Whips was rarely afraid of anything, even when he was a Dratini or Dragonair), but recent experience had left him...less then comfortable with caves.

Aggggh, damn it.....hey, uh guy with the Umbreon, do you know a way out of this cave? Personal fears aside, my team got a little messed up by Team Rock- oh , yeah, that's right", Curt said as he removed a Pokeball from his belt and let out Raviel, the scratch on his back that he got from the Weavile was still bleeding a bit. Reaching into his pack, he pulled out a few bandages and some Hydrogen Peroxide and began addressing the wound on Raviel's back. The Jolteon grunted a bit, he wasn't one to show pain and was a bit embarrassed at letting himself get wounded like that (he and Whips had a similar pride streak like that), but still allowed Curt to dress his wounds without any trouble, making sure he kept his spikes from flaring up and what not.

"Sorry, wanted to take care of Raviel here", Curt said to the man as he finished taking care of his Lightning Pokemon friend, "But seriously, please tell us you know an easy way out of the cave."

 

[_Umbreon_]

The Umbreon watched the scene unfold as more humans swarmed. He watched one of them stumble back in fright, and the other start addressing the darkness as if there was a person there. Which their clearly wasn't. They had used the name 'Cassie' for the human that laid crumpled on the tround like a sad leaf. The extroverted one named himself 'Curt' and his two Pokemon 'Whips' and 'Embertail'.

The Umbreons head snapped violently from side to side. 'Storm. Big Storm.' He thought. Thunder boomed and the air sizzled with lighting as the whole abyss was lit for a few moments in pure white light, before the pelting rain began.

He barked loudly for them to follow, as they would not survive the flooding unless they got to high ground.

 

[Storybook]

The man's smile was devilish. Childish. A sort of "I'm in control - hah!" It seemed to slither over the air like a serpent, stir the torpid stupor into a malevolent bath of superiority in which the man wallowed. Que couldn't help but be curious. Was it twisted pride, gleeful knowledge, or simply his will to jump to conclusions to produce such a smile, such a dance of words that screamed "Play my games - I'll make you lose your mind!"

Now that the boy thought about it, perhaps such a conclusion wasn't far from the truth. Despair... despair was the clearing, and the man was the high heels. Yes. It was that smile- that cauldron of disgusting hubris and malicious pride manifested into a devilish play on a child acting as a puppeteer. He spoke to the boy, and the man's grin- no, his smirk, widened.

Que grinned back. A toothy grin, with platinum arrows as its commander. An invitation.

Play with me.

The boy, it seemed, had swallowed his grudge. It was a petty grudge, really. A petty little ugly, dank, festering, beautiful grudge. Plus, the boy liked to imagine it loitering, hidden, in his stomach. He saw it as a tumor, boiling in its own vat of corrosive, envious, silly little hatred. And when the time came... a volcano. A slow, molten volcano with lava that seeped like puss to burn the eyes of its unexpecting guest and gurgle in the man's throat as if he were playing with poison, urging it not to seep down into his veins. Such was the nature of brutal, childish revenge.

"Yes. Let's talk this out. No blood on the floor. I'll start. My name is Thomas. I know Curt, and Jacob, and also that wreck." He nodded to Cassie's direction, earning a threatening growl from Nine. "But I don't know you two." He looked over at Gerald and Que, and then tapped his chin contemplatively. "Well, judging from Curt's words, you're Gerald." He made a small point in the red head's direction. And then, he glanced over at Que. "But nobody seems to know who you are, so I guess you must not be very important."

The boy mirrored the man's chin tapping with his own lip fiddling, letting the stick rest on his thigh, his right hand toying with his lip. Ice like invisible tears still clung to the sagging cloth of the sulking boy's shirt, fiddling with the air as his slouch deepened in observation. What a man, what a man. What a stupid little prideful, possessive, dirty little man. And the name-! Yes, the boy wallowed in the revelation of names. Cassie, Curt, Gerald, Jacob, Thomas- oh, the names! What was there more precious to life, and to thought, and to completion, as a name!

Should he speak? No, too soon, too soon. To make haste would be tragedy, and to make words now would be silly. As the boy grinned his toothy grin, watching the limbs bow in brittle sorrow, the leaves bristle in crystal shards of tension, the wind moan stiffly with despair, and the sugar clouds watch over it all, he knew it was too soon. Let him watch- let him be unimportant, as the man so pitifully declared it so, let him dare to conceive the puzzle at hand. He had the taste of a piece- no, two, so graciously swept into his talons, and he was not leaving until the rest was his. The puzzle- oh, addictive was its pallet, and so distractive was its pursuit!

Steam enveloped the boy in a choking, stifling, coarse blanket of darkness, snapping the tree limbs, crushing the leaves, hushing the wind, obscuring the clouds, and all off a sudden the game was over. First, there was tense fear, a sort of feeling of doom and dread and disappointment all in one package as play gave way to silence. Stupid page. Then, there was disgust… and opportunity.

Deceit was the most beautiful form of battle. Cheers to the sly, sorry girl. Cheers, cheers. But the best part of a trick was that it left the window open for a thousand more, and even the sluggish, wallowing, hunch-backed boy couldn't pass up such a chance. His mind was whirling faster than his heart, and the boy was both disgusted and euphoric at the same time. The choking wrapping of mist left him free of the binds of sight, and so the boy abandoned his maneuver with the right hand, and grasped the stick in his left, but not before releasing a piercing whistle into the air, credit to his two fingers.

"Get them!"

Nap time is over- and the game, too, I suppose. The boy thought slowly with a grunt of submission, watching beams of ice try to find him in the dark illusion of mist. Waiting, listening for the patter of silent feet, the boy marveled at their beauty, silver serpents twisting through the air that all of a sudden seemed as fragile as china frost, and in this moment the boy couldn't decide which one was more precious- the glittering mist, hanging lone in the air, a cloth of illusion and unspoken sorrow, or the ice beams, crystals of coldness that twisted through the sky in a ballet of serenity with the mist.

All things came around with a little time to think, even what once was cold and brutal. Still, the boy must act, or risk losing both of the games that sauntered blissfully through this forest. Dual thumps of paws alerted the boy to his ride- he couldn't really be expected to run, now could he? To be expected to move at such a pace- ask him to fly, instead!

“Here's the deal,” the boy murmured in Growlithe's ear, voice like bitter molasses, hoisting himself upon the dreamy creatures back. “I can't see and you were always a lost cause in the sight department anyways, so find that Ninetails and stick to him like glue- Dedenne,” the boy called, louder, into the mist, knowing the ears of his comrade were twitching at his words. He lowered his tone in a devious fit of devilish thought, speaking slowly, with a sense of finality, ignoring the Weavile approaching at the sound of his voice as the arrow of the beast's nose spotted him before he could spot them. “Growlithe can’t seem to see where he should run.”

Of course, the creature couldn’t have seen even if there was light, but the message, twisted around his words and tone, made sense to the twitching, jubilant squirt of a hyperactive rodent that had just scrambled, at his whistle, from the ball within the leaf mold, as the twitchy child of a Dedenne always seemed persistent on doing. A diversion, she considered. Could do.

"damn it, everyone's running and we're at a disadvantage in terrain like this, we're going to have to follow Cassie's, lets go!"

It was the "Let's go," Que heard as he turned on his seat. Thomas. (His seat rocked with the force of a flamethrower attack, a battle which he promptly ignored). He longed to share that gaze again, to clasp the presence of the man’s withering smile, to chuckle at his words and eavesdrop on the mass of pride. Such a shame, to leave a character behind so soon. What pieces, what knowledge, could he have received, what tricks could he have learned? How long would the man have spoken, and when would come the time to play dirty, to fiddle with the hand of fate? Blast it all, stupid change, to leave it all behind in a cloak of mist.

There! The man’s eyes- was it his eyes?- glittering sickeningly in the mist like an enraged tyrant fitfully thrashing in a temper tantrum, like glitched gates to a twisted, devious world. Could he see him? - yes, he was looking straight at him. The boy grinned, a toothy grin. Stupid words. Stupid change. He preferred to grin.

A whistle set the trio off: two, lumbering children, weaving through the scent trails that cluttered the mist and feeding the bath of choking crystals as their own flames met ice- one, a quivering rodent, bouncing through the trees in sporatic patterns as if their boughs were spring pads, gleaming in the mist, surrounded by the fizzling aura of Flash.



The boy tapped his left fingers on the beast's forehead, the forest screaming in his ears like the whistle of a train. He'd refused to leave the stick behind, so hard was it to find a good stick these days, and it was safely clasped between the cloth of his clothes and the mass of sweet, tangled fur. Que was fragile in his frail demeanor, for couldn't decide how to act. The forest was a blur of steam's entrails and shattered leaves and broken boughs and chortling clouds mauling the meeting of earth and sky. The deranged face of the wind struck at his limp mop of hair like a cackling whip, and Que was limp in its grasp, maddened simply at the briefness of the moment, as if he wished he could be ignorant and vulnerable and just let the short nature of the limitless world destroy him, sullen as he was at the confusingly finite nature of a horizon's infinity.



"Dead man's drop," the boy stated with the finality of carelessness. "Oh joy."

There was a man beside him, and a thousand enemies, and a billion futile, twisted words. Curt. He was called Curt, and it appeared Curt liked to think with his mouth and not with his head. Sure, there was sense and wit in his words, but he spoke swiftly- the man spoke swiftly, and that was that. Slower, he urged, fiddling with a trail of murderous vine lounging from a tree that seemed to hang its slaughtered head over the drop, branches brittle and choked by the ivy. Slower.

"One last chance, call your Pokemon back, or This. Gets. Ugly"

His mind fingered the drop with distaste, secretly pleased that he had another chance to watch the man, inwardly enraged at the result. Was there no end to words, was there no end to his hideous mountain of pride, or his cackling smile that ruled over the world? Could he not realize that three already had leapt over the drop and lived, as evidence by scud marks and echoing whispers of malicious terror, seeping into their brains? Was he so much of a Grumpig to wallow in his own filthy pride as if it could cleanse his soul? And yet, the boy was calm and careless, inside and out. He was tired. He felt as if fickle, hideous, constant change had pulled the strength from his limbs and sucked the anger from his brain, as if its dripping fingers had coaxed his strength from him, and its hot, moist, infinite breath had choked his will, and pasted the pages of his book together, and left him hunched, defeated, not by the man nor any visible enemy but by the simple forces of time and the reminder of all that could be unanswered and all that cackled in his ears in hideous, malicious, serpentine hisses of victory. "Hah!" It declared. "You lose! Hah, hah, hah!"

Que desperately needed something interesting to occur. This game was getting tiresome, and Que-

The earth shook with pitiful laughter and the boy plummeted into the abyss with the beast and shards of ground that had been their perch, dislodged by an earthquake that tickled the earth and caused it to shake with mirth. The vine snapped in the jaws of darkness and silence, still clutched in his hands, and his perfect stick clattered to the floor of the cave with a cry of surprise. The boy buried his face in Growlithe's mane, breathing in the musty, tingling feathers of fur.

That would do.


A cave.
A cave.
Of course his savior would be the devil as well. He felt the earthy walls moving in, trapping him in darkness, and the boy was relieved and horrified all at once. Fur tried to coax his hand into calmness, to cleanse the dirty mud of the floor of its cool, perfectly smooth touch and shield his ears from the greedy whistle of a train. He felt his friend's pulse, hand buried to his skin, but the boy was lost. For just a moment, the boy was lost beyond what knowledge of life could shield.

For a moment, the boy thought he saw smoke, clear in the darkness of the room that the cave had become, and the boy knew that the smoke was made of tears. Wind thrashed the smoke out of existence, spearing it with crude, cumbrous, echoing laughter of possession. "Mine! Mine mine mine mine! Hah!"

The smoke vanished. Ice dripped to the floor from his shirt.

Que woke from the trance with a start, feeling dead in the blankness of emotion. Curt- it was the voice of Curt- and it was screaming. And it was crude. The boy wanted to snarl. Stupid words. Stupid words.

Instead, he grasped the vine close in his hands, waiting for the stream of words and whatever else to end. A clatter of stones and soft glow announced the return of the distractor, tail limp, whiskers drooped. She was tired, and Que, for a moment, felt a burst of kinship. Sometimes being tired was alright.

The man had stopped talking, his words rashes in the air. For a moment, he was pleased, almost connected to the man. Hatred has a way of connecting two creatures, even if it just was of the dark, or of the enemy. The next, Que sagged his shoulders, deepened his slouch, and let his platinum arrows connect with Curt's own. His blank face was illuminated by the last shards of the rodents flash, who had promptly scuttled onto his shoulder and curled into sleep after tediously inching down the drop. His mouth was thin, his hair sagged, and the shards of ice seemed to freeze, again, upon his chest, for his platinum gaze was cold and mechanical in calm fury.

He tied the vine into a simple knot, one loop over the other, and spoke. "Look," he pulled it taut with force, pale skin ghostly as the light began to die. "I'm untying the knot."

Que pulled harder, watching the knot tighten around itself and close all chance of freeing the vine from its own grasp, then tossed it away, towards the boy, with a flick of his left hand. The stick wandered into his mind, which he knew was somewhere on the floor, just pleading for his hands to play with it, as did his Dedenne's empty pokeball, lying still beneath the sugary carcasses of the leaves. A creature barked. The earth coaxed him on.

"Yes," he responded, more to the earth than the new pair of eyes. "Let's go."

And in his mind, he finished his sentence. I'm tired.
... but there is a game to be played.

 

[PentheWonderful]

It was those little pleasures that everyone always seems to take for granted. Like for instance, not being targeted by a criminal organization after being released, or falling off a cliff abundant in perfectly, almost impossibly so, placed jagged rocks, or even, not landing on something that had to at least be... Well, a rock. Cassie realized this now, as she groaned in pain from something that had collided with her ribs. A nudge at her side. Something furry and warm. Right where a bruise was forming, no doubt. "Ow. I'm- okay, Nine." Her voice came, choked and out of breath.

'Yes? I am too?' Came the questioning, telepathic reply, harmonious with the sound of fur being shaken. From an entirely different direction. Cassie turned her head, and met topaz irises. Her stomach dropped, causing her to recoil away from the appearance of an Umbreon. Perhaps preparing for a blast of Shadow Ball. Or Dark Pulse. Or perhaps she'd simply grown too paranoid since the creature simply stood there, staring. Nine didn't seem alarmed either, and, he was the telepathic one, so technically he had the best judgement in character, right? The large fox simply padded over and sat by her side, staring back at the Umbreon with mild interest while everyone else seemed to be dropping like flies from the ledge. Now that she got a good look at him, he didn't seem injured at all, while she was probably well dressed by scratches and bruises. Lucky bastard, she thought. "I'm glad you are, pal."

'Mhm.' Came the sarcastic, knowing reply.

Cassie then rolled herself over, getting on her hands and knees to push herself off the ground. The strangely soft, loose ground that would've been so much more pleasant to land on. Indeed as her eyes roamed over the black, rich soil that any berry farmer would kill for, she found it stranger and stranger how for some odd reason, it had built up against the cliff side, almost as if someone had placed it there on purpose to cushion those who fell. As her brows knitted together, she slowly began to tune out the conversation exchanged by the men. Specifically, Curt's full circle reaction from glee of escaping Team Rocket, bashfully introducing himself to the odd stranger who'd simply appeared, almost out of nowhere, to his utter meltdown at being in another cave (she remembered she hated caves too), Gerald mistaking the Umbreon for a Luxray, and then hearing the stranger himself speak for the first time. About a knot.

Yet, she remained adamantly interested in the ground below. Perhaps it was her own way of distraction. Of avoiding reality. It would be a good idea to search for whatever she fell on. Just so she didn't seem so hopelessly out of place among the vibrant, spirited men surrounding her. And so her gloved hands shifted the soil, feeling for anything hard that she could pin the blame for her aching rib on.

Hot.

So hot.

Her neck was burning.

"Ngghh..." She felt the sting of her own eyelids when her eyes slide shut, her hand reached back to grasp her searing neck. The ache of her tired eyes as she squeezed them tightly. But at the same time, her free hand found what it was looking for. Something hard. Something strangely smooth. She peeked from behind her own eyelids to see what it was exactly, to find something white. Bone white and spherical. For a moment, her burning pain was forgotten, and she nudged Nine with her elbow, snapping him out of whatever thought he was in. "Help me dig."

'Why? What's this?' He wondered all the same, getting up to help Cassie dig for the odd object. His claws worked much more effectively than human fingers, unearthing more and more of the strange object. Eventually, it was dislodged. Just as thunder struck and rain poured outside.

"FUCK!"

Cassie was on her feet, she didn't know, or remember how, but she just was. Her forearm shielded her nose and mouth, and her eyes watered with disgust and nausea. Even Nine seemed rattled. His fur stood on end and his ears were pressed back while his nose cautiously sniffed the item staring at them eye to eye socket.

It was a human skull.

"I knew that soil was too good to be there." She mumbled under her breath, as her eyes wandered to the dirt stuck on her gloves. Her arms. Her hair. It wasn't dirt at all. As she said the next sentence, her voice lowered. Darkened. "A bed of dead men in Dead Man's Drop."

Indeed, as Nine proceeded to dig, more and more bones were unearthed. He was actually tempted to take one with him to chew on later, but he figured it'd be too much of a morbid irony. But in his mind, at least they'd found out how the Pokemon living there, especially Pokemon like Umbreon, were surviving.

If only they knew.

Scuffling could be heard from the cliff side above, as several Pokeballs were popped open. Familiar purple goo slid down the side of the cliff, smoothing over the otherwise deadly jagged rocks, forming a smooth, slick slope right down to the ground. Nine backed off, going over to Cassie's side defensively. It seemed Thomas was brighter than Curt or Que have him credit for. Using Muk as a slide down instead of Flying Pokemon.

"Well, this should be fun!" His light-hearted, voice echoed, filled with a twisted sense of glee. "Hey, you, you go first." There was no other confirmation, only the sound of a shove, and a fearful yell as a Rocket Grunt came sliding down the Muk trail like a projectile.

And that was enough to get Cassie over her initial shock.

Her feet turned, in sync with Nine's and they ran. They ran like hell. Forgot that they tread upon trails of human compost. Into the tunnels and archways that grew less natural and more... Man-made. The dirt disappeared, transitioning to rock tiles. And the walls and ceilings, transforming from stalagmites and uneven rock to pillars and high ceilings. The hall forked into three towering doors. That was when Cassie and Nine halted.

Within this hollow, abandoned structure, the thickness of silence and emptiness truly set in. Like a chill that entered penetrated to the very core of your being. A thickness in silence that almost seemed to swallow any sound like a vacuum.

And it occurred to Cassie that perhaps the deceased were all desperately trying to get away from it.

If only they knew, Thomas thought. He watched the descent of the grunt with a hint of boredom, the dowsing machine in his hand giving steady flashes as it tracked an object that moved away from where he was. "Hm." He thought, looking back to the massive group he had behind him. "No good. Runts, you can go back to HQ and file a report or something. Seniors, down the hatch." He coordinated, effectively cutting his team to half the original number.

One by one, the Rocket members filed in, sliding down while the junior members retreated. Thomas was the last to descend.

But as they all touched down, both Rocket and Trainers would fall to an abrupt slumber. No rhyme or reason, everyone collapsed. In mid-run, mid-speech, everything. Collapsing the Muk path that stretched down the cliff. For they'd disturbed the slumber of the ruling resident of the abandoned ruin. Drifting over the helpless, slumbering bodies with a look of distaste in its blue eyes.

Like a sentient shadow, it chanted a spell in hushed, indiscernible whispers, emitting darkness resembling indigo flames which absorbed into the heads of the trainers and Pokemon responsible for disturbing its peace, triggering nightmares horrific to each individual that experienced it.

Darkrai did not take kindly to disturbances. More so intervening creatures violating his territory. Darkness is how it can discern the natives and the foreign. And as the bodies were risen with a wave of its hand, as people and Pokemon alike moved to a direction of their own. The Trainers into the left door, and the Rockets to the middle door. Both leading to an inevitable death. It would reveal who had been intruding, and who belonged.

'Those with darkness in their hearts, will awake. But those with light, will perish. May Arceus welcome your soul, and treat you kindly in the next life.' It recited, in a telepathic hum unheard in the hollow, branching ruins abandoned long, long ago.

And then, it vanished.

 

[BurbleBurble]

Well, good news was, it wasn't a big ol' Luxray. It was only a Umbreon, as the words of Curt confirmed. "Oh, well that's...better." However Curt also seemed to despise caves. Other than the circumstance, there was nothing wrong with this cave. Other than being dark...however, something seemed to tip Cassie off into digging the fertile ground. He took this opportunity to ask about Curt's phobia of caves. He probably told him already, but then again, Curt was Curt, and Gerald doubted he would mind repeated himself. "Um, if you don't mind me asking, what's so bad about ca-"

"FUCK!"

Cassie seemed to be surprised at what she found planted in the dirt. Surprised was actually an understatement, more like "Utterly and completely digusted and terrified." Yeah...that was more like it. Whatever it was, Nine was digging for more. In morbid curiousity, Gerald slowly peered at the object...

A skull. Repulsing, the young man didn't know how to react. To be honest, no one expected the bones. Well, perhaps Gerald wasn't wrong about the Luxray...however, a Luxray would be the least of their problems, as whatever was able to kill one person, killed many, many more, as Nine dug up bone after bone. This wasn't a Luxray's doing, that was for sure. Luxray were messy...would've left mangled bones, and would've been deeper in. Much more scattered as well. There was entire skeletons here. Whatever killed these people weren't hunting for food or sport (He had heard blatantly fake, but still terrifying rumors that some Gardevoir and Gallade skinned humans to create Dresses and capes...) it was pure malintent. Scary thought.

But the sound of horrible slime sloughing down the rocky cliffside and Thomas's smart alec voice from above spooked him worse than the bones.

"Uh, might not want to come down here! Not a pretty sight!" Unsurprisingly, they ignored his call, and Thomas pushed a grunt into the expanse below. Cassie started running, which was probably the smart thing to do, unlike Gerald sitting back and reflecting on how he got into this mess...

Oh yes, running away from the bad people who will destroy everything one hold dear!

Snapping back to reality, he followed suit and ran. Not to the point he did in the forest above, but hopefully to outspeed his would be captors. He noticed that the once rocky cave had become a...temple? Church? Not-Cave. It was a not-cave, that was for sure. He slowed his pace to a slight jog to take in the sight. Last thing he expected in "Dead man's drop" was that it was semi-man made. Other than the dirt...

But suddenly, it all went black.
----
Gerald felt cold in the black space. It seemed unlimited, as if he was the only thing that mattered. But this changed quickly, with the appearance of a yellow...something. He couldn't discern it completely. The thing was a blot of color, a solid yellow to the man's eye.

And like that, it walked off, disregarding him completely.

How odd.

But, a new blot of color had appeared. A dark purple, quite tall. Features on this one were...a centipede esque appearance. Very looming and tall... Yes, it was clear now. This blot was a Scolipede. And Gerald had a sneaking suspicion he knew who it was. His own Scolipede, Million. He tried calling out to him. Tried, because he opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Moving his body was useless as well, almost as if a force was holding him in place.

Which happened to leave hin helpless to the events that transpired next.

It began with a rustling of non existant grass. The Megapede twitched, it's black irises darted around, sensing something...off. But it didn't see red eyes from the shadows behind it.

Gerald couldn't warn his Pokemon. He screamed and shouted internally, but no noise came out, except a drained squeak: which Million didn't even notice. The man watched on in terror, as the red eyes of the dark pounced on his own Pokemon.

A large pack of Houndour and a sole Houndoom, presumely the alpha. Ripping pieces of the gigantic millipede's exoskeleton, the plates of "armor" that weren't crushed in the hounds jaws were smashed upon contact with the dark expanses floor. The thin membrane seperating the exoskeleton's plates and his fragile innards was burnt off, clawed into, and a multitude of other greivious injuries caused it to ooze a digusting red-greenish blood. And the worse part was, Million could do very little to stop them. He shot off a megahorn. Miss. A toxic, followed by venom drench. Nope. The Houndoom shot a jet of fire in one of his eyes, darkening it a murky grey from the original saffron color.

Gerald choked on tears, literally, because he couldn't physically release them. The pack dragged away the remains of the monstrous millipede, leaving behind a lot of the meat. What a waste.

But one thing slinked from the shadows in the absence of the pack of vicious dogs. It was the blot, only this time, it had shades of white and black mixed with the yellow from before. It gave Gerald a sense of familarity... Odd. The blur was above the Scolipede now, before routing through an open wound for...something.

The unidentified...thing, pulled out a organ, perhaps a lung or the stomach (Gerald never learned Pokemon anatomy, for better or worse, and was going off appearance), and then bit into it.

A shade of vicious red was added to it's pallet.

 

[Curtkid]

The nine tailed fox walked through the forest, taking in every leaf, every blade of grass, it was so different from the surroundings from mere moments ago. Things happened so fast, but that seemed to be the norm now-a-day's, she saw from within her Pokeball how that Admin, Thomas she believes, sent his grunts down on Muk slime. An admittedly clever idea, which is why Curt called her out to coat the bottom of the decent into Dead Mans drop with fire, making it all that harder for Thomas to send his forces down into their area. Curt seemed like a bit of a moron sometimes, O.K, more then sometimes, but he could come up with a clever idea every now and again when the situation called for it.

Thinks didn't start going down hill till Cassie found that skull, that was when she and Nine began to sense it, something that could only be described as some sort of ...incredibly powerful ancient spirit. Flare tried to advise the rest of the group to get moving and forget about the Rockets for the time being, but by the time the rest of them got moving, it was already too late. One by one, they fell to the ancient spirits powerful spell, sending them each into the deepest recesses of their own consciousness, which is exactly where Flare was now. But this wasn't just any regular location, any normal memory the spirit had sent her to, this was a special forest, her forest. Not to long ago she watched over this land, she had many good memories about this place, her home, however, there was a taint with those happy memories, a dark realization that came to her foolish mind after almost two centuries of sin, all of which were being laid bare before her right now.

It all started way back when, centuries ago, when she was but a Vulpix, back with her very first trainer, Daliem his name was. She had alway's been wary of humans, but that man somehow managed to touch a soft spot with her, though that might have been because he took her in and patched her up after she was almost drowned in that flood, so long ago. Though the man was of noble birth, he didn't carry himself as such, he was always very down to earth, warm and caring to all people and Pokemon. It was no mystery to her that his kindness opened her heart humans, she even ended up becoming close friends with the other Pokemon he called his companions. The first one she bonded with was a Squirtle named "Tide", a Growlithe called "Enbremel" who was also Daliem's oldest friend, a Gloom dubbed "Fragrencia", and finally, a hyperactive little Sperow he called "Andreas". Her day's with them were some of the happiest of her life, and for a while, everything was good, then came the trip to Celedon. Way back then, Celedon was a new, small town started up by a few lumber workers, but Daliem believe the city had potential to grow into something remarkable, and wanted to see it for himself. She never held him at fault for what happened next, the short cut through the forest was said to be perfectly safe, if not un-manned, which is why they all knew something was wrong when they were suddenly stopped half-way through. She remembered hearing their coach driver talking with someone, and Daliem deciding to step out to see what the source of the hold up was, meanwhile the Ninetales eyes grew wide as she tried to steel herself in preparation of what was coming next.

The next thing they heard was the drawing of weapons and the clash of steel, that went on for a short time before a loud rustle came from the bushes accompanying with it the snarl of beasts, and finally the death cries of men. For a second, they all were quiet, some of them hoped they'd go away, some of them wanted to go check on Daliem, it was almost funny, his fate should have been obvious, but at the time a small part of her believe he still might be O.K. The silence was broken by the twisting of a knob and the opening of a door, and there stood three brigands, there leathers covered in fresh blood, and at their sides their Pokemon, covered in just as much blood as them. Now that she reflected on it, during that moment one would assume all that would have been on her mind was fear of what the bandits would do to her, but from some reason, all she could focus on was their Pokemon, and how utterly terrified they looked, like they had just been forced to do something they really didn't want to do, something that would haunt them till their dying day.

For a moment, there was total quiet, no one moved, until Enbremel lunged for the closest ones throat, and after that it all went to hell. It went all blurry after that, all she could remember was someone leading her through a lower hatch in the carriage to the outside and telling her to run. Her mind completely blank of all other thoughts, she did as she was commanding, sprinting through the forest with only thing she could hear was their cries as those bastards ravaged her friends, leaving no opposition for them to ransack their carriage for valuables. There she thought, at least as that moment she was safe, but the bandits apparently weren't satisfied with that, she watched as the creatures that destroyed her life and the life of her friends gave chase after her, even in through the clarity of the vision she couldn't quite make out what they were yelling, perhaps they thought they could sell her to some over-pompous noble if they caught her, maybe they wanted to sell her coat as some lavish piece of clothing, or maybe they just didn't want any loose ends. Even to this day she wasn't sure why the abandoned the cart and went after her, all she knew is that coming after her was the last mistake they made.

Flare watched the scene play out before, but was a tad bit surprised to see the sequence end their, though up on thinking on it, if whatever was doing this to her wanted to make her feel guilty, it would not do so by having her relive the conclusion of her encounter with the bandits, she felt no remorse in the part she played in their fates. She did, however, feel guilt from taking the escape offered to her instead of staying along side her friends and helping them avenge their trainer, their friend. She felt guilt about how she let the actions of those...creatures, freeze the warmth Daliem had given her and fade the kindness that her first trainer had shown her, that she allowed herself to grow such hatred for humankind. Ever since that day she made that forest her new home, and made it her personal duty to drive out any human or Pokemon that accompanied them out of her domain. It wasn't long before the other Pokemon, naive as they were, saw her as a guardian of sorts, someone who would protect their home against anything that could threaten him, and like a proud fool she accepted their praises and wore her title "The Protector" with pride.

The title those outside her forest gave her "Demon of the Forest" was in all honesty just as fitting, maybe even more so. Granted, she wasn't completely heartless, her first actions against...unwelcomed outsiders was to try and scare them off with the ancient powers the lie in all Ninetales, most often ran away screaming after that, but the rare soul that persisted, well, whatever had locked her in this vision was doing a good job of reminding her of what she did to those who went in too deep. All around her she saw dozens of familiar faces, mostly humans but their were a few Pokemon among them, on the ground begging for mercy, only to have their please ignored and their lives ended in moments, if they were lucky. She had tried to rationalize it by telling herself that the only ones she struck down were bandits, poachers, and the like, but she couldn't stuff away the thoughts that some who she had dispensed of were...less then completely guilty. Some she would simply run through with a sharpened piece of wood driven by her psychic powers, those souls often went the quickest, a quick spurt of blood, followed by a sick gurgle and that was that . The more resilient ones had her relying on more, brutal methods, strangulation with her Extrasensory attack, being consumed by her Dark Pulse, but the worst ones were those she burnt to death.

From what she read, being burnt alive is perhaps the worst way to die, and if the screams of those she saw doused in flames could be counted as evidence to back that statement up, then what she read was true. As much as she hated humans at the time, even she was hesitant to being an end to their lives in that manner, she could see her ending anyone's life that way. It always stuck out in her mind, the final moments of those who died by fire, how wild their scream were, how they flailed wildly as their skin crackled a peeled of their bones, how their eye's seemed to boil and melt right in their sockets. Even now it chilled her to the bone to remember it, and it was this experience that the vision decided to play all around her.

It echoed all through the forest, the screams of those she killed so long ago, now brought back to her consciousness only to have their deaths displayed before her. Everywhere she looked she saw people and the Pokemon that she couldn't dissuade from fleeing being ignited in flames, reaching out to her, screaming for mercy, for an end. Flare stood completely still, a cold sweat running down her fur as she watched the horror play out in front of her, almost two-hundred years of sin, all being laid out for her to see. She kept still for a moment, never taking her eyes of the twisting, screaming figures, their bodies getting more charred, more twisted, with each passing second, to the point one would almost wonder why they hadn't passed on yet. Then finally, the vision shifted once more, but this time, the scene playing before her seemed to directly involve her, and also unlike the previous vision, this vision was indeed based on as memory, a very recent on in fact, but it seemed to have taken a very different, very dark, turn from what had happened.

She stood in a clearing of her forest, the sounds of crunching and mashing met her ears while all around her lie broken and mangled Pokemon, all of them disturbingly familiar. An Eevee lie torn to shreds right in front of her, his body a mess of fur and blood, near by sat the slumped over remains of a Cubone, her head smash in so much one couldn't even tell what she looked like, and not for far from her was a Totodile, his terrified eyes looking straight up into the night sky, his jaw slack and his throat ripped out. To her left on a log was what looked to be a Dragonair, or half of one at least, whatever had attacked him had apparently ripped his body in to, towards the center of the clearing lie a Charmander face down in a pool of blood, it was hard to see what killed him, but from what she could see, it looked like his entrails had been ripped out. Finally, next to the Charmander stood the source of that macabre laugh, a large, imposing Houndoom which appeared standing over the corpse of what appeared to be a human, but it was hard to tell who he was, his body was so burned, still, Flare knew exactly who the poor creature was, and she knew who that Houndoom was.

She had agreed to take him and his clan in, but he ended up betraying her and trying to take dominion of the forest for himself so he could burn it down and make it more suitable for Fire Pokemon, if it wasn't for her new friends arrival, so many of those she swore to protect would have been slaughtered in the hypothetical takeover. It was at that moment where the full impact of what she had become hit her, that she had become no better then lose bandits that killed her friends all those years ago, that evil was not limited to a single species, and a Pokemon could be just as vile and greedy as a human. It was why she refused to remain in the forest anymore, and how she almost lost herself to despair, until they offered her a place with them The Ninetales only had a moment to take all this in before the massive hound turned to her, his wicked grin dripping with blood. Slowly, step by step he approached the unmoving Ninetales, with each passing moment he looked less like a Houndoom and more like a great shadow in the shape of a massive dog, the nightmare was almost on her, looking at her the way a judge looks at an executioner.

"Ugh, y-you, I-I what is the meaning of this?", Flare said, trying to sound as calm as she could, just because she knew she was in a vision did not make her any less frightened, nor these experiences an less painful, " morbid as it is, what are you trying to achieve by showing all my friends slaughtered by that Houndooms hands? Do you intend to break me with this?

The great Shadowy Hound only smiled as it turned its head again to where the charred body remained, only this time, there was a figure standing over it. Flare only had to contemplate the creatures word for a moment before the realization abruptly hit her, her eye's grew wide in terror and realization as it all played out before her like some dark movie. Visions of her being the one to tear up Raviel, to bash in Jaspers head, the rip Lockjaws throat out, to ravage Embertail intro a bloody mess, and to char Curt into a horrific mess. It was a terrifying thought, one she found herself coping with often when she first joined the Team, and now it had come back to her in full force.

The thought that, if it wasn't for the Houndoom and his clans betray, she might have slaughtered Curt, Embertail, all of them like the rest. She felt her legs being to quake as she the shadowy hound loomed over her, smiling as that dark realization came over here.

"No.....", murmured, the shadow seemed taken aback, by her word, but never dropping its smile.

"No, I don' t deny that there was a point in time when I wouldn't have done this", Flare said taking another look over the carnage, " what I don't believe is that I could have done this". Flare turned her face and glared long and deep into what could best be called its "eyes", causing the creature to actually step back a bit.

"I remember what I saw, how they worked together, how they pushed each other forward...How Embertail's optimism never let them fall into despair, how Whips strength motivated them to move forward, how Lockjaw's awareness and focus of the situation in spite of his fear helped keep them grounded, how Jasper's determination reminded them of their own capability, how Raviel's defiance of a foe that seemed greater then them encouraged them to keep fighting, how Curt put his own safety on the line alongside the rest of his team, reminding them that they were all equals, all partners, all friends, I could never hope to stand against something like that alone, that is how a know something like this is just a mediocre attempt to break my spirit!", Flare said, never raising her voice, but still her words seemed to echo all through out the forest. While she spoke, the twisted and mangled bodies of her friends seemed to fade away into nothing, the forest around her seemed to melt into nothing, leaving only her and the shadow with the electric blue eye's.

"I know my sins monster, and I've relive them a hundred times in my head each day, they will not give you any power over me....", Flare responded, her voice was calm but her tone fierce, staring at the creature as it faded away.

The shadow said nothing as it glared at it, its presence slowly fading away into nothing, however, she swore she could almost hear a chuckle echoing around the nothingness. She let out a sigh as she felt herself coming into consciousness, despite her powerful words, the experience of her vision had taken a sever emotional toll on her, and if...whatever that was had been able to do this to her, she could only begin to fathom what they were doing to the others.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"F-F-Flare, i-I'm s-so sorry, I-I, how did this happen?", Curt said for the who knows how many time. The trainer lay on his knees, slumped over the broken Ninetales before him, there were deep gashes all along her body, the large one across her torso that allowed her intestines to spewing out of her, each one of her tails were ripped of and laid scattered all around them. The only undamaged part of her body was her face, but somehow that made the sight all the more grim, he eye's were wide and bulging, looking up into the darkness about. He didn't know how this happened, he had called Flare out to coat the bottom of the muk slide Thomas made with fire to slow the Rockets advance, and the next thing he knew Cassie was telling them to run, things started spinning for a second, he fell, picked himself up, then everyone was gone, and then he heard screaming, and then....Curt felt tears beginning to run down his face, Flare may have been the newest addition to their team, but she had become such a close part of their lives. He didn't know how they were going to find the strength to move on from this.

"Are you surprised this happened to me?", a feminine voice rang out. Curt immediately picked his head up and looked around, he couldn't see anyone else, but from what it sounded like, the voice was.

"You said it yourself, things would probably be better if I was in charge", the voice said. Curt hurriedly stumbled to his feet, looking in utter disbelief at Flares face, it didn't seem to have moved, but....

"You knew this was how it was going to end"

"N-n-no..."

"You knew you'd freeze up and make a mistake on day"

"S-Stop, p-please b-be quiet, I-I didn't t-think, I d-didn't want...."

"It was inevitable"

"P-P-PLEASE SHUT UP!", Curt roared, covering his ears, clenching his eye as he ran down the caverns, he ran and he ran until finally he wore himself out. He bent over, grasping his knees, breathing hard as sweat poured down his face ("just sweat", he tried to tell himself) He tried not to think about what had happened, it had to be a trick, Flare couldn't be.....

Just then another cry and and crackle of electricity was heard further down the cave, allowing Curt, to his great relief, to turn his attention and thoughts elsewhere. At first, Curt was hesitant to head further down in the cavern, all he wanted to do was curl up and rest of a while, but another crackle of lightning and a familiar cry practically forced Curt to deny that desire.

"R-Raviel?", Curt stuttered out as he began heading further down the cave, dreading what he'd find just as much as hope.

 

[Storybook]

Well.

Well.

The boy couldn't decide quite how to react to the situation. It was... queer, unlike any he had had before. Human bones. What an oddity.

He wasn't exactly afraid nor surprised. In fact, the boy despised both emotions to the point where he forcefully decided that they shall not exist. The problem was that they were pure- pure and cold and brutal. Fear and surprise... it was an ugly combination. One an omen of change, the other a signal of despair and dread, a terror that can neither be controlled nor recognized.

They were the ultimate mysteries, fear and surprise, the boy considered as he reached to resettle his glasses. Ones without an answer, for the boy refused to search for one despite the anguish of another stone unturned... and- wait a moment, the lenses on his glasses were shattered, their surface broken and crude. How queer. He hadn't even noticed.

As it was, Que didn't think much of the oddities the cave held. Simple mysteries, really. It was just death that brought them here, and nothing more than that. Que was not afraid of death- he simply slouched through life and that was that. But then- when they died, did they die alone?

No. No.
No.

The boy kept on walking, his feet coaxed on by the earth. What else was there to do? He was surrounded by enemies and he was surrounded by words and the boy might as well keep walking. At the very least, Que had Dedenne and Que had Growlithe and the world was noise for him to decipher, a code to be unraveled as he pleased.

Yes, that would be just fine. All the boy needed was a puzzle, and what was this cave, and what was this group but one big puzzle? Que just needed to keep walking.

The boy shuddered, afraid he might collapse for one queer moment, afraid that he had but was unsure why. He lifted his left hand to resettle his glasses, tracing once the smooth, perfect surface of the unblemished lenses. Still, Que kept walking.

He was walking through darkness, into darkness, from darkness. It seemed to swallow him, score his feet with its thorny teeth, spit in his face in a defiant rage. It seemed to laugh at him, cackle in his ear with a soft, serpentine hiss, stroking the boy with long, pointed fingernails. Que listened for the heartbeat of his Dedenne, smooth in sleep upon his shoulder, and reminded himself to be calm. It whistled softly in the air, a comforting sound, as precious as a silver mist, dispersing into the air, the darkness shrouding it with fangs of sarcastic solemnity, as if it were smoke speared out of existence by the wind-

No.

Que reached up his hand to his shoulder and the fingers, shriveled, pale, wiry ghosts, shook visibly, weakly reflecting the last shreds of light within the cave into a sick, wane, shimmer. He felt empty space. There was no fur, no pulse beside his own.

The boy's heartbeat began to shred his throat.

There were others in the cave with him, there were others. There was Curt and there was Gerald and there was even Thomas. And his Pokemon- they, too, resided in the jaws of silence with him... right? He just... he just had to find them. He just... they had to be... maybe if he...

Calm. He had to stay calm. The boy would just call for them, that was all. He even knew all their names. This was simple, really.

"Growlithe? Curt? Cass-"

The boy's voice stopped dead- no, it choked him, and he found himself on the ground clutching his chest, palms flat against his own ears. They didn't exist- Que didn't know how he knew but he knew in all certainty that they didn't exist. It was the only answer- he didn't even need to check his belt for confirmation. They didn't exist... and they never had existed at all.

Que was the only one in that world.

No one else.

Que and Nothing and Darkness.

For a moment, the boy forgot the pain of his own voice and called again, his monotone evaporated in a dry plea.

"Hello?"

And it hurt. The boy, kneeling on the ground, collapsed into himself, vainly trapping his ears as he buried his head between his legs. The words hurt. The noise hurt. It was as if the boy was silence itself and his own words were slicing him to pieces. He listened to the noise and it corroded his ear drums and he listened to the noise and it seeped into his head like poison, ugly and crude in a desire for torture, slowly peeling his ears out of his head, infecting his cheeks with lava that boiled with snarky maleficence, rusting his skin until he was but a broken piece of machinery. His toes, free from reign of shoes and socks, poked the earth and the sound vibrated within the cave and bashed the boy in with bruises and he had to move to know he was alive but moving was torture because moving made sound and the sound echoed and cried and pierced his brain in mocking laughter of his own silly little, futile existence.

And Que was alone.

And the sound echoed in his ears like his own last breath and Que was alone, and the noise cackled through the cave in mocking laughter and Que was alone, and the noise was him and silence was him and the noise stripped the silence to pieces and the noise shredded his being and there was no noise but for his own and every single little outcry was his alone and the silence was his captor and the noise was Que and there was nothing but Que and Que was nothing and the silence was Que and the silence was nothing and Que was alone.

He breathed, breathe smoke for the air to demolish.

And Que was afraid of death.

And Que was afraid of being alive.

And Que was alone.

 

[PentheWonderful]

"...Did my Pokemon ever love me?"

Echoing. Eerily familiar. That forceful, burning passion behind such a clear, innocently stupid voice. Only one creature in all of creation sounded like that. Only kids sounded like that. Absurdly passionate, determined creatures running voluntarily to a ledge's drop. Willingly seeking out and challenging death and distracting themselves with hallucinations they call dreams. Kids are dumb, no matter how high their IQs are.

"Or were they just scared of me? Did I make them suffer the way my mother made me? Was it done sort of... Twisted revenge? Have I... become her?"

Wandering, searching lazily through a dark, empty space. A void. Only then did Cassie realize she'd been looking up, when she should've looked down. She should've been looking down from the very start, she supposed. Watching her feet instead of having her head stuck in the clouds like the delusional person she was. Much like the little girl who stood before her. A little girl with wild brown hair and burning steel colored eyes. A snot nosed little kid who had no idea what the world had in store for her.

And she realized that was her. She was ten years old again.

Ah, yes it was that facade of pride and confidence that pulled the girl's strings to puff out her chest in indignance. Making her hold her head up high and face down every single person who dared glance her way. Cracking down the whip on her young, just as naive Pokemon. Helpless, confused creatures she'd spirited away from their homes, broken to pieces, and built up again. She remembered their eyes, suddenly staring her from behind the reflection's back. The look of fear, scorn, sadness, confusion, all seeking her approval.

Arceus, she'd become her mother, and she turned her Pokemon into her.

"Yes. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. But they're free now, but I'm not. Maybe they're not either." She felt silly, all of a sudden. Giddy, and horrid at the same time. "Maybe I've woven us all into one big ball of suffering. And there's no escape from it. But I really did love them, I swear I did... I swear I do."

Cassie couldn't understand why the more indignant her younger self became, the wider her smile grew. Her attention redirected, as the eyes gazed away. No, it wasn't the childish charm of immaturity that amused her. It was the pain, the hopelessly hopeful, lost, naive insecurity that festered in her reflection's eyes, her eyes, that took the cherry.

And it brought her a sick satisfaction knowing all the pain and torture this horrid, horrid brat would go through in the future.

However slowly, ever so slowly did this mirror's expression change. Twisted with fear at something unforseen by her own self. Or perhaps confused? That this odd, unusual girl was unfazed. The reflection turned, and ran, leaving her to the company of the void and the unknown horror.

Crackle.

Pop.

Whirr...

Heinous, blood curdling, horrifying heat grazed her back. Cassie turned around, and was greeted by a blast of fire. Her mouth opened, yet there was no sound to be heard. Her hands raised upwards, yet no defense could block the smoldering heat that seared her skin with vigor. She remembered this sensation. She remembered the smells. The scent of burning skin, the uncontrollable trembling, devouring her whole. She was falling, a fireball in the vast darkness, falling fast and hard onto an invisible ground where the flames diminished.

Smoke, stiffness, and unbelievers stinging. Cassie could barely move her eyes to see the charred, deformed, and raw remainder that were her arms. She'd lost all her hair, Cassie was sure of that. And she was also sure that she was as heinous on the outside, as she was on the inside. Laying stiff and bleeding on her stomach, she watched camera flashes burst before her eyes, followed with the familiar sound of a shutter click. People- no, shadows. Phantoms. Silhouettes. Crowded around pointing fingers and murmuring words of disgust, humiliation, and degradation. Pointing, pointing fingers. Laughter. Scornful gazes and rude gestures.

But Cassie only laughed. Louder, more rude than anyone in the phantom crowd. It tickled her pink, sending tears down her eyes in a twisted combination of anguish, and anger. Their voices are drowned by her own, uncontrollable laughter, jerking every single strand of her being and sending them into shockwaves of pain. And yet, that made her laugh all the more loudly.

Click.

Clack.

Click, clack, click.

As steadily as waves retreating from a coastline, all humor was lost. Her laughter was lost, and all that remained was air wringing tightness in her lungs. Cassie couldn't breathe. Slowly, a silhouette appeared, somehow distinct in the lonely void. A familiar, petite silhouette armed with stiletto heels threatening to stab into her vulnerable, raw body. She knew those heels. She knew that silhouette, knew it anywhere. And she always will, as an image burned into her mind.

"Cassandra..."

She could feel her body shaking as the phantom filled itself with color and depth. A woman, dressed as sharp as a business shark with eyes the color of the coldest ice, shaded only by the impossibly straight cut of midnight colored bangs combed neatly over her forehead. Her taste was impeccable, her movements precise. She was everything Cassie knew she would never be. Yet her beautifully sculpted face was twisted into one of horror, utter betrayal, and disappointment. And it still tears into Cassie's heart to see it on her face.

"What have you done?" Her voice like daggers attacking Cassie without mercy. She swallowed to wet her throat, but it was in vain.

"M- mother-"

"CASSIE WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

The sheer volume was unbearable. Cassie could feel her ears ringing in distraught. On the nonexistent ground, possibly full of third degree burns as her mother, her idol, looked on with every negative emotion possible. That was her ultimate torture, she recalled. Yes, she recalled it hurt more than any physical pain could. It was, in fact, one of the strongest reasons she has yet to dare herself to sleep. That look, and ah...

"You really are a fraud. If you really collected those badges yourself, you should've been able to beat me in battle! Cassandra, what the hell have you been doing with your time?! For all those years?!"

"I-"

"Shut up! I'm not done with you, you liar! You're a disgrace! How... How could you do this to me?! After everything I've sacrificed for you! Cassandra, don't you love me?! Did you ever think about me?! How I would feel?!"

A kick, igniting a fury of pain waves throughout her body as Cassie flopped helplessly onto a ground further away. She couldn't breathe, she literally couldn't breathe. And yet, something clicked in her head. Tears stung the horridly charred skin of her face, and yet, laughter had somehow found its way back to her. "How... Creative... This is all a metaphor, isn't it? Literally kicking me when I'm down... And vulnerable... Haha... Ha... I like that, it's... It's funny..."

She could feel the freeze in the atmosphere. A sudden pause. Shock, perhaps? Yeah, she'd been shocking herself a lot too.

"I bet you want my trainer card too, right? And my badge case? So you can tear it up and then throw it away like last time, mom?" Power. Cassie felt herself gaining power. Her joints had unlocked and she could move again. She could breathe again. "After you beat my Pokemon senseless for all my mistakes? And I couldn't do a damn thing about it because I was so goddamn exhausted I couldn't even talk? Ha... Hahaha, I like this, this is funny."

Cassie found she could stand again, facing her mother who looked oddly perplexed. And the void. All that empty space. What was it? A representation of her father's complete and utter absence in her life? Probably so.

"I'm sorry mom." A step closer, as the shadow, the delusion, stepped backwards. "But if you couldn't see how much I loved you, if you couldn't appreciate what I've sacrificed for your approval, then I guess I never belonged in this family anyway." Another step forward. Two. "I'm sorry I was a failed investment. I'm sorry you had to waste your time raising me. And I'm sorry that I hate you."

A flash of a memory, a little girl, it was her, showing her mother test results for an exam she never wanted to take, proudly. "Just an eighty? I thought you said you studied for this test! Get a ninety next time and stop wasting your time."

Her darkness grew.

"A badge? How long did it take you to get it?"

And grew.

"You... Beat the champion? I didn't read that in the news, wait what? You turned down the title?! What kind of fucking idiot are you?!"

And festered.

"You're throwing your life away, Cassandra. You should've taken that title. If I were you, I'd be up every night wondering what would have been if I'd taken the title."

And erupted.

"I hate you for turning my life into yours and I hate you because you're so damn narcissistic, and I hate you because you didn't even notice my condition that day you challenged me, and I hate that I'm just a tool for you to redeem your failures!" Cassie was shrieking, filled to the brim with anger, despair, hatred, and pain. "I hate it so much that I understand that pleasure... Of using someone for your own bidding... That safety in keeping your distance..."

A tremor. The sound of shattering glass. Cassie could see it, the crack on her mother's face. Sliding off of each other, revealing nothing but a blob of smoke behind it.

"I hate you, because you did it. You've turned me into a monster like you, and I've turned my Pokemon into victims like me. Is that what you wanted? No, no that's not right. I'm not like you. I'm a monster unlike you, and I'll prove that you failed! I'm still me, and I'm still here! And I'll always be here, and I'm not scared of you anymore. I'm stronger than you." She could feel her hands, deformed and charred, shaking with fury as they reached up to clasp the neck of the shattering woman, cutting her with shards sharp as glass. "We're both monsters, mom. But at least I'll have the satisfaction of knowing I didn't turn into a monster like you."

CRACK!

The imposter was frozen, in a pause that seemed almost eternal. Slowly, ever so slowly she imploded, shrinking inwards like a raisin, and then, exploded.

A flash of white, devouring the void where she'd come to feel at home. Throwing her, sending her back.

Gray eyes snapped open. All of a sudden, her knees were weak and she could no longer stand. Down she sank, gravity heavy on her now rested body. If not just a little. Blurry, so blurry. Cassie reached up and wiped the odd substance off her slightly less tired eyes. She looked at her glove.

Wet.

"Gross." She mumbled, turning to scan her surroundings a bit better. They were in a corridor, it seemed. A very man-made, stone carved corridor. Unlit torches lined the walls, left and right, held by carved stone gauntlets worn down by fire and coated in soot. It was inexplicably dark, yet, her eyes had adjusted enough to be able to see. That, and the two Ninetales helped illuminate the way better. "Where are we going?" She asked, but there was no response. Not even from Nine. She probably shouldn't be as offended as she was, but Cassie couldn't help herself. She was feeling very, very vulnerable.

"Nine, where are we going?" She repeated, crawling up on all fours beside her Ninetales. Oh. He's asleep? "Nine?" She prodded his face carefully, only to have the fox whine and whimper, his brows knitting together as if in pain. Cassie blinked slowly, and looked back to the others. Were they asleep too? "Boys?"

Eventually she got to her feet, checking the person closest to her location. Que. The strange boy that appeared out of nowhere and became involuntarily involved in their current predicament. Did he always have those glasses? Heck, one of the lenses were broken, so he probably did. Reaching upwards, she moved the seeing tool to the top of his head, needing to stand on her toes to do that. Just to check if his eyes were open.

Of course they weren't.

But geez was this boy a dead ringer for her dad.

"...Sorry." She whispered quietly, mostly to herself, as if to validate her action of replacing the broken glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. Instead, her eyes refocus on the destination ahead. There was none. Just an extremely sheer drop off a crumbled stone bridge. Cassie didn't bother to look what lay below, hut she did know one thing; if it was dangerous enough to have a bridge built over it, falling into it probably would not allow a very large chance of survival.

"You're all going to die." Was her only comment, before pulling out Nine's pokeball to return him into the safety of, just until she could figure out what to do. There, she caught herself staring curiously at the torches, probably half wondering how much the gauntlets would be worth if sold to the right collector, until a sudden sigh caught her attention. Flare swayed slightly in her stride, and Cassie instinctively ran over to catch her before she tipped over. "Steady, girl."

Now, she was rather curious. Why were Flare and her waking up? Would the others follow suit? No, from the looks of it, that wasn't happening any time soon. What was it? Something about darkness in their hearts? Where did she hear that from? Flare had to at least be as messed up as she was to have woken up. That meant, she would probably listen to her ideas, given the right reasoning. "Can you stand? I need you to knock everyone down and keep them down."

And elsewhere, in another corridor twisting and winding away from the trainers' own, the Team Rocket members awoke.

 

[EspeonTheBest]

Laverre city. Nothing important about that town in particular, excluding the world known Pokeball Factory that lay at the northernmost part of the town and Valerie, the first Fairy Type gym leader. Other than that, it was a dreary, rainy, depressing place, as the swampy marshes and spooky route 15 aren't ideal for travelers; ultimately causing the residents of the town to be fairly secluded from the outside world. In the fall, when the rainy season is over, maybe the ever-orange leaves sift light through their crisp edges, maybe then Laverre, the home to fairies, is an ideal place to visit. Although, still, who would want to go knee deep in mud to visit such an otherwise ordinary place?

Like most days, the rain was falling heavily on Laverre city, and both routes surrounding it. Dreary, yes. Depressing? Most definitely. Most of the Laverre City residents were inside enjoying a warm cup of coffee or tea, chatting with the soaking neighbors who rushed to their door to get out of the rain. However, there were a few rain loving Pokemon with their trainers hopping around gleefully in a joyful bliss that one member of city would never imagine to feel again.

"Bailey! I found you!" A young child, maybe the age of seven or eight dashed up to a slender figure huddled beneath a long, black raincoat that brushed the wearer's ankles. The young child faced the woman excitedly- bright eyes bursting in happiness and victory. He twisted around and cupped his pruned hands around his mouth as he shouted, "First! I win! I found Bailey!" and then he turned back to the woman. "Bailey, Bailey! Listen!" He cried happily, jumping up and down in his excitement. The woman, Bailey, gently smiled and looked down at the boy. "Thomas, honey, I'm listening. What's got you so excited? Also, where are your sisters?" She matched his excitement as she simultaneously looked around for two more blonde bobbing heads nearby. The boy gave a toothy grin, showing off a missing tooth. "Mama said that we can ask you if you'd catch a Pokemon for us! She said that you're so good that you can catch a horde of Pokemon all at the same time! Samantha and Trinity are super excited too, and we decided to race to see who could find you first!" Thomas bounced excitedly and waved at two other young children nearby. They too, rushed over, however they held an excited silence to hear what Bailey was going to say.

"Now, Thomas, every trainer knows that it's impossible to aim correctly at a Pokemon in a horde. I can't do it, and neither can any other trainer at my skill level. Although, sweetheart, there are millions of trainers out there better then me. So maybe it is possible. Anyways, Samantha, Trinity, Thomas," Bailey looked from the young, blonde girl with two pigtails sprouting from the sides of her head and spread he gaze across to the the young boy wearing a bright blue hoodie. "Go tell your Mom to buy you guys some pokeballs and then come to me. It'll be a quest! Task one is to get some pokeballs, task two is to find me again, and task three is to receive your Pokemon!"

The triplets perked up in a mixture of anticipation and excitement, and so they quickly dashed back to their house talking quickly to one another, probably voicing their utmost excitement. Bailey sighed as she watched them run off, but not in annoyance or in a sentimental way. Her tone was absolutely dripping in sadness. Slowly she picked her spirits up and managed to convince herself that it was right to help the kids and that she should probably get a few more Pokemon to help her with the job. With the light bounce to her step absent, Bailey trudged through the rain and, suddenly, very wearily made her way to the PC. The happy bleep sound of the machine booting up didn't make any differences to Bailey's mood as she hovered her hands over the screen, choosing which Pokemon to receive. In her party was three Pokemon. She stopped over the icon of a Meowstic, the only image inhabiting the box. She added it to her party, and then the machine spat out the Pokeball.

It was irritating having only four Pokemon on her side; She was used to all six after all. Aster and Lavender, Porygon- Z and Meinshao, both left to train with someone else. Bailey had met a Kalos native with bright blonde hair, the eldest to the family of Samantha, Thomas, and Trinity. Quite peculiar that girl was, always afraid of the Pokeball factory and seemed to hate speaking in English. She did have a Noivern though, instantly earning Bailey's respect. Noivern are such a challenge to train and tame, so getting one to listen would be extremely hard. Aster and Lavender both fell in love with that girl's father, as he trained in Kanto as a Dojo master. Well, Lavender really wanted to join, and Bailey was pretty sure that Aster had a crush on the Meinshao. So, she let them follow their dreams. It was especially hard letting go of Lavender, as she was the third ever Pokemon on Bailey's team. The last spot.... The third Pokemon who left.... Bailey nearly began to cry. It's hard enough watching your Pokemon leave you to chase their dreams, but it's even harder when the last piece of a loved one is gone as well.

Buried in the ground.

Gone, gone, gone. That single word echoed in her mind, causing a single tear that had been welling up in her eyes to fall. Suddenly the pattering if squeaky shoes raced to her ears, making Bailey turn around swiftly and putting a large smile on her face. Just like she had expected, the triplets were there, each holding a shiny, red and white Pokeball in their young, cupped hands. Trinity's face fell when she saw the glistening if a tear on Bailey's cheek. "Ms. Bailey, why are you crying?" She asked, making her siblings too notice the wet drop. "Crying? Oh Trinity, I'm not crying. There was something in my eye. Pollen these days." Bailey responded, smiling as she removed the pokeballs from each child's hands. "Thank you! I'll go catch your Pokemon then!" Glancing at the pokeballs, she noticed that in scribbled illegible handwriting was the name of each child on their respective Pokeball. As she walked out, she wondered if she was ever that young.

It took quite a bit of time and it was well into the afternoon by the time she finally caught a Pokemon for each child. A Goomy for Thomas, a Poliwag for Trinity, and a Murkrow for Samantha. She walked back into Laverre City from Route 15, where she had caught the Murkrow and Poliwag, and as she expected, all three kids were waiting at the gate. "You guys are too darned excited, geez!" Bailey teased as she extended her hands out to allow the kids to take their Pokeball. A massive Serperior loomed behind the trainer, eventually extending her pointed snout from over Bailey's shoulder and resting her head. "Ack! Cosmo your so heavy!" Bailey joked, pretending to buckle beneath the light weight of the Serperior's head. The kids laughed at the huge grass snake and then waved goodbye to Bailey, running off to see their new best friend.

"So, investigation?" She asked Cosmo, her happy act wiped clean off her face. The Serperior nodded pressed the button of a Pokeball around Bailey's waist. In a flash of red, a Male Meowstic appeared, swiftly climbing onto his trainer's shoulder. He was quite a bit smaller than a normal Meowstic, and happened to be the perfect size to sit comfortably on Bailey's shoulder. She had protested many times that his perch reminded her too much of that Pokemon, but despite that, the Meowstic persisted on, and eventually won the spot on her right shoulder. "Sage did you hear? We kind of need your help." Bailey said, keeping her voice low.

While out on route 15, she heard many frightening sounds of fighting, however it was the eerie silence afterwords that made her suspicious. There should have been a hoot of victory, or a cry of defeat. Something, but there wasn't a single sound. It ended abruptly, almost as if they all disappeared out of thin air. Out of fear for her safety and Cosmo's, Bailey left the area as fast as she could, but now that she had no obligation to the kids of Laverre, she was completely free to throw herself in danger; which unfortunately she had the hunch that exactly that would happen.

Maybe the disappearance of the last piece of her sister made Bailey change, but no longer did she wear dresses and let her hair down loose. She had cut her hair to a shorter length and never took it out of a low bun with the exception of sleeping, but the stylist had accidentally cut her outgrown bangs too short and there were wisps of hair pushed behind her ears, occasionally wiggling free to get in her face. As she walked out onto Route 15, she removed her raincoat as it wasn't raining anymore; allowing her hair to fall back into a more comfortable position than it had been from beneath the inky black hood. Sage, who had to jump to the muddy ground so his trainer could remove the raincoat, sneezed in disgust as his paw sunk a little deeper into a small patch of mud he had found himself in. Bailey grinned as she looked at the blue psychic cat. "Hey, buddy. I know you're new to this, but on my team you're going to get dirty. Sorry." She teased as she looked over at the cat who had once again climbed onto her shoulder. Cosmo snickered from behind her, only confirming that her team did often get very dirty while traveling. "Mrrrow!" Sage huffed in embarrassment and he quickly hunched down a little farther into his seated position, as if he wished he could disappear if he got small enough. Shooting a small, pleading glance at Cosmo, Bailey began to walk deeper into route 15, finally decided to walk through some thicker underbrush.

The leaves crunched beneath Bailey's feet as she trodden on the dying greenery around her. Finally, when she was about to declare that it was a simple scuffle that she didn't hear the end of, she noticed something. "Stop! Cosmo...don't move." She demanded, slowly growing closer to the ground as if it were a frightened animal. All across the ground were little puddles, and leftover traces of ice. Then there were multiple footprints trailing off in one direction. There were so many harmless situations that could have led to this scene, but for whatever reason the air hung around Bailey like a thick fog, and she could almost sense the flurry of emotions that ran through this place at one time. Crouching on her knees, she looked at Sage, who seemed very concentrated on the place that the footprints ran off to. With a small twitch of his tail, he leapt off of her shoulder and stood alert, not minding the muddied water swirling around his hind paws. Stretching his arms out wide, he lifted up one ear, and even just by looking at his back Bailey could tell that his eyes were glowing and he was releasing incredible amounts of psychic power- but half of his total power because he was only using one ear.

"Cosmo, what is he doing?" Bailey asked, looking up at the Serperior, who glanced back with equal curiosity and confusion. Sage was very new to the team; an addition made back in Lumios where Bailey had met Sage, as an Espurr, in an alleyway. The pesky Meowstic had stolen her black locket. It was a gift from a friend she met in De La Vie Et La Mort, a festival held in Geosenge a while back. Sage refused to give back the locket, and Bailey resorted to catching the little devil in order to get it back. She did get her locket back, and she saw the potential in Sage, so she quickly had him level up and evolve, but after the events of Aster and Lavender, she put him in the PC. To that day she still didn't know why she deposited the Meowstic, but she did. Maybe it was from the little ball of rage that formed right beneath her stomach that did it. The world may never know.

Within a few moments, Sage was done and he replaced his ear to it's resting position. "Sage? What's the matter?" Bailey asked softly, rising up to her full height and brushing her jeans off, but failed at removing the mud that soaked into the fabric. She grumbled as she tried even harder to remove the mud, but a sharp, panicked humming sound from Cosmo jerked her attention back to the Meowstic, who was running off in the direction of the footprints. "Sage, wait! What are you doing?" Bailey exclaimed in a sudden wave of panic. She couldn't loose another Pokemon....it would be too hard. The mud splashed up onto Bailey's jeans as she raced after her Pokemon with Cosmo hot on her heels. Finally the blue cat stopped, looking at the ground beneath him. Bailey caught up, placing her hands on her knees in a feeble attempt to catch her breath. "Sage, buddy, I'm not in shape for running. I can do anything but running." She pointed out, but the Meowstic refused to divert his gaze. "Come on! Talk to me, what's wron-" Bailey couldn't finish her sentence; she was confused as to why the trees were getting taller. No- she was falling.

The soft ground beneath her feet made a sickening rushing sound as it collapsed upon itself, dragging Bailey, Cosmo and Sage all down with it into the murky depths below. It was all so sudden that the young traveler didn't even have a chance to register that she was in danger. However, everything clicked together within seconds. "AAAHH!" Bailey cried out in panic, her vision blinded by falling dust. Her cries were silenced in moments, and replaced with a pained gasp as they continued to fall. A sickening, fiery pain shot up her left arm, and it the spot where it originated screamed in agony. Bailey didn't make much more than a gasp at the pain, but that's because she also hit the ground. Her fall was cushioned somewhat by Cosmo's long tail which attempted to coil itself around her before she hit the ground.

Her vision danced with multicolored spots that she was sure wasn't part of the hole they fell in. She could hear small, rhythmic patterns of a soft humming sound, which Bailey vaguely defined as noises coming from Cosmo, but she couldn't tell the tone behind it. Sage also was there, his bright blue eyes glowing in the darkness. After quite a few moments, Bailey's mind cleared enough to finally asses the situation. First the pain. With a little bit of convincing from Sage, Bailey tentatively examined her left arm. It was her upper arm that throbbed painfully and even in the darkness it was evident that the sticky, warm liquid staining her ripped, white turtleneck was not sweat. "Holy Arceus. What in the world did I get this from?" She asked no one in particular, narrowing her eyes as she tried to put pressure on the injury. The gash stung at her skin in response, but the pain was far less than it had been at the moment where she did cut herself. "Ok, here's my verdict guys. I'm bleeding, but slightly. It seems a lot worse that it actually is, so please don't worry." Bailey said, mostly to calm herself down. A leafy tail tip on her right shoulder turned the traveler's attention to a large rock with many blade-worthy edges that Cosmo had found a few feet away.

'That rock could probably cut a diamond! You're so lucky you didn't get hurt more.'

A foreign, surprised voice echoed in Bailey's head, causing a reaction of fear. "What in the world?" She gasped in surprised, looking around for the origin of the voice. 'Ah, wait...lower...lower...lower your gaze...here! Found me!' Sage stood at the center of Bailey's vision, obviously pleased with his trainer's surprised reaction. "You! You can talk? Telepathically?" The young adult stared down at her psychic type Pokemon with an accusing look. 'Most psychic types can communicate Telepathically, well, plus a few other Pokemon like legendaries and Ninetails. I thought you were better than this Bailey.' Sage's eyes gleamed with humor as he busied himself with brushing out his mangled tail. "Why didn't you show me this before?" Bailey demanded, feeling almost like she had missed out on a major benefit of having a Psychic type. In response to the question, Sage looked back at his trainer, smiling slyly. 'You weren't good enough. Plus, I wasn't ready to enter your mind when it was so fragile.' He retorted, and Bailey almost shot back a displeased remark, but the last portion of his statement made her pause. He really did care, even if was just a little bit.

Cosmo, who was looking back and forth at her trainer and the Meowstic in upmost confusion, intervened with her own statement and a point of her tail. Bailey stood up, her right hand clutching her left arm as she stared at the inky darkness in front of her. "Well, there's no way up, is there?" Bailey said, pointing out the obvious. Sage nodded and cut his telepathic communications with his trainer for the time. Cosmo firmly wrapped a comforting vine around Bailey's right arm and started slithering off into the darkness. The massive Serperior only made the tunnels that more suffocating, but underground, Cosmo could still fell the plant life around her, making her the best chance of getting out.

It had been a lot of walking. Obviously, Cosmo was getting tired and so was Bailey, not to mention that Sage was asleep on the girl's shoulder. The tunnels were wide enough at this point that the young adult could see past Cosmo's lumbering figure ahead if her; however she wasn't sure if she wanted to be able to see what was ahead. Although, she thought she saw a female figure ahead of Cosmo, a few meters away, but Bailey pushed it off as hallucinations. It bugged her that the figure did not disappear, and with the last bits of her brain she still had in tact, she pieced together that the woman was as real as it gets.

"Hello?" She called out softly, stepping in front of her grass Pokemon. Bailey's voice woke Sage up, who remained quiet and stared ahead with his glowing, blue eyes.

(Ack, sorry! I'm out of time, and I'm really anxious to post this so you guys don't have to wait on me. I didn't get to add in the nightmare, but next time she falls asleep, I promise I'll put it in.)

 

[BurbleBurble]

Where was Gerald now?

The messily destroyed Million was still fresh in his mind, the red stained blot even more. He could remember every detail on that damned corpse, from the half melted, blackened eye, to the ripped apart pieces of the exoskeleton. The lung/stomach the thing had taken a bite of. Oh god, he felt like vomiting. That scene would fuck him up for a long time. And then things got worse. A new figure stood in front of him. Light grey, with gold and purple mixed in. Steadily it came to focus. Two swords, crossed over one another.

A Doublade, his Doublade. Switchblades.

It stared into his soul, yet...didn't. Once again, his Pokemon was blissfully unaware of his presence. And there was another blot. A deep orange, tinged with maroon...he knew this Pokemon, but couldn't recall the name. Then again, the more he thought about it, the less he remembered. He only remembered his four team members.

Four.

Was it always four?

Ah, that didn't matter now.

He turned his attention back towards the situation at hand, which had escalated in his "daydreaming". The strange Pokemon had faced his Doublade. Their eyes locked, a sure fire sign that conflict was inevitable. The Doublade moved first, with a quick slash. Sacred sword, right? Either way, the Pokemon repulsed at the hit, before countering back, with a Flamethrower.

For some reason, this Flamethrower was brutal. It burned off one of it's tassels, and the blades were dripping a silvery liquid. It's eyes were shocked, but quickly turned to anger. It used Shadow sneak quickly to counter, but the fox-like creature stood unfazed. It shot out another jet of fire. The Doublade never stood a chance.

Gerald had to watch in terror as the remaining tassel turned to ashes, leaving nothing but a stump of blackened cloth where it used to sit. The blades fused as they fell into a singular puddle of burnt steel. But that wasn't the scary part for Gerald.

It was the look of pain in their eyes. Twitching, hopeless. Not only that, but it attempted to move the remains of the tassel towards the creature which had inflicted such pain on it. It walked away, transforming back into a blot of maroon and orange, and then...blackness.

But a new blot came. It was familiar. Yellow, black, white. Red dribbling down where a mouth should be. The blur that had eaten his Scolipede's organs was back for seconds. Or was it?

This...thing seemed smarter than it first appeared. It picked up a sample of the burnt metal, the once Doublade reacted accordingly to something reaching into it's body, the eyes twitching faster and panicking. The blot didn't care, reaching the metal to it's mouth, but instantly denied it. Spatting it out, the blob of color roamed off, one thing Gerald noticed as it turned around.

A shade of brown. How peculiar.

((OOC: In the case the orange maroon creature is confusing, It's a Flareon. The blot is painfully obvious at this point but I'm not gonna spell out their name.))

 

[Curtkid]

The Jolteon sprinted through the back alleyway's of Saffron City, hot on the trail of a large white van, the dark, all too familiar scene that had just played out before him should have given him all the adrenaline the already exceptionally fast Pokemon needed to easily keep with the vehicle! Hell, Raviel should have been able to easily keep up with the van even if it was going at top speed, so why was he finding it so hard to keep up damn it!? The scene flashed before his eye's again, a memory he wanted to forget but at the same time could bare to let go of, memories of a different life, a happy life. A life with a girl in a big house, a life with his family and their trainers, a life of comfort, fun, and love, a life that was ripped from him.

It was supposed to be just a friendly visit to the girls uncle in Celedon, a visit that quickly turned dark once they realized how severe the uncles gambling addiction had gotten. From what Raviel could gather, the last time the family heard from the Uncle he was almost as well off as his own family, but Celedons Gaming Corner had a way of breaking even the most resilient of souls, and when they finally met up with that Uncle he was days away from being evicted without a penny to his name. Raviels first family, good people, tried to help him, get him clean of his addiction and get him back on his feet, he was family after all and they felt obligated to help him, and how did he thank them? By kidnapping Raviel in the middle of the night and selling him to some Black Market thugs for a quick buck so he could go right back to gambling.

Of course Raviel pieced all this together later, at the moment he knew that all the poor, scared little Eevee was thinking about was if he'd ever see him family again, funny, even at the time he knew it was a vain hope. Eevee's were extremely rare and valuable Pokemon, he'd probably end up sold to the highest bidder and never see his home or family again, but his night of misfortune had one silver lining. Raviel came to a stop as he saw the van pull into a warehouse that looked like it should have been condemned over a decade ago as a man pulled out a cage that contained a young, and all to familiar looking Eevee.

"Careful when letting that thing out of the cage, I know we gotta inspect 'em, but that thing's feisty and we don't want it running off on us", one man is a deep brown hat said.

"Ah don't worry, this ain't the first time I ever-GAH, THE LILL' SHIT BIT ME!", the other man, wearing a black trench coat, yelled as he the Eevee, which panically sprinted into a near-bye ally way.

"Ah, you dumb ass, you know how much dat thing cost us! Come on, if we lose it the boss 'll have our heads!", the man with the brown hat yelled to his companion. They wasted no time in trailing after the younger image of him, funny, at the time the chase seemed so much longer, but watching it unfold before him showed Raviel it took but a minute at most. Just as the two thugs were about to close in on him, an almost divine like Ember blast drove the two men away, and It was at that moment Raviel met his new mentor, and new family. The Growlithe called himself "Scorched", and Raviel thought he was the coolest thing since a Sheer Cold attack, and then some. The next couple of years he palled around with Scotched and his gang, learning the way of the streets, nicking food and other goods from shop owners and less then careful tourists, getting into more scrapes then he could count! It was a good life, and for a long while, Raviel was happy with his new family, until the day they decided to nick food from that League trainers personal vacation home.

Raviel felt a twinge of guilt run down his spine as he watched what was basically one of the darkest moments of his life play out before him. How he insisted to Scorched that the trainers vacation home would be an easy place to nick from what with her and her team being of their guard (what with being on vacation an all), how sneaking in to that over decorated Saffron City house seemed all to easy, how it all went wrong in a moment when that trainers Golduck snuck up on them in the middle of looting the food pantry, the barrage of Water Pulse attack, retreating through the alleyway's with the injured Scorched on his back. They didn't even make it back to their hideout before he....

"If only you listened to him, he knew it was to dangerous, but you wanted to prove yourself to him", a voice rang through Raviels mind. Immediately the Jolteon jumped up, spiked flaring as that dark memory dissipated around him into a field of mist and darkness, and from the mist came the shambling figure of his Growlithe friend, cuts covering its body, a twisted, accusatory glare marred on its face. Raviel took a few steps back, spikes still up, trying to speak with the shadow image of his old mentor, trying to plead with him for forgiveness, that he didn't want that to happen. The twisted visage of Scorched was almost on him before he fired off a Thunderbolt towards the vision, reducing it to mist once again. Raviel's breathing was heavy as he focused on the dissipating mist, desperately trying to forget what he just saw, his mind was so muttled, so messed up that he didn't even notice another shadowy figure approaching from behind.

"GGGYYYYYRRRRAHHHH", Raviel cried out as familiar Weavile pounced on top of him, its claws digging deep into its backside. The Jolteon tried to struggle, tried to launch a powerful electric attack, but all attempts to free himself proved futile, how could he have let this happen to him again? As he made his desperate attempts to escape the Weaviles clutches, several other figures seemingly materialized before him.

"Wow, how pathetic, caught again? I can't believe I decided to bring such a pathetic Pokemon along with the rest of my team", said Curt, a scornful look on his face. Behind him stood Embertail, Whips, Lockjaw, Jasper, Flare, even Dexter, all with equally angry looks to complement Curts., "I never really liked you, you know, you've always been an asshole, sealing from us, being rude to us, not giving us any respect, not to mention your...degenerate feelings towards Dexter, disgusting, really, I should have just left you with the trash of Saffron, it really is where you belong!" Raviel couldn't look his trainer in the eye's, he clenched his own shut as he desperately tried to deny the words he was being fed.

"No, t-that's not true!", he tried to tell himself, but deep down inside, the inner guilt of his weakness burned inside him, along with his failures. His failure to prevent himself from being sold like some slave to feed a mans gambling addiction, his failure to save the Pokemon that saved him from capture and picked him up from the dirt and made him who he was today. How he could barely fill Scorched "shoes" and lead his rag tag team, having to rely on Curt, Embertail, and the rest to provide a promising future for them. Why would they keep that promise after how he acted towards them, he couldn't even justify it with it being an act, he was just....just like that. Even his evolution into a Jolteon didn't seem to give him much of a power increase, no wonder Curt wasn't going to fulfill his promise to find his family, no wonder Curt didn't bother to help.....

Wait........

T-That was wrong, wasn't is? C-Curt did come back to help him! That's right, he remembered now, when Team Rockets Weavile pinned him down, Curt and Flare came back to help him, Curt even kicked the Weavile of so Flare could torch it! This, this wasn't real, none of it, just some sick, twisted enchantment to mess with his soul! He remembered everything now even berating himself for keeping his spikes down! His spikes.....

Raviel opened his eyes and sneered at the Weavile, the things that was wearing Curt and his team's face, as electricity ran across his extended spikes! It hadn't been much time, but Raviel was thinking of all the ways he could get out of that Weaviles hold, even with his limited access to his electricity, and he had long since come up with the solution to counter the Weavile even before being sent into this Hellish nightmare! Sure, Raviel could just fry the Weavile and the rest of him, but he felt a more, controlled approach would help him more, besides, a massive Thunderbolt would be exactly what this....thing would be expecting. With one last smug smirk, Raviel stood his spikes straight up as electricity crackled around it, and let out a massive, wide spread Thunder Wave all around the area.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"(T-Thank-you Cassie, I'm glad to see i'm not the only one to have escaped"), Flare said to Cassie as the trainer caught her (she had to admit, despite her small size, the girl was surprisingly strong) and helped her stand up right, "(I will see what I can do about Curt, Embertail, and the others, lets just hope it will be enough...)". The moment she said this, she attempted to wrap others in a psychic field and constantly redirect them to area's that were....less then dangerous the falling of a cliff. She knew she couldn't hold all of them in place, even despite her not feeling tired in spite of going through that vision and her clash with Team Rocket. Some wuld be easily, like Embertail or Raviel, but holding a massive creature like Whips in place would cause a massive drain on her stamina, something that she could not afford to do if she was to keep everyone safe. But just as she was getting everyone turned around towards a...better, less death causing direction, Raviel all of a sudden began emitting several sparks!

"(What the? Oh hell, Cassie watch out, I think Raviel is-)", but Flares sentance was cut short as the Jolteon dropped to the ground, "(Huh...R-Raviel)"? Flare walked cautiously over to the Jolteon, most people or Pokemon would have thought her crazy for getting close to the Pokemon that had just randomly shot out several bolts of electricity moments ago. Flare however, sensed something disperse from Raviel, a shadow, and one not unentirely like the one that had once plagued her...

"Grrrrr, gahgh", The Jolteon growled as he picked himself up, blinking a few times, before righting himself.

"(Oh thank goodness, glad to see you're back with us Raviel, listen, I can keep everyone...relatively safe for the time being, but I still sense the Rocket somewhere in here, if you could, can you keep an eye out for them, and perhaps offer any assistance to Cassie if she asks of it, that is if you're still feeling up to it)"?, Flare asked the Jolteon, who merely returned Flares question with a smug grin. It was as though he was saying "HAH, why bother even asking, you know I can work through this little scratch"! It may not seem like much, but considering their circumstances, even a wounded Jolteon could provide a world of help in this crisis.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"NO! PLEASE! STOP! I DIDN'T MEAN, I-I DIDN'T WANT!!!!", Curt yelled as he tried to close his eyes to avoid the sight of the broken body of Raviel. He had come too late, and Raviel had payed the price, the broken limbs, the half open, vacant eye's, the massive gash on his back side, it was like Flare all over again, and it was all getting to be to much for the trainer to bare, and with that twisted voice singing in his head. It seemed to have come from nowhere, but Curt was too emotionally torn to question its appearance, over and over it seemed to sing:

"It's your fault, you hesitated, you didn't help him, now he's dead, they both are, and you have the gal to call yourself a trainer?"

"No p-p-please, I-I tried", Curt whimpered, "I-I tried, I w-wanted to, i-it's not my fault, t-they, I-I, I went b-back to......Wait, no, t-that's right, I went back for him, I-I did help him!" Curt opened his eye's, his voice becoming more confident, much to the dark forces dismay. He remembered now, he did go back for Raviel, that's right, he didn't abandon him, he, he did something to save him from that Weavile, him and Flare right? It was right there, so close yet so far, a memory, his ticket out of here, he could almost reach it. This place, with Raviel, and Flare too, neither of them were gone, right? Something wasn't right, something was wrong, he was figuring it out, it was so close, so close....and then!

And then he opened his eyes to meet an electric blue pair of blue ones, there was and flash, and just like that, the memory, his answer, it was gone! Well not entirely, but it was blurred out to the point that it would be of little help of him to him now. Something about helping Raviel, right? But Raviel was no where to be found, but Curt knew he was just here, and there was something about this place, something he was so close to figuring out.

"Damn it, what was it", Curt said in what could only be described as an angry whisper, "T-there's something going on here, but, but- huh, J-Jasper?" Curt's attention was drawn away by the sounds of a Cubone further down the caverns, and once again he made his way deeper into the blackness of the caves.

 

[Storybook]

[OOC: Warning- if you are allergic to the excessive use of 'and's, leave now]

Hello?

The voice was small and weak and shivering, as if the world was frozen. Que flinched at the noise, and yet it was soft, like melting ice against his bruised cheek. It almost didn't seem like his own. All logic told the boy this was his echo- but it was soft, smooth, silky. Que raised his head from his knees, cringing as it stirred the air.

Hello?

The voice again- and this time when it spoke it seemed to shiver so hard that it stuttered- no, that it echoed immediately again, so that when the voice spoke it wasn't one voice but fifty. The boy relaxed, as if the voices were flames upon his frozen cheek, a blanket around his feeble form. They weren't his own- that was for sure, now. They weren't sheets of sound like knives or swords, but they were fleshy and full, as if they were an organism in and of themselves. And Que realized he wasn't alone.

And yet.. still, no one existed but Que himself. Yes, he was sure of that. Que was alone and yet not alone all at once.

"H-hi?"

He winced, only to find it didn't hurt anymore, and Que was tired- so tired. He just wanted to fall asleep, coddled by the softness of the Echo. It was warm, so warm. He just wanted to fall asleep-

Que.

And the voice was sharp and sinister and serpentine all at once.

And Que was cold, so cold as he flinched away from the noise, his face pale and his thin mouth curled in fear. He raised his hand so as to look at it, and Que found his own skin shimmered eerily in the darkness, emitting weak, translucent light, feeble and mechanical and thin, as if it were a reflection on metal, and Que was scared but he wasn't sure why, and Que could feel the heavy terror of dread on his shoulders but he wasn't sure why, and Que was confused and Que was scared and Que was cold, so cold.

And Que was terrified, so inhuman was his presence, so thin was his own skin that it seemed barely opaque, so cold was his hand that it shivered and Que was alone and Que was chained in silence and Que was going to die because the voice deemed it so- and the voice, the boy realized, was more alive than Que was, and even though it hadn't a body to call its own it was full and fleshy and distraught and doubtful and enraged and sharp and hateful and questioning and afraid.

Que.

And it was so full, so alive, so vibrant, so throttled with emotion.

And Que was flat.

And as the voice choked him with tears he couldn't explain, Que realized why he was afraid.

Que.

The voice was hateful this time, distraught with doubt and sliced down the gut with revenge, and the voice wrapped around him like a serpent, thin and cold and brutal as it turned his skin to fragile, thin ice. He wanted to know what it was but the boy was too afraid to ask, and he flinched, and it hurt to flinch.

I am You, Que.

And the voice answered his own question without him having to ask it.

You deserted me, Que.

And the voice was full and fleshy and alive and distraught.

You deserted me.

Silence choked the boy, and he clutched his hand to his chest to find it wet with the tears that melted across his sternum.

And Que remembered all at once.

"I was... scared."

You deserted me, Que!

And the voice was choked too, and the voice was malicious, and the voice wrapped around him and choked him and broke him, and Que was cold, so cold, and the world was dark, so dark, and Que was alone, and Que's heart throttled his throat and his head shook back and forth and he covered his ears and he stood and

Que ran.

And all of a sudden the world was dark.

It had been light, before. Yes, the world had been light and he just hadn't realized it in time.

And now everything was dark.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Just keep running.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.





His limbs were frozen and his feet were numb. His muscles ached, screaming in ice cold agony. His skin was pale, ghostly, translucent, as if it was fading out of existence. His eyes were metallic in grim pain and tears were frozen like pearls onto his skin. He tried to run, he had to run, all that would save him was running, lest the voice catch up, and the voice taunt and torment him, and the voice was himself and Que was running from himself.

He tried to move and gravity pulled him down again, he tried to run but his numb limbs, shrieking in frozen agony, pushed against the air as if it was a brick wall, and he ran and he ran and he ran and yet he couldn't run because he couldn't muster the strength to break free from the frozen air that bared against his limbs with heavy ferocity, stronger than crude diamonds, as thick as molasses and as heavy as grief.

Que was running through snow.

And the snow was darker than obsidian.

And Que looked for his hand, only to find that there was no traces, no thin threads of light to reflect the ghostly skin.

But the world wasn't darkness. No- no, the world was darkness, but there was something outside of the world that wasn't darkness. He could almost see it through the opaque window, the cold, crude skin of the world- a blur of soft pastels.

Stop running away.

Que inhaled, only to choke on the frozen crystals of dark snow that surrounded him. He panicked, and the Echo returned to slither around the boy, and Que found he couldn't breath, and Que found that the Echo engulfed him and chained him to the darkness of the snow, and Que tried to run and Que couldn't move and Que wanted to scream but he had no breath and Que wanted to breath but choked on ice and Que was afraid he was dead, so immobile was his existence.

His sight tried to scramble out of his eyes, and it reached vainly for the blur that was out of this dark, frightening world, the blur of soft pastels, the blur of kindness, the blur of comfort, the blur like a soft blanket, and his sight scratched at the metal films of his eyes with cold, blunt, crude claws if only to escape towards the blur, to escape from coldness, to escape from the snow, to escape from the Echo, to escape from Que into the soft pastels.

You really think that world exists?

And the pastel blur seemed to churn, and Que could just spot shapes emerging from the blur- those of friends and partners, of Growlithe, of his mother, so delicately carved into the pastel blur. He could almost smell the soft nostalgia, the happiness, the comfort, but when Que breathed in he tasted cold, crude, malicious darkness that seemed to seep into his body and tear out his heart.

Maybe it does.

And Que realized the blur wasn't out of this world, waiting for him beyond its calloused film, but instead was the edge- the blur was the horizon.

And the blur was in reach.

And all of a sudden Que could run again, as if the dark snow had released- no, as if it was moving with him, as if every time his muscles pulsed the snow crystals pulsed as well. The Echo vanished, and all of a sudden it never had been and never would be and Que was alone.

And Que could hear his heartbeat.

Drumming his frantic march.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

The horizon was so close, warm in its pastels- he could almost feel it, and yet Que was so cold that he shivered as he ran and his skin was ice and his blood was snow.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

And he was running, and he always had been running, and his skin was ice and his blood was snow and yet he kept running, and running was agony and Que kept running.

And the horizon was so close.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

It was so close.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

So close.

And he'd been running forever, but the horizon was getting farther away.

You're never going to make it.

The echo returned as heavy chains, and the world was darker than it had ever been, and the snow vanished and Que was melting and his legs could no longer hold his weight and he crashed to floor.

It was never meant for you.

The pastels churned, and Que realized the Echo was doubt.

When you reach it, it will disappear.

The shapes shattered, and Que realized the Echo was fear.

You're too good for the horizon.

The horizon dimmed, as if slipping farther away, and Que realized the Echo was pride.

The horizon never wanted you anyways.

The horizon faded, as if becoming opaque, and Que realized the Echo was hate.

Maybe life is okay the way it is.

The horizon was stiff as bits of color began slipping away, and Que realized the Echo was contentment.

I mean, you're alive.

The horizon shattered into black and white, and Que realized the Echo was happiness.

But... that's not what you wanted.

The horizon returned, but it wasn't the horizon- the pastels loitered outside the world, and Que realized the Echo was disappointment.

... I mean...... we tried so hard, and... and we never even... and the horizon.... and I don't know how...

And the shapes formed again, only to be speared away, and Que realized the Echo was bewilderment.

... and I just wanted to be happy, and safe, and loved!

The pastel writhed in a soft blur, and Que realized the Echo was sadness, and Que was a puddle of tears on the floor, moaning, trying to run and yet gaining no ground, and he stared up at the blur with hunger in his gaze, up at the good and the safe and the happy and the pastel and all of those that he loved in pure infinity forever, and his sight scrabbled savagely in his sockets and he rolled on the floor and moaned and wished and hated himself for wishing and wished and wished and slobbered in utter defeat.

And he wanted to cry and he wanted to bawl but for some reason Que didn't know how, so he just rolled dumbly on the ground and writhed in a puddle of ash.

And Que grabbed the ground, curling his fingers into the dirt, and declared in a steely monotone of defeat,

"Let me have you.
I'll run, I'll steal, I'll beg, I'll fly, just let me have you!"

And he froze as the Echo returned, triumph in its shivering voice.

... let me back in.
We can get it together.
I promise.

Just let me back.

"Come back..."
His voice shivered and it was but a plea of a child who had tried everything and failed and tried everything and failed again and was offered a solution and took it without a thought, limbs feeble in futility.
And the pastel was speared out of existence by the wind.

And the world was black.

 

[PentheWonderful]

"T-Thank-you Cassie, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one to have escaped."

"I don't think escaped is the right word." Cassie responded, or rather, deadpanned, would be more accurate. Once she was sure the Ninetales was capable of standing on her own four paws, she released her hold on her, allowing her screaming muscles ease. Pain. Yes she felt so much pain from holding up the large fox, yet, Cassie forbid it from showing. No, it was not allowed to appear. None of her weaknesses were, or rather, Cassie wondered if they'd been manifesting so much it'd become her new identity? She was scared they were still there, still trapped. So much so her stomach felt sick. It showed, it'd been showing all this time. A long sigh drew from her. She was so exhausted of pretending.

There was nothing and no one left to pretend for anyway.

"I will see what I can do about Curt, Embertail, and the others, lets just hope it will be enough..."

"Hold that thought." Cassie mumbled, getting up and quickly striding over to Curt's side. The girl bent down, and squinted, focusing her maladjusted eyes to the Pokeballs hanging from her friend's belt. Three were empty. Yet, the other two? They were awake. This made her wonder about her two girls. And also where Curt's sixth pokeball was.

"If I accidentally return you, sorry." With that, possibly more than likely unhelpful warning, Cassie clicked the button of one of the Pokeballs, returning Whips into his. That's a success. one more living creature to not worry about.

Her hand drawn, ready to click the button of another pokeball, yet what she received instead was, "What the? Oh hell, Cassie watch out, I think Raviel is-"

Sparks. Crackling, popping, unforgiving electricity grazed her skin and sent her back to the night at the Kyandi Mansion, another time of heartbreak and pain. Merciless and cruel, sending Cassie recoiling so hard she'd slammed herself up against the wall as a trembling wreck. Arm up, over her mouth and nose in a futile attempt to provide herself security. Only to find it a false alarm.

Raviel fell to the ground, and apparently out of his own nightmare. She allowed the two Pokemon to converse, while she collected pieces of herself off the ground. Cassie gave her head a light shake, her hand going to press against her temple and suppressing the unforgiving throb of sleep deprivation. Focus. Focus. You can't lose focus now. Her gray irises flicked back and forth from the people and the conscious Pokemon. She had to keep moving. Acting. Sitting still wouldn't help.

Sitting still.

"Ahh, wait, I'm so stupid." She mumbled to herself, while at the same time, her hand quickly pressed the button on one of the pokeballs on her belt. The bright, near blinding flash of light illuminated the hallway for the brief second it'd existed. Her eyes found engravings, crude and rough, upon the walls and ceilings. If only for a moment. Her mind clicked. "I know this."

"Purrow!"

"Shut up." Cassie pressed herself against the opposite wall of the hall, yet the Purrloin seemed perfectly unfazed. She followed her trainer with a bounce in her step, as jolly as ever. Her hands rubbed and scraped at the grime covered, moss infested walls with fervor. Yes, she could see it better; the true walls and engravings. It was there, so crude and ugly that Cassie wondered if vandals in Route 15 existed a thousand or so years ago.

Yet, there it was. Unown writing. Sloppy, careless, chicken scratch, but Unown writing all the same. Cassie remembered the lessons she had during her father's archeological days. She knew how to read them. But, she wished she didn't. Those crude, ugly writing spoke crude, ugly things. Cursing, vengeful, angry. She scratched, more and more, further and further as the grime chipped away. Until a neat, teasing group of letters revealed itself to her.

"Cadeaux précieux de plumes de croissant brûlent plus lumineux que les mensonges de l'obscurité."

A pause. A good, long pause. "Flare, do you know what that means? Precious gifts of crescent feathers burn brighter than lies of the dark." Cassie stepped back, allowing a small, hollow smile to tug her lips. "There are crescent wings here."

Immediately, her eyes flicked back to the small kitten now present in the real, albeit nightmarish world, yet, seeming perfectly fine. Cassie envied her. "Do you think there's anything pretty hidden here?"

Lady twitched her nose, and then licked her paw. Not long after, she simply tipped over and plopped on the ground. Oblivious, perhaps, completely uncaring towards the potential deaths ahead. "That's cute." Cassie crouched down, poked the Purrloin's stomach, and immediately triggered an attack. If it could be called that. The young Pokemon was curled around her hand, gloved and protected, as her tiny fangs sank into the fabric. "Cute. But, pathetic." Heartlessly, one could call it, Cassie flicked the ear of her young Purrloin, causing her to flinch and immediately drop to the ground again with a hiss.

"Tsk." Cassie snapped her finger, looming threateningly over her, instantaneously creating a silence from the Purrloin. However, it was not the threat, nor the fear of getting physically hurt that caused her to lay low on the ground with ears and tail down. No, it was the sheer commanding, authoritarian, and dominant energy; energy laced with speckles of darkness the Purrloin synchronized with, that set her in her place. "Lady. Search."

At last did the unruly infant listen, creeping away and sniffing at the vicinity of the hallway. The further from her trainer, the more she rose, skulking, occasionally finding distractions in trying to snatch valuables from the sleepwalking trainers, held firm by Flare's psychic power. Specifically her persistent attempts at breaking into Gerald's pockets. A 'tsk' from her trainer quickly set her back on track, however.

For those awake, it was a calm, low of a moment. Deafeningly silent, save for the gentle patter of Lady's paws. Oppressing. But otherwise, calm. Of course, it was mandatory for the calm to be broken.

"Hello?"

Her eyes peeled away from the silhouette of the unbothered young Dark type still stalking around the length of the hallway, focusing instead on blurry outline of several shapes looming in the far horizon. Cassie blinked her eyes. Once, twice. Rubbed her hand over them that same amount of times and wondered if she'd finally snapped. Oh wait, she has. "Flare, Raviel, you see that too, right?"

Cassie paused, waited for their answers. Yet nonetheless, she approached the figures. Without caution or hesitation. She simply walked, step by step with Lady at her heel. (She continues to search or she knows she'll get in trouble. Serious trouble.) Confusion overwhelmed her. Hallucinations tend to shift and change. They'd move further away and fluctuate, yet this, this image remained the same. Static. Growing, but, closer. Becoming clearer. This was not a hallucination. This was, as far as she was concerned, real.

Real enough to be able to hurt her.

Cassie paused at this thought, deciding to play it safe. "Hi." She allowed her voice to echo, resonate dully in the thickness of silence. "Are you real?"

She waited for a response, but what she received instead was something, or someone, toppling over her. Instinctively, her hands took hold of the person draped over her, but found his weight to overwhelming to bear and ended up beneath him. Who? The strange one. Que. She'd walked all the way back to his side again, how silly.

A loud thud resonated through the hollow of the tunnel-like hallway, followed by laughter. Loud, shameless laughter from the girl crushed beneath Que's weight. "Hey, silly I'm not a bed. Your broken glasses lens is digging into my cheek, wow that... Hurts." Cassie blinked slowly. Real, physical pain. The kind that reminded you that you're living. You're alive. You're physical and physical things hurt you. Her muscles spasmed, she pushed with all her might to get Que into a sitting position, hands firmly on his shoulders. Although Lady climbing onto her back wasn't really helping.

Could she have moved faster to wake the others? Yes, probably so. Unfortunately, her sense of priority was rather askew at the moment. Heck, her entire mind was askew at the moment. Cassie could simply careless, no matter how much she wanted to care more.

Insignificant droplets of scarlet liquid rolled down her cheek, one that Lady eagerly climbed upon her shoulder to lick clean. Cassie found herself laughing. Again. No, not quite because her Purrloin's tongue tickled. But rather because she couldn't remember what she was thinking about several seconds ago.

 

[BurbleBurble]

Cold. Why was Gerald cold? Maybe he because he felt this feeling before. The clammy grasp of darkness, the feeling of something bad about to happen. This was the feeling he felt before his Scolipede became the pack of hound's meal, and his Doublade's punishment of eternal pain. What were their names again? M....Million, and Swi...Switches. No that...argh! Why couldn't he remember the simplest things? He had his four team members, and he could barely remember their names...

But his thoughts were stolen by new color, beige. White flew a little above it's presumed scalp. It came into focus once again, revealing empty eyes. Familiar empty eyes. The color was a Shedinja, most likely once again his.

Why was it here? Shedinja couldn't die. Could they?

Apparently they could.

It started small, with a fragment of the shell chipping off. Then a sinificantly larger piece of shell snapped off. The cicada remains showed no emotion, barely even twitching as it's body fell apart on it. Shedinja couldn't feel pain.

More of the shell continued to fall off. Working it's way up the body, brown and grey shards continued falling into a pile of dust that had gathered under the floating Pokemon. An empty eye socket rolled to the floor, as it's head was consumed by deteriorating matter. Wings fell off, falling apart by a unknown force.

And then, nothing was left. The Pokemon was nothing more than a small pile of dust.

Drip.

What was that? A...tear?

His tear?

As he moved his hand to wipe it...wait. Why could he mpve suddenly? Ah, none of this mattered.

He moved in to cradle the dust, at least the amount that didn't slip out of his hands. His tears stained the pile a darker brown. Until a slight tugging at his side. Twisting his head towards the source of the tug, he found...

Nothing.

Drip.

What was that? Gerald's head twisted back towards the pile of dust, the center of which was now a all too familiar red.

Another red drip stained the dust. Then a sole maggot fell in it, writhing.

He quickly dropped the pile, his hands still coated in dust, but not holding the maggot or blood stain.

Gerald gazed up, the empty eyes of his Lopunny's corpse stared back, before promptly falling on him.

 

[Curtkid]

"(Take these small victories when they come Cassie and find strength in them, keeping such a negative mindset will only make it that much harder to make it through here)", Flare responded quickly, yet calmly to Cassie's dark outlook to their situation. Flare had been traveling with Curt, Embertail, and the rest for... wow, had it been almost a year already? Either way, she had been with them for quite a while, and they had been thrown into more then their fair share of perilous adventures, and if there was one constant to all their adventures, it was that they always maintained a healthy focus on the positives (with in reason of course, they never let themselves be so blinded by optimism that they did something foolish). Funny, in the half-second she gave herself to think about it, it always seemed like Embertail was the one who's vital spirits kept them moving forward.

But she couldn't dwell on that now, as she wrapped their sleeping party members up, Cassie informed her that she wished to attempt something. The fox gave Cassie a nod as she went to tinker with the Pokeballs on Curts belt and immediately felt a small twinge run down her spine, and not because of Cassie's comment about returning her. If the girl did accidentally call her back to her ball, she could easily break out again in a moments notice, no, the twinge was caused by a feeling of foolishness at not thinking of utilizing Curt's Pokeballs, it was so obvious! Of course, Cassie was a very clever girl and Flare didn't feel that stupid that she didn't come to that conclusion herself, it was just, once again she was reminded how of how spending over two-hundred years in a forest can leave one out of touch with modern appliances. So wraped up was she, in berating herself that she only half noticed Cassie call out her newly joined Purrlion, (Lady, was it?), and was a tad surprised to see the cat was unaffected by the spell.

"(Huh, so I assume that Pokemon still inside their Pokeballs are unaffected by the spell, that is good, if you want, I could try and coerce a few other Pokemon out of their-oh.....Cassie, I hope you're ready for more company)", Flare told her as the Greatball on Curt's belt wiggled for a moment, before snapping open in a bright red flash of light. Milliseconds later stood Jasper, eager and ready to help out, her Bold and hot-blooded nature prevented her from staying inside the Pokeball any longer. At first, she was hesitant to come out because she thought that, whatever was affecting everyone else might also affect her, but between seeing Flare, Cassie, and Raviel break out of the spell and seeing Lady walking out and about unaffected told her that, whatever had effected everyone else had passed. Of course, the moment she heard Flare say "Pokemon inside their Pokeballs are Unaffected" was all the cue she needed to bust out.

"(Well, I guess we got more help if we wanted it)", Flare said with a well intentioned sigh over Jasper's cries just then, she saw the last occupied Pokeball on Curt's belt being to wiggle, "(No, wait Lockjaw, stay in there for now, if this spell doesn't affect Pokemon in Pokeballs then it might be smart if you stay in for now, even then, you might need to help Curt just in case we get separated later)". Flare saw the Pokeball stop wiggling as it became clear that Lockjaw was more then happy to follow Flares advice. Though Lockjaw could certainly be brave, he was...easily frightened and would rather avoid avoid danger then challenge it unless he had too. Just as she was finishing addressing the blue alligator, she heard Cassie calling her over to read what looked to be Unknown inscriptions.

(Hmmm, I...know a bit about the old text, but it might take me a while to decipher it Cassie...Cassie)"? Flare looked over to see Cassie trying to help up that boy from earlier, was he awake too? If so that was good, they needed all the help they could get, but that didn't appear to be all. Also near her was another girl who appeared to be under the influence of...whatever this spell was.

"(Cassie, where did this girl come fr--? Wait, I think I recognize this girl, I believe she was at that Festival in Kalos)", Flare cried as she examined the girl, "(yes, if I remember correctly her name was.....Baliey, I think...yes, that was it)."

And then Flare heard a loud snapping noise just before she was grabbed tightly by a monstrous beast.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Whips stood motionless as he gazed at his blood covered claws, it was easier to look at them then the...carnage seemed like to polite a word...he had made. Right in front of him laid the broken remains of his closest friends and family; Flare; who was like a mentor and guiding figure to him was torn to shreds, Raviel; his vocal sparing partner was broken in so many ways, Jasper; who was always their to spur his courage had piece of her broken skull sticking out all over her body, even Curt, his trainer and one who treated him like a equal instead of a pet was almost torn in half, his "best buddy" and oldest friend Embertail was brutalized almost beyond recognition, even Lockjaw, the one who he thought of like a little brother even he was reduced to little more then a red smear on the ground, hell, even his own mother lay before him, the beautiful Dragonair ripped brutally in half! So many that he he promised to protect, all dead by his hands. Deep down inside, he never wanted to be a Dragonite, he wanted to get stronger, but the power of a Pseudo-Legendary Pokemon was just...too much, he always feared he wouldn't be able to control that much power, and now it seemed he paid the ultimate price for that nearly unmatched power. As he looked at what he wrought, a great shadow with cold, blue eye's began dancing around him, taunting him.

"You knew you wouldn't be able to control it, your power but you stayed with them anyway's, because you were too selfish to leave", the shadows voice rang through Whips head. He didn't bother arguing with it.

He didn't cry, Whips knew he didn't deserve to to feel sorry for himself, but he still felt his sins burning through his souls, it was getting to be too much for him, after what seemed like an eternity of staring at the slaughter, he finally fell to his knees. He covered his eyes with his claws, he didn't cry however, he didn't deserve to cry, even through the darkness of his shut eye's, he could still see their mangled corpses. He felt tremors run through his body, he wanted to be sick, he wanted to be angry, he wanted to do SOMETHING, but he couldn't even move, all he could do was dig his claws deep into his scales. Then, as though out of the clear blue, he heard a noise, fluttering, though it was soft it was enough to get his attention. At first he thought it was some sort of bird of prey looking to feast on the flesh of the fallen, and though Whip's soul was still racked with despair, he would still be able to find strength enough to prevent the bodies of his family from being tarnished anymore then they already had, he did this to them, and if there was any kindness left on this earth that he could do for them, he'd do it.

However, to the Dragonites great surprise, the fluttering did not seemed to be caused by birds, but rather by paper, fluttering down from the unseeable above. After taking a moment to realize how foolish it was to think birds would be in this cave (but for some reason not questioning where the papers were coming from), he bent down to inspect the scraps. To his surprise they seemed to be pages from various comic books, very familiar comic books. Whips almost chuckled at seeing this, after losing those closest to him, losing his prized comic book collection seemed almost trivial. He almost payed it no mind, after all, what was losing a few pieces of pictures with images on them after losing his family, and yet....They were still dear to him, he always turned to them for comfort, they gave him joy and motivation whenever things got hard, not only that, many of these comics were given to him by Curt, Embertail, even Lockjaw somehow found a way to obtain him a few. No, something inside his told him to look through these, and look through the scattered pages he did, he recognized which page belonged to which issue and how he managed to obtain each issue and when, from Spinarak-man to his favorite Captain Braviary, it was funny to think that Whips had a hobby such as that. Looking through them brought back such fond memories that filled him with joy, and disgust, what right did he have to hold on to these precious gifts!? But just as he was about to throw them all away, one page managed to catch his eye's.

It was a page from Captain Braviary, the bold hero who always valiantly found against they diabolical forces of the Hydregion terrorist group, but...something was off. The issue looked official, from artwork down to the artists signature, but he did not recognize it! Perhaps it was part of the new issue that Embertail had bought him at Mauville and he hadn't gotten around to reading? But as he looked closer, and began reading, his eye's grew wide, his claws began to shake, as he saw something that could not possible be true!

"Funny isn't it, how much we become like our hero's, Captain Braviary and you, both betraying everything you lo-*HURK*!!!", the shadow said, before being cut off by Whips, who had grabbed what could only be described as it's throat with his claws. The Dragonite slowly turned his head to look at his, his eye's no longer filled with fear or regret, but with sheer rage.

"W-what are, when did you, how did you grab me?!?!", the shadow replied utterly stunned! He didn't understand, while in the vision he was incorporeal, it should be impossible to touch him. That was until he remembered, just like the Ninetales, Dragon-type Pokemon were often magical creatures, and very few dragons, no, very few creatures, were more magical then a Dragonite! No doubt the dragons magic allowed him a bit more lee-way, even while under this spell, but that did not explain how Whips had been able to bounce back from despair like that. As though reading his mind, the fearsome Dragon lifted up the comic page and brought it fight up to the shadows face. On it was a picture of Captain Braviary, but not depicted as heroic or patriotic, instead the scene was dark and Captain Braviary looked foreboding, but that wasn't was set Whips off. No, on the page of the..."comic book", this so called "official print", had Captain Braviary saying words, words that were utter blasphemy for the brave and noble hero to EVER say, words that went against the very core of his character!

"HAIL HYDREGION..."

Whips knew that Captain Braviary would never, under ANY circumstances, join the very organization that stood against everything that the good captain fought for! Loyalty, duty, compassion, focus, everything Whips loved about the character...NO! The writers would never have him do something so stupid just for the sake of such a dumbass twist! After he saw that, everything fell into place!

He realized he couldn't recall actually being the one to do this to his family, only shadowy images that were less then a dream, images he quickly realized were fake, lacking detail or depth, as though it was someone else that did it and he was just seeing it through their eyes, like watching a memory. He remembered falling asleep, trying to fight against the spell overtaking him, he realized how fake everything seemed, and he also realized what this...thing was doing to him, and was also probably doing to his friends! Whips glared at the creature, his hands shook with the primal fury of a dragon, his eyes glowered even further as he readied to tear this black mass into tiny shreds. He intended pay it back for making him think he did these things, for putting his friends through this torture! He wanted nothing more right now to give into his anger!

...And that's why he let it go, O.K, he threw the shadow to the ground...less then gently, but still. He knew that if he acted out in anger, or hate, then all he would be doing is playing into his own fears and what this vision wanted. For Whips to believe himself to be a mindless, unstoppable, unfeeling, killing machine. No, he was better then that, Lockjaw, Embertail, Curt, Jasper, Raviel, Flare....they had all told him that he was better then that countless times, but he had always been to afraid to believe them. But no more! He realized now that he owed faith in himself not just to his friends, but to himself as well. Still, that didn't stop him from giving the shadow one hell of an intimidating glare, as the world faded away around him, and he felt himself wake up from the dream.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

"(I-It's O.K everyone, I think he's coming out of it)", a familiar, female voice said as Whips shook his head, wobbling to and fro for a moment. He blinked a few times in an attempt to get his vision to come back to him, and when he did what he saw was...not what he expected. Flare was on laying on the ground, or rather, it looked as though she had been thrown there, Raviel and Jasper were standing a good distance besides him and looked....ready to attack him with a Thunderbolt and Ice Beam respectively. It took Whips all of one second to realize that he had busted out of his ball, and while in his dream he may have grasped the Shadow, but in the real world he had grabbed Flare and he had almost...almost. Whips felt a shiver run down his spine and was all of a sudden a lot more happy with his decision NOT to tear the shadow into tiny pieces. Granted, Ninetales were a good deal more durable then they look, but Whips still felt uneasy about what he almost did. Jasper and Raviel almost unloaded on him, thinking the dream had made him go nuts, but Flare told them to hold their fire, apparently she was able to detect that Whips was coming out of his nightmare. Though Jasper and Raviel apologized from almost attacking him(O.K, Jasper gave a legit apology, Raviel made a snide remark about being happy about not having to fry him, which the Dragonite knew was his way of apologizing), Whips still felt like the guilty party here.

"(Don't worry about it, any of you, no one got hurt, and right now we need to worry about those who haven't made it out yet)", Flare said as she walked over to Cassie while making sure she steered the unconscious trainers (and Embertail) around to safety. Embertail, Curt, and Gerald were still unconscious, and they didn't know how well everyone else was holding up.

 

[Storybook]

Que felt incredibly heavy.

His head hurt with emotion he didn't dare to explain, simply because it didn't seem to need explanation. It was and is and always would be. It churned and boiled and threatened to lay the boy low from its intensity, strangely queer and powerfully overwhelming.

His head felt heavy.

The world was dark and stifled with fear, cold and solid, yet fragile, like brittle sheets of rock. But it was.. different then before. It was glittering and beautiful darkness, compelling darkness despite the fear that tinted its edges into despair.

Que wasn't alone.

No- the world was filled with voices, cold, hot, foreboding in the severity of their love. They whirled around him, a mist of sound, dainty, brittle, and sparkling as he scooped them into his hands.

"I promise I'll be home before dark."
His mother's voice of herself. The mist shattered in his hands as soon as it rattled his ears.
"I promise your father will come home someday soon."
His mother's again, but of his father. He looked into the mist, cupped in his hands, and saw their face, creased in desperation and rippled in love, as if they were sheets being shaken out, threadbare, trauma and hardship' thorns in their skin- and yet they were made of silk.

The image shattered.

"I promise this is the last time we are moving"
"I promise that we will play a game tonight"
"I promise that I'll be open all day tomorrow"
"I promise I will wake you when I get home, and together we will watch the stars"

The words shattered in his hand, and with them, the visions they gave- those of smiles and wrinkles beneath the eyes, of promise and hope and love. The mist thinned the more he scooped its words into his hands, and

broken promises dug into his skin like needles of glass.

"I promise I will call tonight"
His hands wept blood.
"I promise life will get better"
His eyes wept shriveled tears, solid and chunky, scoring his unblemished cheeks.
"I promise we won't be away for long"
The voice of his friends...
"I promise I will keep in touch"
...As they moved away.
"I promise.... I promise... I promise...."

He broke shard after shard of mist until the world was black and silent once more. His hands were mangled, and the blood pooled into his footprints as they cried. He began to walk forward, head heavy yet stance hopeful in silly desperation and doubt's exclusion- he picked up his feet as he walked.
He stood tall.
He didn't slouch.
He was proud in faith, pure as a pearl in his shredded skin and charcoal tears.

But the tears corroded the ground into a sluggish river, draped over the earth. It reminded the boy of the times that he wept in his mother's arms, and his grief was so strong that he smiled as he wailed, as if emotion was so cruel that, at one extreme, it started to turn into its opposite.

He walked, and the earth was coated in a river of broken promises manifested in blood and tears, a scar across the shadowed earth.

But the horizon....
He could see it now. Clearly. Every detail.
He could reach out and hold it in his broken hands as they bled a river of doubt and helplessness and hope as brutal as broken glass.
The horizon was a pastel mist
.
It shimmered, and he heard the sounds of paradise. Of the world for which he longed. Of the world for which he fought. Of the world for which he hoped.
"I promise the world will never change"
"I promise to always be here for you"
"I promise I will always love you"
"I promise you will always be loved"

"I promise that you will never be alone."
It dispersed in melancholy sound.

Que looked down at his hands, broken and bleeding from the world's lies. Que looked at the mist still threading the earth, and back at the river of blood and tears, the scar of ill created by pure intentions. He was shriveled and shattered and bleeding and bruised. He looked for the mist again, in its hope and promise and purity.

And then back at his broken, bloody hands.

Que wanted to weep.
And found that he could.

He woke in a room of metallic stature, cheeks bruised from jagged tears. The house was utter silence.
Que was alone.

He felt heavy, still, and his head slumped into his shoulders as the earth dragged him across the room. It was to be noted that the boy was five years old, which was a queer thing to note- of course he was five. He always had been and always would be.

Que found himself at his window, and looked out.

He could imagine the train, its toothy mouth hissing in possession and cackling with greed, trapping people in its belly to take them away to another time and another place. It would rear and cackle and spit in his face before the whistle slashed it away from his reality and Que was alone with just the smoke.

It had left recently. The smoke was still there, hanging in the air, waiting to be slashed out of existence by the wind.

He watched something turn into nothing.

And all of a sudden the boy, heavy with doubt and sorrow and fear, panicked.

She promised she'd be back, but what good were promises but lies disguised as good intent? The world was changing too quickly, too fast. People left and never came back. Nothing said that she couldn't do the same. Everything that was something would always become nothing. It was all a question of when. Who said it wouldn't be now?

His hands wrapped around each other and his breath scored the air in its panicked severity.

He wanted to run out the door and drag the train back and tell the world to never ever change again and always be calm and always be predictable and always be there. He would fight and fly and keep it all the way he wanted because sooner or later it would be nothing and Que didn't want it to be nothing and Que knew it was going to be nothing so, please, could the world not be nothing without him? But then, Que didn't want to be nothing either, so could everything just stop forever?

Instead, the boy stared out the window, as still as statue. His head was heavy- doubt and love and hatred and terror and despair crowded his mind. Rational thought leapt out the window to be speared by the wind.

He told himself to remain calm and then laughed in a fit of hysterics, panic gripping his throat and tears bulging at his eyes- the world was slowly unraveling into nothing but Que remained a something and Que wanted to be something but Que didn't want to be something when everything else was nothing and it was all nothing anyways and nothing anyone said could change that and no game he played could change his fate and no scheme he planned could keep the world the way it was forever and eventually it would all change and be nothing and Que would have to find a new something and then that new something would be nothing too and what was the point of it all?

And then Que noticed his reflection in the window- soft and pastel and clear, with eyes a blue so loving and soft that they could be blankets.

He wrapped himself in his own gaze, and told himself to be calm again. His breathing softened, and all of a sudden Que wasn't at the window but was playing chess on the horizon, he and his partner as black as silhouettes. Paper-thin.

Speared out by the wind.

His reflection vanished.

Que was cold, and his mouth sputtered as if he were a guppy.

He wanted to panic but was scared to panic so forgot how to panic all together.
He wanted to cry but was scared to cry so forgot how to cry all together.
He wanted to love but was scared to love and forgot how to love all together.

And Que was back at the windowsill, his blue eyes a steely platinum, and the reflection had vanished and Que was truly alone.

But it was alright.

He was on the floor, snapping puzzle pieces back together, always missing one, the book of himself close at hand but never truly a part of him because it hurt to hold it for too long.

Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.

He was a mechanical void.

Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.

Free in nothing.

Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.

Never stopping, robotically searching for the right piece and snapping it into place, allowing only thin satisfaction to swell in his breast.

Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.
Snap.

And suddenly there was nothing- no darkness nor light, no joy nor fear, no hate nor love-
and Que was numb.


The world was bright and Que wasn't alone- not remotely, for the room burned with sound and life- sound and life and... laughter. For the first time, Que was confused at the sudden change in scenery. He felt like he was awake, and yet he hadn't been asleep. Que was confused, and then Que was confused that he was confused because he saw no reason to be confused, and then the boy decided to just abandon the word all together because now he had used it so many times that the word confused sounded more and more confusing.

Perplexed, the boy reached to resettle his glasses, surprised to find one of the lenses shattered. He blinked. There was a girl, too, uncomfortably close, strangely beaten yet seemingly stronger than him. Cassie, he remembered. He reveled in the learning of names- thus, it seemed queer to him that he would need to remember. It said that perhaps he could forget.

The boy removed his left hand from his glasses, fiddling impulsively with his lip.

"I feel like I'm trying to put together a puzzle, but all the pieces have been replaced with ones from different puzzles and none of them fit together," the boy said after a pause. speaking more to himself than the girl. His voice was light in perplexion, tasting metallic yet strangely childish all the same. It was weird for the boy to convey what he really felt through his voice, and even weirder because something inside him was telling him to keep his face blank, and so it was. It was as if there were two of him in his body, each thinking the same thing but ending in different results.

He felt strangely... broken. Like a little piece of him had been replaced by a different piece of him, and then someone took a mallet and just shattered the whole darn thing.

"They're broken," the boy repeated, this time out loud, as he reached for his glasses again. He felt as if half of him was in a room, alone and cold and metallic, staring out a window and looking for his reflection. The other half was in a sort of ruin, torches... no, light from a Ninetails dappling the rubble as a person who seemed hollow and caved in sat across from him.

His hand slipped down to his cheek, and his skin was as cold and thin as a sheet of ice. His platinum eyes slipped down, too, to stare at his wrist, and the skin was pale, translucent, ghostly, and unblemished. His hand slipped further, tracing the ice like frozen tears that clung to his shirt.

His gaze rose with his voice, which spoke, simply, "Cassie," as if reminding himself of the facts. And then he touched her hand, softly, barely grazing the skin. It was warm and ferociously cold at the same time.

Then Que recoiled, trying to stand as if to flee, but being pulled down again by the earth.

His breath was short and he spoke the realization that seemed to be brought upon him by her skin. His voice was cold and crinkly, fearful and thin, akin to aluminum foil, denying the realization before he realized what it was.

"But I couldn't have been dreaming.

It was-"

The last word hung on his tongue. Truth.
He'd always said he wanted the truth, but Que would never be able to handle it. The nightmare had forced it on him- had brought his subconscious before his eyes. He understood now the reason the exile from himself. But Que wasn't meant to be able to handle it, Que wasn't meant to be able to understand, and even though he tried to again to cut it away, the truth was no longer in his subconscious.

It was right before his eyes.

His veins pulsed once in a rush of heat and his eyes softened in pain.

And then Que was numb.
Skin ghostly.
Eyes metallic.

Numb.

 

[PentheWonderful]

Deafening. Robust. There was only silence, yet Cassie had never experienced such loudness. Perhaps it was an overload of senses. Of too many things happening at once. Watching a monster, appear from a flash of light. Gigantic, dark, and heartless. Fangs bared, claws drawn. Looming with deathly intent as she watched, dazed, over Que’s shoulder. A moment where you’re sure, undoubtedly sure that your time had come. And yet, you’re too torn between reality and fantasy. Lady did not even bat an eyelash.

Oh, how low had she sunk?

In a moment’s time, Raviel and a newly released Jasper defended them, as the beast snatched Flare up in its claw with terrifying ease. Cassie pictured blood. Organs. Splattering like a shower of red to paint its vicinity. And yet, it never came. It never happened. What was, was not, and what wasn’t, was. Flare dropped to the ground and fooled Cassie into thinking it was Nine. Her grip loosened on Que’s shoulders, her legs preparing to bolt, and yet, she stopped herself when fact rudely slapped her across her face, reminding her he was safely in his pokeball.

And the beast? The beast was just Whips.

"I feel like I'm trying to put together a puzzle, but all the pieces have been replaced with ones from different puzzles and none of them fit together,"

Cassie felt her gaze unglue, coming loose to flicker back to the person before her. A young boy, meekly fixing his broken glasses. And she remembered to blink. What had happened? Her mind felt stiff and short and she couldn’t wrap it around the simplest of facts. For instance, fact that she was living still. That this was real. Ergo, it took her a moment too long to process what Que had said, and a few minutes more of blank, idiotic staring to come up with an answer. Yet the stranger, just as confused and dazed, managed to beat her to it.

"They're broken,"

And rattled her thoughts again.

Her gaze sifted, uncomfortably, or perhaps indifferently, to the side, as her mind picked at scabs of lost thought, and also attempting to rekindle an answer, interrupted by a sudden pressure, so light and vague, yet, still real. Her eyes moved there, to the touch separated by the fabric of her glove. Tentative and curious. As if testing, wondering. Cassie knew she wasn’t the only hallucinogenic one there, at least.

"But I couldn't have been dreaming. It was-"

A pause, and Cassie looks up and sees the pain corroding his very soul. And so she stopped thinking, and simply spoke,

“I guess it depends on the size of the pieces. Even if they’re broken. With so many pieces from so many puzzles, there’s bound to be one or two that fit. Even if they don’t, you can always force them together. Sure it won’t be perfect, and the picture won’t be pretty. Maybe there won’t even be a picture at all.” Those tired, forlorn irises observed Que’s ice blue, prickling memories of a man she once knew with those same hues. “But they’ll be harder to take apart, and you won’t miss a piece or two that’s not there. No one will ever have the same set as you, and it’ll never stop growing. As ugly, and imperfect as it is.”

“Purrrow?” Lady began bobbing her head, her nose twitching with considerable frequency. Her luminescent, emerald eyes gleamed with desire as they stared on to one of the nearby torches. As such, Cassie’s eyes were also directed there.

“…Cadeaux… Précieux… de plumes de croissant brûlent… Plus lumineux que les mensonges de l'obscurité.” Cassie blinked her eyes slowly. “Burn…” And again it takes her a moment too long to wrap her stiff, short mind around it. “Torches… It’s in the torches…!”

Her voice was but a mere squeak. Insignificant. Irrelevant. Her body scrambled, flailing and slipping as she attempted to grasp the said item. Reaching, scraping, but simply being two inches too far from reach. Lady instead took the leap of faith, plunging right into the carved, cone shaped stone torch. A puff of ash, glittering with strange lime colored particles that her Purrloin seemed to find pleasure rolling in. “They… were burning the crescent wings… And you’re covered in it!”

Cassie grabbed Lady’s paw, yanking her down with a yowl of protest before she ran to the closest person cradled safely with Flare’s psychic power; Gerald. Her body was simply acting, moving on its own will and yet, that sharp, burning pain seared the back of her neck yet again, easily drawing out a scream of pain as her free hand shot to clasp it. It was real. She knew it was. It was there. Her body hunched over, knees buckling. Lady squirmed to get free, yet Cassie forced herself on.

“I’m sorry.”

And with that, she shoved the Purrloin into Gerald’s face, rubbing her crescent wing ash coated fur against his nose and eyes and everything she could reach. The kitten screeched in displeasure, making sure to dig her tiny claws in every opportunity she got as a form of revenge, and Cassie stopped as soon as she saw the red head stir.

Next, she ran to Curt, and repeated the process though with difficulty. Lady put up a greater fight knowing what was coming. Her claws and fangs were focused onto Cassie’s hand that time, at the very least, leaving Curt with only the Purrloin’s soft, albeit dusty, fur. “Yeah, there we go… Good girl… Give me everything you got.”

With that, the kitten’s grip tightened exponentially, threatening to penetrate the thick fabric of her glove. Her hand impishly made their way to her belt, where Nine’s pokeball was, and clicked its button, releasing the trashing, sleeping Pokemon. Kneeling and moving his head to her lap. The fur on his cheek was soaked with tears streaming down his eyes, his legs kicking occasionally, and his tail flicking. She brought Lady’s fur to his snout, allowing him to breathe the ash in.

Just like that, his ruby eyes fluttered open, and he inhaled deeply. And sighed. ‘C-… Cassie…? Is that… Really you?’

“Yeah… Yeah it’s me. You’re safe now…” Cassie curled her free arm around his head, bringing him up for an embrace. “Okay… That’s… Everyone…” With her Purrloin still very much attached to her hand, Cassie let out a long breath, and held her close to her chest, simply cradling her, as the trainer fell back to the ground. “You did it girl…” Her hand caressed between Lady’s ears lovingly, convincing the kitten to loosen her grip on Cassie’s hand. She purred, and rubbed back against her trainer’s chin. “My brilliant girl…”

And she spoke the words her mother never said to her.

Alas, peace was fleeting, and soon, that searing pain returned, in time with a blinding beam of light that came barreling through with deadly intensity. Cassie was not quick enough to react to save her maladjusted eyes. She was utterly blind. Clutching Lady.

“Ahaha! Hahaha! There you are! Geez, do you have any idea how annoyingly intricate this place is?” There came Thomas’ voice. So chilling and sharp it made the hairs on the back of Cassie’s neck stand on end. She couldn’t see, she was blind, and yet, she was glad she was. Oh so glad.

‘Thomas…?! Thomas?! Why the hell…! Why the hell are you doing this to us?!’ Nine yelled through his telepathy, though he was barely able to lift his head. ‘How do you keep finding us?!’

“Hey, not so loud, buddy you’re giving me a headache here!” Thomas cackled, rubbing his temples while his teammates discreetly moved into ambush position. One to take on each trainer. “Now… How about you men… Man up and hand yourselves in and we’ll get out of this dump, huh?” His eye glinted, however, at the sight of an extra person in their party. Bailey. “Whoa, what’s this? Another one? You guys just keep multiplying, how do you do that?”

‘Answer my question!’ Nine let out a growl, baring his teeth, and shuffling to his feet as anger refueled his strength.

“Okay! If you wanna know so badly.” Thomas laughed, pulling out his dowsing machine as it beeped its steady, monotonous beeps. “We planted a tracking device. In your trainer. Pretty smart, huh?”

Their Pokemon were drawn. All of them. Starting from all ten Weavile, the several Ratatta and Zubat, a Raticate, a Koffing, a Weezing, the Muk, and a Bisharp. Naturally, Cassie withdrew Lady, while Nine arched his back, creating the illusion of a bigger form, and spread his tails methodically like that of a fan. His teeth bared, ready for combat, yet his trainer was not.

Instead, her hand clutched the back of her neck, feeling her stomach churn and shrivel inside of her.

 

[BurbleBurble]

Gerald cringed as he was pinned down by the husk, followed by yelling as he tried to get free of it's weight. Despite the rabbit being quite small, for some reason it layed on Gerald like a sack of bricks. Crushing him down with remorse, confusion, and fear. Remorse he had no way of stopping his Lopunny's death, confusion as to where it came from, what happened to the poor thing, and fear at the fact a several days old body had collapsed on him, of a team member he was close to, to add insult to injury.

Finally he found the power to push the corpse off of his own body, quickly picking himself up, his jacket had deep red splotches of blood and the occasional maggot...a bit more than occasional, actually. The point was, the jacket was disgusting, the years of prior abuse not helping...

Getting a better look at the corpse, it was truly mangled and disgusting. For starters, his head was completely empty, at least where the head and mind should've been. The mouth of the Lopunny wasn't empty, but Gerald wished it was. Ants scattered around blackened teeth and grayed gums, panicking after the fall. A patch of rotting skin was on it's left cheek, verging on collapse, which wasn't very surprising considering the state of the rest of it's head. The ears he was always so protective of were messily knotted and slashed at in several places, making the once silky appearance of them rough and clotted. One ear was half missing, even.

Working his way down the body, there was the throat. Almost completely ripped out, along with being messily torn open, to the point it was a miracle the head even stayed on. Then the main torso, which had several gouges on it for starters, and deep divot further down the abdomen, filled with maggots and flies buzzing around it. Gerald didn't want to know what they were crowding around. Then came the arms, one of which was fine, sans the previously noted messy knotted hair on it's cuff, while the other was missing entirely, including it's shoulder. This seemed to be the main cause of the poor thing's blood loss, though other factors were there as well.

Finally, the lower body wasn't in the greatest shape. One of the legs was mangled and snapped in a terrible way, as if someone grabbed it mid-kick and twisted it fast, before breaking it in two. The other leg was half missing, with a bloodied stump where a foot should've been.

Tears dripped onto the dead body. Why? Why did they deserve this? They would only act in self-defense...well, maybe that was a bit too generous for some of them...but still. No one deserved being completely eviscerated, or melted alive, or turned into dust. The brutal deaths of his four team members

Four. The number four tugged at his mind. What was it? No. There was something wrong with the number. He associated it with his team...so he didn't have four team members. But then...how many? What was he forgetting? For some reason Gerald recalled the blot. The familiarity of it...he realized why.

His fifth team member. He shuddered. No...it couldn't be. She would never. "No. It's not...it doesn't exist..." He attempted to reassure himself. He would close his eyes and open them, and it all be over.

But it's never that simple.

Step, step. Footsteps resounded near him, before abruptly stopping.

His still sealed eyes didn't open. This was all just a big dream? He never saw Cassie skating into the brush. He never met up with Curt and his friend afterwards. Team Rocket never attacked them all, and Dead Man's drop didn't exist. He'd open his eyes, and stare into the sunlight. That what would happen...

But it's never that simple.

The man let out a low chuckle as he opened his eyes and stared up.

"Good morning Jun-"

Whatever semblance of happiness or relief quickly faded as he realized the black void was still present. Along with a Braixen, jaws dripping with the despised red substance.

June growled. Her food was being blocked.

Gerald quickly backed away from the rabbit, allowing the fox to lean down at the abdomen. "June...s-stop!" His words meant nothing. She began digging up maggots to find her prize. "JUNE!" He called again. Yet again it was a futile attempt. She began to grasp the Lopunny's stomach, ready to pull it free. "JUNE! June, please stop!" He crawled towards her, the Braixen about to bite into the maggot covered stomach. Gerald grabbed June's shoulders. "JUNE, LISTEN!"

She answered at last, with a fierce growl. Dropping the loose organ, the fox drew her stick, and used Psychic to push him off. Gerald wasn't expecting her to still be aware of those ablities. Now on the floor, he could here the fox pacing towards him, stepping over the corpse. Her growling never seized. "J-June...I'm..."

Her hateful stare locked with Gerald's eyes. Her paws went towards his face. "I'm...Sorry." And with those words, June ripped into his face.

-----

"AUGH!" Gerald leapt back to life in the real world, his face exploding in pain. "W-what?" He noted the red dripping down his face, which was also...dusty? He was fairly confused. "Did she really...? Was it not? I...?"

He got up, his legs shaking with anticipation. Shivering, he noted a certain warmth returning to him. But this wasn't his "cozy" apartment, it was Dead Man's drop. At least...he thought it was. He remembered seeing some man made structure before it went black...that reminded him. The anxious man plucked a Pokeball off his belt, and gazed into it. It happened to be his Scolipede, who was completely fine. "No way..."

He shifted his gaze up to the people in the hall. Cassie had her Purrloin out, who was also happened to be dusty. There was Curt and the other man, who were stirring. The boy was awake (was his name Que or something?), but there was one last person. A woman, familiar but not. Did he know her?

But that ceased to be relevant as a familiar condescending tone filled the room.

“Ahaha! Hahaha! There you are! Geez, do you have any idea how annoyingly intricate this place is?”

As he continued talking, Gerald felt a deep resent building in him. He didn't have to scarred for life if it weren't for this asshole. No one needed to be scarred thanks to him. But then it culminated at him revealing they were tracking Cassie.

"FUCK YOU!"

Gerald didn't remember the last time he felt like this. Then again, he almost never felt this deep hatred, like, ever.

"I DIDN'T NEED THIS! ALL I WANTED WAS TO MAKE SURE THIS PERSON WAS FINE. BUT THEN YOUR STUPID SAD ASS CAME AND RUINED IT! THEN YOU CHASE US INTO THIS DAMNED CAVE, WHERE I'M FAIRLY SURE I SAW PEOPLE CLOSE TO ME GET KILLED IN A MULTITUDE OF VICIOUS WAYS, AND NOW THIS?? WELL END OF THE LINE MOTHERFUCKER. WE CAN DESTROY EVERY ONE OF YOUR DUMBASS POKEMON, AND PROCEED TO SEND YOU CRYING BACK TO YOUR SURPERIORS, PUSSY! AND HERE, HAVE A GIFT!"

And with that, he picked up a fairly large stone, and chucked it at Thomas's face. Perhaps it wasn't the smartest move to start a fight so quickly, but he was caught in the moment, and he wanted Thomas to pay. His hands free, he snatched another Pokeball off his belt.

He was sick of running, and at this point, the group had no choice but to fight really.

 

[Curtkid]

The corpses emitted a foul stench that waived through Curt's nostrils, yet the trainer hardly reacted to the foul odor, indeed he stood as still as wood, eye's locked at the display before him. Two bodies, one of a Cubone and one of a Croconaw, hardly recognizable from the mangled mess they had become, with no explanation as to how or why, but somehow he felt like it was his fault. He wanted to cry, he felt like he should cry, but he had already loosed so many tears already, none more would come. Instead he just sunk to his knee's and asked himself a question that had come up so many times:

"Why?"

He didn't not move from the spot, his mind a torrent of pain over further lost, and fear over what fates could possible have befallen Whips or..... NO! He couldn't even bare to think about it as he clutched his heads, as though trying to squish the thoughts inside his brain. It was constantly dancing around his head, the undeniable truth of what had just conspired, they had made a promise together, all five of them when they began their journey and left Cherrygrove, Embertail, Whips, Lockjaw, Jasper, and himself. Curt promised them that he would never view himself as their owner or them his property, they would be partners, equals, they would support each other and help one another achieve their dreams, they would look out for one another and together, they would all climb to the top. But now, now.....

"I failed them...after all the times they helped me, I couldn't help them"

He was so wrapped up in his own mental torment, that he did not even noticed the loud, heavy thumping of a being of tranquil fury closing in on him, even as its great shadow loomed over him like the Reaper itself. The great Dragonite stood tall, looking down on him with a look of disdain that he had never, even on his worse day's, ever seen on Whips. His accusatory glare, made it clear who he thought the blame should fall on for these lost lives, and he was looking to see justice done. The beast towered over the man, it would be so easy to just pop his head like an overripe grape and make him pay for the incompetence that got his friends slaughtered. Curt's fate was sealed, the trainer could not even begin to hope to overpower a creature like him on his best day, so what chance did he have now? The Dragonite glared as the sorry excuse for a trainer, clenched his fist and....

"A-are you going to do it?", Curt muttered, his voice slightly louder then one would expect from a person in his emotional state, "if you think it's what I deserve, then I won't attempt to fight back..." The words seemed to give the Dragonite pause, as though he was expecting Curt to protest, run away, or at least fight back, but he just knelt there, unmoving, not even bothering to turn and look at him. It almost seemed as though he was already broken.....

"I didn't live up to our promise, I failed them, I failed you...j-just say you'll...", Curt said as he finally picked himself up, turning to look at Whips, "Embertail's still out there, you don't owe me anything, but for his sake, the sake of our friend, please, keep him safe..." And with that said, Curt dropped his head, looking at the hard, rock floor to await his punishment. The Dragonite gave Curt one last glare, and pulled his fist back. Curt felt the rushing of air against his face as the Dragons fist came rocking towards him....but he felt no impact. Moments passed, it seemed like it should have been a short time, but for Curt it felt like an eternity. Eventually, Curt found the will to lift his head and meet the Dragonites eyes, but when he looked up, he was no where to be seen. He looked all around the cavern-lie gorge, his mind a buzz with countless questions: Where did he go? Why did he go? What did this mean for him now? Curt stood there in almost a trance like state, Whips sudden disappearance adding to the already traumatic events he recently went through left Curt in a daze. Until.....

"GHAARROUGH!"

Curts popped back into focus immediately, he knew that cry anywhere, and the tone of the yelled made is sound like he was...

Finally, Curt was broken from his stupor as he immediately ran at break neck speed towards the sounds of the screaming, running perhaps faster then he had ever ran before. Embertail was his oldest friend, his greatest companion, he was his-if anything happened to Embertail Curt wasn't sure how he would be able to carry on. For once, it appeared, he got a small break as the cries were growing louder at a rapid pace, going by that, he would be on Embertail in a minute, two at most, but even that seemed like far to great a time span. The cries practically seemed to be inside his own head when he turned into what almost looked like a hollowed out room, Curt didn't question it, all that mattered to him was the sight of his orange companion that meet his gaze, who seemed to be doing his best to stay out of the way of.....

"No", Curt said in what couldn't even be called a whisper. His mind once again went into a frenzy as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing, he knew what he was looking at, he definitely knew what he was looking at, but it was impossible! They killed it! They all saw Nero Blaze Kick that monsters own attack back at it, incinerating that monstrosity. Hovering in the middle of the room was what only could be described as a great, orange, extra-terrestrial life form, orange and blue tentacles protruded from where its arms should have been, loud cracks could be heard as they whipped against each other. A great, purple gem adorned the alien super-soldiers chest, giving off a in worldly glow that seemed to permeate through the entire room. Curts sudden appearance seemed to have attracted both Embertail and the monsters attention, as both turned to look at him, Embertail had an expression of terror the likes of which Curt had never seen on the Charmander, but...the creature, it's eyes! Curt never forgot the pressure, the feeling for standing before something far greater then he could imagine, when he first looked into the aliens twisted gaze back at Meteor Falls.

The monster just looked at him for a second, just enough to let Curt know what he had stepped into, before turning his attention back to Embertail. The Charmander, his attention still on Curt, was caught unaware and quickly wrapped up in the monsters sick appendages, Embertail let out a cry a he squirmed in a vain attempt to get out. Curt didn't even hesitate, not having any of him team to back him up, the best he thought he could do was to try to throw his knife at it, if nothing else it might distract the creature long enough so Embertail to escape. Curt reached into his pocket to loose his blade, but right at the moment he had drawn it above his head, Curt felt a powerful psychic force take hold of him, knocking him back and pinning him against the wall.

Curt let out a cry of his own as the wind was knocked out of him, he coughed and sputtered as the creature turned towards him, lifting lift Embertail up to eye level. Curt recovered as quickly as he could before immediately pushing against the monsters attack, and though Curt was not a weak man, the creature's power was far greater then anything he had ever seen, he knew that when he first saw it at Meteor Falls two months ago, even more, his body felt...so heavy for some reason, almost like it had gone numb. Still, he struggled and struggled, even as his muscled cried for him to stop, even when he realized it was all a vain effort, he kept on trying to push against the creatures power. The alien monster looked at Curt with an expression one couldn't quite describe, Disdain? Amusement? Tiredness? All that registered to Curt right now was the look of terror on Embertail face, he had stopped struggling now, frantically trying to think of something, anything to get free, but his mind felt so clouded, so heavy, like something was trying to stop him from thinking. It was at this moment Curt and Embertail looked into one another.

Curt couldn't say what the Charmander saw in his eyes, but Curt knew what he saw in the Lizard Pokemon's. Fear over his inevitable fate. Betrayal at Curts failure to rescue him. Anger at dragging him here to find Cassie, yes, that was the emotion that was probably strongest in the Fire Pokemon's eye's. A painful kind of anger one had when someone close to you hurt you, failed you when you needed them most. That was the look one would say Embertail had on his face when the alien ripped him in half.

He may have let out a cry, maybe he didn't, Curts face was stone, and all he could process was the scene being displayed before him. Entrails hung from both ends of the Charmanders body, they shined fresh and bright pink even through the blood, and there was blood, oh was there blood. Curt saw the creatures body twitch and spasm a few times before finally going limp, the flame on his tail faded away the moment he want still, at though the lower half of his body somehow sensed the exact moment life left its body. The Pokemons face, one that Curt always associated with joy, cheer, persistent optimism, now held a blank, dulled-eyed expression of half-shock. Still, the state of the body didn't stick in Curts mind the way the creatures eyes did right before the creature ripped him in to, the look of fear, betrayl, and anger, so much anger. The way he looked at Curt, like its last act on this world was to make sure that, in his last moments, Curt knew that Embertail hated him.

That wasn't Embertail

Curt had known Embertail almost since before he knew how to talk, they had grown up together, they had traveled together, they had worked together, they had even been through trails that put their lives and the lives of their friends in danger. Curt, Embertail, and the rest of his team have had more brushes with death then Curt was comfortable with admitting, but no matter how bad things got, Embertail never stopped believing that they could somehow pull through, even when things seemed absolutely hopeless, the Charmander always maintained a positive attitude. Not to mention that Curt knew Embertail wouldn't want the last thing he did on this world would to be to express hate towards someone, especially him. Even back at Meteor Falls, their darkest hour, when Curt was almost certain they were going to die, Embertail never gave up, he never stopped fighting, and no matter how dark things got, he always had that stupid, goofy smile on his face! Hell, even when that thing left Embertail absolutely battered and bruise, practically at Deaths Door, Embertail still somehow found the strength to muster up a Flare Blitz and strike the space creature when it was choking the life out of Curt with its Psychic energy. And now that he thought of it, why didn't this supposed "Embertail" use Flare Blitz to escape from the creature? He didn't look wounded when the monster wrapped him up, and judging by the way he was violently struggling, he still had a good amount of energy left.

And with that, everything came flooding back to him, falling into the gorge, the Rockets attack, him calling out Flare to attempt to light the Muk slime on fire, Cassie screaming and telling him to run, the heaviness that filled his head as he tried harder and harder to run, and those great, terrifying blue eyes. It was here that it clicked for Curt, much like back at Jacobs dorm room, this, all that he saw, everything he had been through, it was all a vision! Nothing here was real, no one had died, he didn't fail at keeping his promise to his friends! Curts brief spurt of joy at this realization was quickly tempered by the thought that, if this was effecting him, then it was almost certainly affecting everyone else, and he was still stuck in this nightmare with that monster glaring down at him. It was here that Curt remembered the space alien, no doubt fake as everything else here, looking down at him with a neutral expression, as though waiting for Curts reaction, as Curt had been silent for quite some time with a consent blank expression on his face. The torrent of emotion he was feeling he left him with straight face, and he wasn't even sure how to emote, much less what to say or how to react to this thing. He was happy that everyone else was alive (albeit also trapped in a vision), he was angry at this thing for trapping them in these nightmares, he was still a bit emotionally twisted and sick about what he saw, and he was confused as to how this was happening. Unsure of exactly what to say, he slowly raised his head, looked the outer-world terror in its frightful gaze, opened his mouth and said:

"That wasn't bad, but the real thing was just a little bit scarier", Curt said in a flat voice. No anger at being trapped here and put through this, no snarkiness at having figured this all out, just a flat, straightforward tone as though Curt was giving a critique on the shadows work. The space monster adorned a look of utter frustration for just a moment before exploding into a great, black mass that seemed to encompass his entire field of view, leaving him unable to see anything except for two, sharp, glowing, electric blue eyes. Curt knew this was it, somehow, something was telling him he just had to face this....thing down and he would be free of this place. He could do it, he'd gotten this far, he knew he could!

It was at this moment of final confrontation when bright, silvery shards appeared to be falling into the darkness, as it did the shadows the encompassed him almost seemed to "run away", as though afraid of the silver shard. Curt felt a lightness run through him, he wasn't an expert on supernatural enchantments or what-not, but it felt like something was pulling him out of this vision. The blue eyes seemed to realize this to, as it looked up in...was the shock, fear even? as the darkness melted away around them, giving way to the light. However, the moments before the shadow was chased away and Curts departure from the nightmare, the eyes turned to look at him one last time, and a voice, this time one clearly not a manifestation of his own fears, rang through his head.

"Well, it seems our time has been cut short trainer...so be it, at the very least, I have learned the glue that keeps you together", it said, and Curt couldn't even begin to fathom what it meant by that.

"Oh, and thank-you for the critique!", was the last thing Curt heard before he awoke to what felt like a ball of fuzz being shoved in his face.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"ACK! PCKAT! STOP IT, I'M UP, I'M UP!", Curt yelled as he squirmed under Lady as her furry body was being shoved into his face. Between the yowls of the cat and the numerous cries of Curts team, it was not a very exceptional way to wake up, and boy did Curt let out one heck of a groan as he sat himself up. Curt groggily rubbed his eyes in an attempt to clear his vision (how long was he out for?) as the shapes of Whips, Jasper, Raviel, and Flare began to take shape. The entire team had surrounded Curt, eyeing him like a hawk as Cassie and Lady attempted to snap him out of his nightmare, and a relieved sigh upon seeing him wake up was shared by the entire group.

"(Everyone give him some space, he didn't come out of the nightmare on his own so there is no telling how he could react)", Flare said to the others, who obliged her request but did not take their eyes of Curt, Flare herself stayed relatively close to Curt to check on him, "(Curt, do you know where you are? Do-Do you know who I am, Do you know who you are?)"

"Yer welcame...", Curt mumbled in a sleepy groan, swaying back and forth slightly.

".....wat", Flare barked, though, taking after Embertail, her bark did sound surprisingly close to human speech, guess you learn something when living for over 300 years.

"Ugh, er nothing Flare....FLARE, YOU'RE ALRIGHT!", Curt yelled as he wrapped his arm around the surprised fox, she back petaled but didn't attempt to throw Curt off her, "RAVIEL, JASPER, WHIPS! You guys are alright too, haha, so it really was a- wait, what about....." Curt turned his head to see Embertail lying on the ground, he hadn't gotten up yet but he was still clearly alive, relieved to see Embertail in one piece, Curt looked around the area in an attempt to locate Lockjaw, before realizing to check his Ball, and sure enough, he saw the Alligator Pokemon smiling at him through the see through top of the Pokeball, relieved his trainer was alright. Curt felt a rustle on his head, Jasper had come over just to get a closer look at Curt to make sure he was O.K, but still wanted to make sure she didn't look like a complete bleeding heart while doing it. Whips and Raviel hadn't moved, but they both had small, relieved smiles knowing Embertail and Curt were O.K, and that this "nightmare" ordeal was finally over.

Knowing now that all of his team was safe and accounted for, he began to look at everyone else's condition, and thank-fully it looked mostly positive. Gerald was already awake, but man, did he looked shell-shocked, Jacob seemed to be stirring from his sleep, looking like he'd wake at any moment. Que was also on his feet, he looked like he went through an ordeal to, but not as bad as Gerald (seriously, that guy looked like just gut his own mother!), and Cassie was working on waking up Nine. Over near Cassie seemed to be, was that Bailey, when'd she get here? First running into Gerald and then her, small world indeed. But that was nothing to worry about, everyone was O.K, everyone was fine, granted they definitely weren't better off for the experience, but still....
Flare was persistent about his condition and mental state though, but she did quickly fill him in on what happened to everyone, what went on while he was asleep, and what they did to wake them up.

"(Curt, I'm sorry to nag, but are you sure you're O.K, I can fathom an idea what you went through, we all can, and I know the nightmare might have...ended at an inopportune time that could effect you in a, worse way then if you escaped normally)", Flare said through her telepathy. Not that she blamed Cassie for freeing them, a person could potentially be stuck in that nightmare for ever, living through the same horrors over and over again, until their body finally shuts down due to starvation or, other means. Curt however, just stood up and gave his back a quick crinke, he was just happy to see everyone safe and out of that Hell.

"Ah I'm...just as good as all of you are, if you want to be worried about someone, be worried about Gerald, that guy looks like he had been through one Hell of an ordeal, I mean, if anyone needs one of your sodas Embertail, its him....Embertail?", Curt said as he turned to look at his Charmander companion, who was still lying face down on the floor, a faint look of distress on his face as he slumbered. A moment of silence passed before they group moved to the Lizard Pokemon as fast as they could to check on him, to try and find out what was wrong. Almost immediately Jasper slapped Embertails face and growled at him to wake up, but it did nothing to awaken the Charmander.

"F-Flare what's going on, Cassie and Lady sprinkled that- Jasper stop slapping him, it's not working!-sprinkled that...stuff on them too right, so why isn't he waking up?", Curt said, worry in his voice as he flipped Embertail on his back and lifted his head of the ground. They had just gotten through one nightmare, he didn't want to deal with this supernatural crap anymore!

"(I-I'm not sure, Cresent Wings have some magic infused with them that is based on the kind of magic Fairy-Pokemon have, I feared it might not be as potent on Fire-type Pokemon, but when I saw Nine wake up I thought... but then again, Ninetales have more...mystical energy then most Pokemon, perhaps his magic was able to meld with the Cresent Wings magic an amplify its effect, maybe I could try to do the same for Embertail?)", Flare said, though she didn't sound very confident in her words. Still, as far as the rest of them were concerned, it was enough to go on.

"Alright, so all we gotta do is give him more of that Lunar crap, let's go get Lady and shove her in Embert-"

“Ahaha! Hahaha! There you are! Geez, do you have any idea how annoyingly intricate this place is?”, cackled an irritatingly familiar voice. Heads turned to see the man who forced them into this mess himself, Thomas, standing just a few yards away. Curt groaned as he cast an angry, yet weary glance at the man, if any good came out of his experience with that Nightmare, it was reminding him that he faced worse, far worse, then some over confident jackass. Really, they lucked out with that Nightmare incident, if they weren't forced to run, Flare could have laid down a nice bed of fire at the base of that Muk slime slide, or at the very least have Jasper coat the ride down with jagged stones with her Stealth Rock to cut up the Rockets and their Pokemon on their decent. No, Thomas was sneaky, a good tracker, and hell, maybe he was even a bit clever, but he made it clear when it came to the fray he wasn't your go to man. Though Curt had to admit, he did feel at tad nervous when he saw the Rockets and their Pokemon stepped from the shadows, effectively having them surrounded.

The group tried their best to form a sort of defensive position to cover each other as Curt slugged Embertail over his shoulder (thankfully, his flame was still fairly cool). However, it seemed like the fighting wouldn't break out yet as they watched Nine confront Thomas, demanding answers as to how they had found them and why they were chasing them. That immediately drew Curts attention, it was a good question, he wasn't sure how bad the visions were for the Rockets, but even still, if something sent him into a trance like that the first thing he'd want to do when he woke up is get the hell out of his current location. Were they really that valuable to Team Rocket, or was the average grunt payed way more then Curt was lead to believe?

“Okay! If you wanna know so badly.” Thomas laughed, pulling out his dowsing machine as it beeped its steady, monotonous beeps. “We planted a tracking device. In your trainer. Pretty smart, huh?”

Yep, very good tracker indeed, Thomas had them completely surrounded, just like how Ramsey Bolton had his army surrounded Jon Snow's in that episode of Game of Thrones. Curt felt sweat form on his brow as he tried to stay calm and keep his mind clear, they needed to get Embertail out of that Nightmare as soon as they could, if Thomas captured them, well, Curt doubted he'd put in the effort to wake Embertail up (hell he wouldn't be surprised if he insisted on keeping Embertail trapped, if only to torture him). Curt looked at their party, measuring their chances, even with Bailey he wasn't completely certain about their chances of success while surrounded. Any other instance, he'd just have Whips try to break through their wall, but the large number of Weavile Team Rocket had on their side made Whips chances of pulling that off very slim, he'd only ask the Dragonite to do that as a last resort. No, their best bet was to have someone or something strike them from behind, but unlike Jon Snow, they didn't have the Knights of the Vale to strike their opposition from behind and break their phalanx.

"Wait....strike them from...guy's, I have an idea!", Curt whispered to his party, trying not to move to much so as to avoid drawing attention to them, "the only problem is we need some sort of distraction, if anyone that isn't Raviel (Reh?) has any idea that could possibly get the Rockets attention, I would really like it if you did it rig-

"FUCK YOU!", Gerald yelled.

"That'll work...", Curt muttered, stunned at the boys outburst. Curt had seen Gerald quite a bit during that whole incident with the Kalos Festival, and he never saw the guy burst out in such a rage like that before. Geralds fury filled screams echoed through the cavern, his beet red face, the vain that seemed ready to pop on his forehead, it was a display that was even pulling in the attention of the Rockets and their Pokemon. If they were going to strike, it was now, Curt didn't bother trying to make his movements subtle as he knelt down next to Raviel, they needed to move as fast as they could, Gerald had bought them a window and they were going to use it.

"Raviel, dig behind the Rockets, fast as you can!", Curt said in a hushed voice to the Jolteon, though it might not have been needed. Indeed, Geralds screams were loud enough that he doubted the Rockets would be able to hear anything on their end. Raviel, on the other had, understood Curt completely as a wide, malicious smile began to spread across his face. Raviel ran behind the group as Curt moved closer to Whips in an attempt to block the Jolteon from view, the sounds of burrowing faded from Curts ears at the exact same moment Gerald stopped his outrage,but Raviel would need some more time to dig his way into position (these floors weren't easy to dig through). Thankfully, Gerald came to their help again as they saw Gerald pick up a rock and throw it directly at Thomas. That took some balls, but at this point, Curt could safely say they were all sick of this shit, and even something as small as that would by them a few more precious seconds for Raviel. If Raviel got behind them, the Rockets would no doubt panic as having them surrounded was meaningless if they had to worry about an attack from behind them.

Curt locked his gaze on the Rockets, but kept completely still, there was no visible sign Raviel was tunneling through the ground, but Curt was still worried about his friends safety. He was still confident he made the right choice however, especially now that Gerald chucked that stone at Thomas, almost certainly breaking any chance of this ending peacefully, not that he minded. Again, Thomas was a great tracker, but the fact that he kept trying to intimidate them into surrender proved he wasn't nearly as confident about his chances as he seemed. Or maybe he wanted to prove his skill to his superiors by bring them all in unharmed, in which case he was dangerously over confident in his own ability. Curt himself was ashamed, but willing to admit he lost a battle or two due to overconfidence caused by good early start to a battle, only to have the entire match turned on him because he made one or two cocky mistakes. He liked to think the numerous Gym battles they had cured him of that, but he always made sure to keep himself in check, to never underestimate any opponent he faced, and to try to not make stupid mistakes. But it all came down to dig now as Curt, Whips, Flare, and even Lockjaw from within his Pokeball waited to see if the plan pulled through.

Curt doubted Thomas had learned any hard lessons about keeping your ego in check, but they'd find out in a second as they saw a bright yellow flash from behind the Rockets, and several Thunderbolts arcing through the air.

 

[Storybook]

She was... talking. Speaking. Returning his words with her own, his shattered mind with her tattered thoughts. The words were quick and thoughtless, spoken before the trainer could process what she would say, spoken in this manner, it seemed, because she couldn't speak in any other. Quickly or not at all.

Que preferred the not at all. And yet... the familiar feeling of distaste didn't grace his skin, nor rise in his throat. Que himself felt nothing- he was above his own body, and the form he was above simply watched in cold disgust, in black and white, with a metal heart and a mechanical soul. He was floating in the air, eyes blue, watching a mechanical form that was him and yet wasn't him, that was cold and steely and platinum, that labelled things fact and fiction while pretending he'd armored his metal heart. And he watched the steely form, feeling nothing, like a black hole, watching the machine it had inhabited. Que reached for himself, sinking into the creature because he knew all at once that he hated just watching and that somehow it would be better to be whole, but when his hand touched the ghostly skin it burned with hot, acidic pain, stirring his mind into a fury of emotion and confusion and desperation all at once. And... no, wait, did Que say he felt nothing? No, he was feeling everything at once, he was a bucket full of puzzle piece emotions that he didn't understand. He'd pick one up only to get lost in a sea of pieces, each searching for their own puzzle, for the answer that eluded them, the picture they could create if only he could find the other ones- but there weren't any matches, no, he was swarmed by puzzle pieces and none of them fit together. The boy expected frustration to bellow within him at the futility of this shattered infinity, but he felt the same, a swarm of nothing that was everything, of puzzle pieces that never fit together, and Que was a bucket of imperfection- a search for answers that didn't exist, a representation of everything vain as he held one piece in his hand only to find that the other didn't exist. And the girl's words echoed in his head.

Even if they’re broken. With so many pieces from so many puzzles, there’s bound to be one or two that fit.

Que saw himself clench his fist in the recollection of those words, but he didn't feel the steely frustration that he watched in the form. Instead, the boy's chest surged with a cry, and Que realized that, for a moment, he was the being below him, and that the pieces that clotted his chest drove him in a white hot burst of desperation. The cry was sharp, short, and jagged, like that of pain, but Que wasn't there to hear it, for he was above his own body, watching himself, afraid to inhabit it, afraid that he had. He dropped the piece clenched desperately in his hand as a singular train of thought swept the sanity out of the floating form's head, cascades of emotion driven by the gnawing of those words.

There is no absolute. Everything that is always is never. Every promise will be broken. Everything infinite is finite. Everything true is a lie. Nothing can ever be bound to be, because that implies always, and always is never. It implies infinity but infinity is finite. It implies truth but all truth is a lie.

And the boy, watching his own body, realized that the girl wasn't even there to listen but he spoke anyways and yet when the boy spoke his steely eyed body said nothing, staring instead into nothing in calculated ferocity, in frosty despise, and so his words never graced the air in their crude desperation. His steely eyed form threw away the girl's words, and played again the next part in his head.

Even if they don’t, you can always force them together. Sure it won’t be perfect, and the picture won’t be pretty. Maybe there won’t even be a picture at all. But they’ll be harder to take apart, and you won’t miss a piece or two that’s not there. No one will ever have the same set as you, and it’ll never stop growing. As ugly, and imperfect as it is.

The words didn't make any sense. His steely eyed form abandoned them, but Que, watching over, gnawed on their meaning, confused. And then, Que was the steely eyed form, cold and mechanical, black and white, and his blue eyed brother watched over his shoulder as he had done just moments before. He forgot of the creature's existence, as a man forgets about his own subconscious when sure that he has mastered all thought.

In its entirety, the boy, if asked insistently, could only describe himself as numb. He felt like a void, and for some reason the boy was sure that that was right, and that there was no less. Moments before, the watcher had described himself as a black hole, only to reject it, for that was the description that belonged to the steely eyed form. He was empty and cold.

Perfect.

The earth dragged him across the room, ignoring the girl in her frenzy as she powdered people with her kitty's fur, realizing all at once that she had been doing that for awhile, from before he had stood, slouch deepening his stance. He walked slowly towards his Pokemon, trapped in a psychic prison, crouching first to observe the Dedenne at his feet.

Staring at the creature, the boy felt a heaviness trap him, as if something had entered his body, and as he felt the wave of puzzle pieces cling to his metal skin, Que recalled the being who watched above him as if for the first time. The moment of fusion was brief, and when the blue eyed watcher escaped again the steely eyed form forget that the watcher had ever existed and was steely and numb and cold.

And then the boy, reaching to feel again his Dedenne's fur, found his hand was shaking. It was a jittery shake, a shivering shake, a tremor in his body from a bruise in his soul.

He didn't understand.

His soul was steel and ice.
There were no bruises. It had no blemishes. It was a void, and it was perfect. And the boy clenched his hand in jagged frustration at the questions he kept asking that had no answers.

Wait a moment.
Someone was... talking, voice crude and vivid, boiling and snarky, a tone of pride and power. Pride was dangerous and should not be felt, the boy reminded himself.

His head turned slowly from the rodent to pinpoint the speaker, eyes terrifyingly calm as they were blinded, for they cared not and soon could see again. He felt a twitching of whiskers, a snort and a chirp near his hand, and realized that the creature had woken up on its own will, for he could see the dust in the solid beam of light and it hadn't yet traveled over to them. He labelled the moment as fact as the boy stood, the rodent unsure, teetering at his feet.

Thomas.

The boy grinned, the toothyness within it taking on a more menacing appearance, as if this danger and hatred and pain was what he reveled in, what he wanted more of. He began to move forwards, and for some reason the boy didn't slouch in the slightest. He didn't care about the words being tossed like useless stones, nor the literal stone, nor anything. He just kept walking forwards.

Battle plans raced through his head as if he was standing before a tight knot and reveling in the plans to undo it. His hands hung at his side, his pale skin was a void, and his thin lips were spread in a toothy grin that seemed almost inhuman as he pondered.

But then the room exploded in yellow light and the shock was apparent on the boy's face, and he didn't remind himself that shock was bad and should not be felt because the watcher had infected his skin and body in its fright and surprise and all of a sudden everything was a pile of puzzle pieces that didn't fit together. His slouch returned with the watcher who had fled into his form, frightened by the electric attack.

For a long time he just stood, shaking, as he remembered all at once who the watcher was again. This time, the briefness of the moment evaded them, and the watcher was becoming the steely eyed form and it hurt.

Sanity was broken and thought was a mirage, something he thought he saw in his fright and fury but didn't actually exist. He broke, the boy's left hand whipping to his belt, sending out his protector faster than the boy had ever felt possible, and his enemies twisted in their forms and turned into something entirely different, fears and words, truth and infinity and promises, and the cave was a lonely room as somewhere in his mind it clicked that Que was out of the dream and shouldn't be acting this way, but his mind was too frantic to notice, too buried in unfinished puzzles, too tied in knots and shattered by questions. He turned not to his enemy but to the girl, of whom he had walked quite near again, and the subconscious gnawing of her words came into light with forceful understanding. He spoke in a voice as hot as white fire in its pain, a tone so frightening in a creature where nothing was genuine and the world was a void, a tone that didn't seem to fit the words and was speaking for a different conflict all together. And as he spoke, the room fitfully vanished and reappeared, the people and Pokemon in it as much as a mirage as his thought. His breath was short and rapid and the boy was sweating, eyes seemingly platinum and blue at once.

Infinity is finite and truth is a lie.

"I don't believe you."

And then Que left his body again to watch over the steely eyed form who looked down at his shaking, panicked hands in horror at what he had just done, of the laws of his life he had broken in the intensity of emotion, and he couldn't understand why because he forgot the watcher existed all together. And the steely eyed form looked once at the girl without seeing anything, looked again at those that were nearing, those that attacked, looked for his Pokemon that he had released in the time of furious emotion, and watched it, flushed face draining once more into a pale, ghostly hue.

It was a Sawsbuck (the typing a clear point to his lack of thought, the boy considered), but it was not like the placid grass types nor the solemn normal types of which the watcher felt such a connection. It's eyes were pricks of wildness, its muscles taught with sinew, its form tight and angry. He stood between the boy and the opponents with a certain ferocity, powerful neck swinging from side to side in wild fury, horns already glowing as he charged an attack.

The watcher looked on at the Sawsbuck with a plea in his eyes, but the watcher wasn't a part of the steely eyed boy whose gaze was nothing, gone and distant. He wanted to huddle at the Sawsbuck's side, to wrap his arms around the neck, to soothe and be soothed, to be protected, to be loved, to always be remembered. But they boy just stood and stared at nothing, statue-esque and eerily calm, and remembering as if it was fact that infinity was finite and always was never. It didn't drive the sanity out of the steely eyed forms head, because in order to drive the sanity out it had to be backed by emotion and there was no emotion in the boy, for his soul was steel and ice. So he just accepted it as fact and stared at nothing, tendrils of the watcher clinging to his body and leaving it paralyzed in a horror that didn't exist and fear that wasn't fear at all. He felt again that there were two of himself in his body, the watcher and the steely eyed form, and he stood silent, save for one word.

"Go."

And that was all the Sawsbuck, tautened by anger and matted in fury, needed to cry out, charging heedlessly at his opponents, for it was his job to watch Que and his job to protect Que and finally he was no longer helpless. The creature rampaged in tight half-circles around the boy, and Que simply stared, feeling strangely comforted as fur graced his side once more and a heartbeat raced with his. He looked to see Growlithe, awake and puzzled and scared, nuzzling his chin and licking his cheek as if somehow he needed to know that the boy was okay. Que looked up, feeling tendrils of the watcher seeping deeper into his body, putting his hand to his cheek and realizing that it was wet as he silently cried.

He looked at his hand again and it shook for a reason the boy didn't understand, painted by tears the boy didn't feel.

And then Que was the watcher, a single piece clenched in his hand tighter then ever before.

And the watcher finally understood love,
but cried because the infinite was finite and truth were lies and always was never
and love was a promise
and promises were always broken.

 

[PentheWonderful]

'Tracking... Device...?'

Sick. Cassie felt sick, and wrong, and disturbed and violated and every negative emotion possible. She wanted to vomit, and scream, and claw herself raw, but at the same time, the ocean of emotion boiling inside of her set like stone. So heavy, stiff, and dense was the mixture that Cassie could barely move at all. And she had gloves on, she couldn't possibly claw herself. The ensuing screaming and anger filled words Gerald flung faded in the background, Curt's inspired exclaims swallowed by the void, echoing, but never reaching her. The girl sat there, with a head hung low and Lady sitting pretty in her arms. Barely disturbed at all by the chaos and building tensions.

With ease, the rock hurled towards Thomas was caught in the admin's hand. It landed so perfectly, so precisely there that one might wonder if he was once a professional baseball player. Way back when. He stared at the sedimentary solid in offense, and then dropping it like a toddler might after losing interest in a toy. Blind to Raviel burrowing into the ground. "Well that wasn't very nice." He took all of Gerald's insults and hatred and crumpled it into a little ball to throw away. Paper couldn't scathe him. "That's strike one."

'HOW DARE YOU?!' Nine roared, anger fueling the inferno building in his gaping mouth. He wanted, by all means, to charge and rip the admin's face clean off his head, yet he found no desire to leave his trainer's side. His vulnerable trainer, more emotionally dependent on him now than ever, especially since he... He was the only one left.

Cassie probed and groped at the burning, blistering skin on the back of her neck. Pinching, pulling. "It's in there... Get it out, get out!" She started yelling, yet, there were no ears to listen. All but Nine's, who witheld his attach to reapproach his trainer.

'Cassie, what's the matter?!'

CRACKOW!

Light once swallowed the entirety of the somber hallway to signal the presence of lightning, twisting and arching from behind the Rockets. It claimed its victims, disabling two senior grunts at once as well as knocking out a Zubat in an instant. Thomas scowled as he selfishly defended himself, stepping away from the fire radius. His mask of indifference was cracking, and it gave way to his true face, if only for a moment, only to be plastered anew by more layers of deceit when he cackled. "Sneaky! Very sneaky! That's strike two~"

Five Weavile were onto Raviel almost the instant he emerged, bombarding him with Taunt and Torment, one freezing the ground within their circle to reduce Raviel's mobility and seal the whole he came out of, as another attempted to strike him with Dark Claw, which, if landed succesfully, would knock him into another Weavile and ping pong him around their circle.

'No!' Nine cried, turning to his broken trainer and telling her firmly. 'Stay here!' He then proceeds to sprint to Raviel, launching a flamethrower that broke the Weavile circle when it knocked out two unwitting Weavile at once.

In the escalating madness, Que's Sawsbuck was released and given the permission to wreak utter havoc at the trainer's aggressors, rampaging with a dragon's fury as it threatened to gore anyone and anything that dared stand in its way.

Chaos, utter chaos. But the strangest thing about it was that none of the Rockets were putting up a relevant fight. Their Pokemon hovered, operating individually, while their owners? Their owners seemed... Anticipating. Patiently waiting.

Zubat were disorienting the Sawsbuck with their shrill cries and fluttering wings as they latched onto its antlers, ending the Season Pokemon's reign of terror when they drove him right into the Muk. It encased him with its body, gluing him in place while its toxic goop climbed up its body like poison ivy. Almost as if to consume it. Forcing its way into the Sawsbuck's mouth and nose. To poison. To disable.

Thomas chuckled. Yet, his voice was different. Darker. Lower. Shards of his facade came tumbling down. His entire face was different. He looked Que directly in the eyes, challenging his toothy grin with a sneer repurposed as a grin. "Strike three. You're all out of swings. Now it's my turn."

As if a signal had been given, the remaining Pokemon of Team Rocket charged forth, but not necessarily attacking, no. The hoard of Ratatta and Zubat, Raticate, Koffing, Bisharp, and remaining five other Weavile crowded around the trainers' Pokemon. The Ratatta piled onto Whips and latched their claws onto his scales, scittering away to a different body part whenever he attempted to swat at them, distracting him with their little bites and obscurimg his vision while the Raticate rushed him with numerous assurances to move him. The other five Weavile, Koffing, and Bisharp pushed the remaining released Pokemon with their attacks away from their trainers.

Flare.

Jasper.

June.

Growlithe.

Even stealing away the still slumbering Embertail.

The Zubat made noise. Lots and lots of noise. Drowning the instructions of their trainers. They herded the group together into what was left of the Weavile circle with Nine and Raviel, strengthening the corale by adding their own bodies into it. The Muk slunk slowly to the circle, freeing Sawsbuck from its bodily constraints in a spew of lavender vomit. The screeching of the Zubat drowned any and all sound. They were all stranded.

Only Dedenne and Lady had escaped the separation.

Thomas' hand whipped to his belt, mimicked perfectly by the senior grunts. But it wasn't a pokeball they reached for, no. It was a gun. And it was loaded and aimed and clicked off its safety before anyone could even blink. The strange one-on-one position was not purposed for Pokemon battles, no, not at all. "Game set. See ya, losers."

The triggers were pulled, a blast of gunpowder and a flash of combustion propelled the bullets out of their shells. And yet, it was almost as if they were aiming at something else entirely. Thusly, the bullets whizzed past the trainers, perhaps grazing them at best, and all the Rockets seemed perplexed. Shaking their heads and rubbing their eyes. Thomas seemed the most shocked of them all. Shocked, being the best adjective to describe the look on his face. Dazed. Bewitched, perhaps. "What the fuck...?"

Of course, their offputtingly ambiguous state offered the trainers a window of opportunity to take cover. An opportunity Cassie graciously accepted. The threat of firearms had thawed her from her frozen stupor, and now she was mobile again. Cassie grabbed Lady; her first priority. Next she glanced over at Nine, holding up 'two' with her fingers, and then splitting them apart. A second's pause, and she pressed them together again. A determined expression overtook the fox's face as he responded with a nod. They would split up, and meet again. He knew the drill.

Turning to the other Pokemon, he privately spoke to them, via telepathy. 'Okay guys, we're splitting up with our trainers. When the Team Rocket inevitably chases after our trainers, we'll overwhelm our captors and run. I'll get us out. I've been taught a split up maneuver for these kinds conditions before, and I promise we'll meet our human friends again. You just have to trust me, okay? Now, get ready.'

And in the meanwhile, instead of taking off, Cassie glanced back to Que; the dead ringer for her father. Still and dreamy eyed as he seemed to constantly be. All on his own, he would probably be dead, she figured. Exactly like her father would be in similar situations. And so she wasted energy, effort, and time to drag him along with her as she ran deeper into the hallway, yanking at Curt, and then Gerald as she passed each of them.

Futher in, the halls were utterly demolished. Large piles of rubble were scattered randomly throughout the hallway, those that were once part of the walls that had long fallen down, creating makeshift passageways along the length of the hallway. The new girl Bailey, from what she heard Curt say, must've came in through one of them. Cassie had no concern for Nine. He was strong, and twice as smart. He'd find his way back to her again.

She ducked behind one of the piles and once again, rubbed and picked at the back of her neck. "It's still there, it's no use... Ceci... Ceci est stupide... Ceci est stupide!" Cassie cried, and then realizing her mistake, she muffled her own mouth with her hand. As Curt, and Gerald, inevitably caught up to them, Cassie found herself staring at one particular item, and that was the utility knife glistening on Curt's belt. And she knew Lady was staring at it too. "Lady..." She whispered quietly, and the Purrloin's ears twitched. "Thief."

The small kitten took off on all fours, running towards Curt and standing on her hind legs when she was close enough, snatching the knife without drawing attention using her natural born thieving talents, and running back to her trainer. The knife was there now, in Cassie's hand, and she could see her reflection in its perfectly polished blade. Slowly, ever so slowly, her hand wrapped around its hilt, tightly enough to draw a strain of complaint from her glove. She looked to Lady, who sat pretty across from her, those emerald feline eyes composed. Undisturbed. Daring her.

Cassie sucked in a breath, lowering her head in likeness of an execution while her hand brought the knife, blade pointing to her neck, up over her head. Her heart raced, and she could feel her grip, her nerve loosening as the act dawned on her. But she kept her gaze, she focused it on Lady's calm, composed eyes. And she swiftly removed the glove on her free hand, and bit into it.

She lowered the knife, the other guiding the blade to that spot, that burning, unyielding pain as it slid her turtleneck down. Cassie shuddered as the cold tip of the weapon grazed her skin. It was difficult to breathe, yet she knew she had to keep breathing through it in order to push down. Deeper. Blood was drawn, pain along with it. The raw spot exploded with sensory aggravation that released a hoarse scream from her mouth, muffled by the glove clasped firmly between her teeth.

A slit had been made on the back Cassie's neck now, and her ungloved hand shakily dug in to claw out the tracking chip. Her miserable whimpers and groans echoed eerily in the dark hallway, yet seemed perfectly native there. Blood trickled down the slit to soak the white of her turtleneck, moving in harmony with the tears that spilled from her eyes.

Her cleaved skin squelched disgustingly with each movement of her fingers. Moments felt like centuries as they passed, but inevitably, Cassie pulled her fingers from the slit, clasping a metallic chip between her bloodied thumb and index finger. She dropped it, the knife, and her hand altogether. Lady came over and proceeded to once again lick the bloody residue on her fingers. The smell of iron was fresh in the air, and Cassie flailed her free hand around in search of her belt, somehow forgetting that it was wrapped around her waist.

It was unnecessary.

After much effort, Peridot finally broke out of her pokeball all on her own, using Heal Pulse before the words could even leave Cassie's mouth. She shook, shuddered, as the healing energy clotted the blood pooling on the slit to prevent any more precious life giving liquid from escaping. 'Cassie...! Why did you do that...?!' The tiny psychic cried, tears rolling down her cheeks as she hugged her delirious trainer. Again, her hand clasped Peridot's back comfortingly.

"Si je ne le sors... Toutes nos tentatives d'évasion sera futile..." Came her tired, broken ramble, until her dulled irises latched upon Curt to continue. "Nous séparons, et couvrir plus de terrain."

She hadn't realized, simply couldn't comprehend that her tongue had returned to its mother language, and thus irritation burned in her when Curt wasn't able to respond. "Séparer. Nous séparons."

'Cassie, I don't think he understands you in French...' Peridot spoke gently. Cassie appreciated that she was careful with her fragile mind.

"Quelle?" Finally she remembered to listen, and shook herself out of it. "Sorry. Err..." Cassie furrowed her brows, and squeezed her eyes shut. "We'll split up to cover more ground. It'll be harder for the Rockets to catch us that way. We'll keep in touch with our transreceivers. You go with Gerald and watch each other. I'll go with Que."

"And don't worry about our Pokemon. Nine will get them out. We'll meet with them around a body of water or outside, depending on the tomb's infrastructure. If you find a river or waterflow, follow it upstream. It inevitably leads to a way out." She proceeded to return Lady to her pokeball, move Peridot onto her shoulder (where she lit her small body with a dim Flash), and slip her glove back onto her Purrloin-cleaned hand. The knife laid scattered by her knee as if mimicking a crime scene. She wiped it clean on her glove, and handed it back to Curt. And it was as if nothing had happened. "Trust me. I used to play in ruins all the time back in Sinnoh."

The painfully nostalgic days of fooling around with her family, her Pokemon family, were lost in her chaotically scattered mind. Roars, howls, and familiar primal battle cries in the distance signaled the Pokemon's resistance, followed by the haunting sound of nearing footsteps with human cadence. 'Shoot on sight' were the only words to be heard from the incoming Rockets. Cassie stood, glancing briefly at Que. Hollow orbs, simply a placeholder for empty sockets. Her hands tightened the strap of her messenger bag, adjusting it to the square of her back. Hot pink obscured the rust red creeping down the white fabric of her turtleneck.

She didn't wait. She simply moved. Into the nearest cavity in the wall. Into the great unknown.

Unfeeling.

Unbothered.

Void.

"See you on the other side."

 

[Curtkid]

"Well, that was...unexpected...", Curt thought as he saw Thomas somehow managed to catch the rock in his hand. It might have been luck, or maybe he was skilled, granted Gerald did give a pretty sizable broadcast, what with him diving for the rock and all. Perhaps Thomas had time to prepare? Curt didn't know or care, if it kept the man distracted so Raviel could move into position, then it worked for them.

"That's strike one", Thomas said, was the man literally give them chances to surrender? Well, Curt had to say one thing about Thomas, the man was incredibly patient, ego aside, most people would have just cut the crap right then and there and launched an attack. Was he really as over confident as he let on, or was he perhaps his confidence was less from cockyness and more of a yet to be seen clever plan? Curt all of a sudden felt grateful for playing things cautious, he just hoped the hole Raviel was digging would pull through. Nine was in a rage over hearing Cassie had a tracking device in her, Curt didn't blame him, he'd probably be more vocal about his anger over the matter if it wasn't for Embertails condition and the anticipation over their sneak attack. Thankfully, they didn't need to wait much longer to see a result, in an instant, several Thunderbolt attacks struck at two of the Rockets and a Zubat, but Raviels main target, Thomas, managed to duck out off the way just in time to avoid being jolted by the Jolteon.

"Sneaky! Very sneaky! That's strike two~", he heard Thomas say, his tone seemed to be mocking their efforts, Curt cursed under his breathe, their sneak attack didn't go nearly as well as he hoped, what was worse five of the Weavile were almost immediately on Raviel before he could fire of another shot, and for good measure, freezing the hole he came out of too. Curt gritted his teeth as he wached the Ice Wind cover the hole with a mildly thick shade of ice, that would slow her down a bit, would she give away her position to get to Raviel faster, or would she rick taking her time to melt the ice. but that wasn't important right now, the Weavile immediately began knocking Raviel back and forth with Dark Claw. Though this time, Raviel remembered his spikes and the first Weavile that struck him got a good number of pokes on it as well as a few good jolts of electricity. The other Weaviles wised up quickly however, and made care to avoid Raviels spikes when knocking him back and forth, a feat that should have been rather difficult to do, but clearly the Weavile were well trained. Thankfully, Curt didn't have to send his electric friend any back up as Nine seemed to be immediately on the case, running to Raviels defense, torching the Weavile and freeing the Jolteon. Raviel grunted out a reluctant "Thank-you", he hated needing to be saved by his own teammates, much less the allies of others (though, Nine had been traveling with them for a few months, so if he had to be saved by anyone else, he'd rather it be him).

("I've given her a quick update through my telepathy, she's working her way through the Ice the best she can, Flamethrower is not really a natural move for her)", Flare told him, it was times likes it payed to have a Pokemon with Psychic abilities. While this was happening, Que's Sawbuck was flipping out, trying to tear apart any Rockets or Pokemon he could get his hand on. However, it seemed that the Sawbuck bit off more then it could chew, as it ended up being surrounded by Zubats, confused and then assaulted by a Muk. Meanwhile, through all this, the Rockets still seemed to be...waiting for something.

"Strike three. You're all out of swings. Now it's my turn", Thomas said, almost snickered with that slimy sneer of his before he played his hand. Then their Pokemon came piling upon them, Whips seemed to be a primary target as every Rattata at their disposal swarmed the Dragonite, while the rest of the Rockets Pokemon seemed dead set on driving them apart from each other. Whips roared and attempted to bat them off, but the extra weight and gnawing teeth slowed him down, making his swings just a little to slow to strike the Rattata, meanwhile the Raticate, no doubt the hordes leader, kept barraging Whips with Assurance. Though Whips thick scales made sure the Rattata did minimal damage, it was enough to activate Assurance's double damage. Even Whips wouldn't be able take this assault for very long.

"WHIPS, STOP DROP AND ROLL!", Curt yelled to the Dragonite over the roar of the chaos, but it was no good, the screeching of the Zubat was too great, in one last ditch attempt, he called out to Flare.

"(FLARE, if you can still hear me, tell Whips to Stop. Drop. And Roll!), Curt thought, desperately reaching out to hear, hoping she heard him, and for a minute, Whips just stood there, swatting away the rats, and then, he stopped, it wasn't very practical advice, but it was the best solution he had right now. Whips heard the order and, giving no thought to how this would look, threw his body down on the ground and began rolling left to right on the floor. It looked silly, Hell, it made Whips look down right foolish to see see a large Dragonite rolling around on the ground like a kindergartner on a sugar-high. But it worked, Whips only managed to flatten one or two of the many Rattata's, but the moment he started rolling, all of the Mouse Pokemon stayed out of his way. On average, Rattata's were about a foot tall and weighted about seven pounds, and to them, the almost eight foot tall and five-hundred pound rolling Dragonite might as well have been a Steam Roller! Hell, even the Raticate didn't seem exactly eager to latch onto Whips, instead looking over towards its trainer for some form of instruction.

"HAH, that worked, O.K Flare, now let's get you roasting that Bisharp...Flare? FLARE...Oh crap...", Curt said flatly as he realized that, while distracted on saving Whips, he had managed to get slipped away from the rest his team. Raviel and Nine were being surrounded by the Weavile, he heard Flare's voice, now surprisingly faint, saying something along the lines of the Zubat's screech messing with her telepathy. All around them the Rockets Pokemon surrounded them, Curt kept a tight grasp on Embertail, but even that did precious little when a Koffing rammed into him from behind, launching Embertail into the chaos of the crowed.

"E-EMBERTAIL! NO, DAMN IT!", Curt yelled, immediately trying to pick himself up to get to his closes friend, before that same Koffing went in for another hit, but this time Curt was able to brace himself, merely sending Curt stumbling to his knees. Curt locked eyes with the Koffing and the Koffing, seeing as it knew it was unlikely to catch Curt unaware again, launched a smog attack, completely encasing Curt in the gas. The Koffing watched the cloud for a moment, and, thinking its job was done, turned around to head back into the fray, till Curts fist collided with its back side.

"Hehe, n-not so co-co-gu-gaka, ACKHACKACK", Curt stuttered out, though Curt could hold his breathe for a reasonably long time (and they said practicing that was a waste!), it was clear the some of the Koffings toxins managed to sneak their way into his system, and now it felt like his lungs were filled with tar. Not only that, Curt's hand was throbbing something fierce, now that was a bit of a surprise, he didn't expect a Koffing to be so hard, he almost broke his hand punching that thing! To add insult to injury, the Koffing seemed to be more stunned then hurt, and was already picking himself up, Curt was a strong man, but Koffing were very durable Pokemon when it came to physical attacks. Using his left hand (the one he didn't punch to Koffing with), Curt decided it was better to settle this the old fashioned way, and a flash of light later, Lockjaw was front and center.

L-Lock- gahk- L-Lock-ACKHACK, u-use water gu-ACHK!", Curt sturred out, but Lockjaw got the message, blasting the Koffing away with a powerful stream of water, "g-good job, c-come on, w-we need to-ack- find E-embert-", and the Curts words were lost and his face turned pale white. Lockjaw, confused, turned his head to see what Curt was looking at, and then his face turned paler then his trainers.

"Game set. See ya, losers", Thomas said, though Curt didn't hear him over the Zubat. But what Curt did SEE was the handguns several of the Rockets had drawn out. At first, Curt almost felt some form of relief as, even in all the chaos, he was able to identify the firearms. Glocks, 9mm from the looks of them, sizable magazines and fairly powerful as far as guns go, but they would do little more then scratch Whips' thick hide, Flare had a natural resistance to steel and lead as well, so she wouldn't suffer to much damage either, plus Ninetales were far more durable then they looked, even Embertail had a good chance of surviving a stray shot if one hit him. Raviel could move at the speed of sound in short, electrical bursts, the Rockets were more likely to hit one of their own Weavile then him. No, this wasn't quiet as bad as it looked, and then Curt saw a Rocket point his gun at him. Oh, right, his Pokemon might not be that susceptible to bullets, but he was, Curt didn't even have time to try and call out to Flare to trip the guns safety with her Psychic abilities. Lockjaw barely had time to turn his head towards Curt in horrific realization before the shots range out.

Even the Zubat were quiet now, the shot of the firearms outstripped over the screeches of the Zubat, and the Zubat didn't not take kindly to the noise, flinching at the sound. Curt stood their for a moment, not moving, did he get hit? He didn't feel like he got hit, but then again he heard that most people don't realize they've gotten shot due to all the adrenaline pumping through them. Then he looked at the expression on the Rockets face, they looked just a stunned as they did, they missed.

"What the fuck...?", Thomas said, and then an Ice Beam struck one of the gun wielding Rockets in the back, Jasper had finally broken through that Ice covered hole. Curt wasn't so stupid as to send Raviel in their without back up, and knew that Jasper's excellent night-eye's would be optimal for making her way through a dark-hole. The unexpected Icy-Wind slowed her down a bit, but now she was out, and judging by the look on her face, she was ready to kick some ass. The sudden turn of events had knocked Curt back to his senses, he looked around quickly to see Cassie signaling Nine, and Curt got the message.

"(Curt, can you hear me?)", he heard Flare's telepathic voice ringing through his head.

"(Flare! You and Nine! Guns! Now!)", Curt responded to Flare, thankfully he didn't actually have to speak the words to give the order. The next thing the Rockets knew, their weapons were being wrapped in a telekinetic field and ripped from their hands. Curt watched the Rockets immediately scramble for their weapons, leaving their Pokemon forgotten. That would by them a little time, now Curt just needed to worry about...

"Embertai!", Curt cried, startling Lockjaw. Apparently Nine and Raviel had managed to fight their way through the Weavile, meeting up with Jasper and, on the fire foxes back, there was Embertail! Curt could have kissed the fox if they hadn't been so far away, but of course, that still left the matter of the Rockets Pokemon.

'Okay guys, we're splitting up with our trainers. When the Team Rocket inevitably chases after our trainers, we'll overwhelm our captors and run. I'll get us out. I've been taught a split up maneuver for these kinds conditions before, and I promise we'll meet our human friends again. You just have to trust me, okay? Now, get ready.', he heard Nine say through his telepathy. Curt clenched his teeth, he didn't like the idea of being separated from Embertail, especially in his condition, but he knew this was their best bet from them all to get out safely, besides, he knew Nine, Jasper, and Raviel would take good care of him. He felt a grasp on his hand as Lockjaw began tugging him along, it was time to go. They ran their way through the confusion, Curt struggling to run with the poison in his system, oddly enough, it didn't seem to be affecting him so much now. Left and right they darted, trying to located the others, until a tug on the back of his collar lead him to where he needed to go, tighten his grip on Lockjaws claw, he followed where the hand lead him, hoping it was friendly.

His hope was well placed, as Cassie had managed to lead them right towards Gerald, Que, Jacob, and Baeily, all of them moving down the crumbling caverns and away from the disoriented Rockets. Curt wasn't sure how long they ran, but if felt like hours, deeper and deeper they went, all the while wondering, hoping that their Pokemon, their friends were O.K. Curt felt the tar coming back into his lungs again, adrenaline had kept the poison at bay for a while, but now it was seeping its way back through him. If this was what poison was like, he didn't want to imagine how bad toxic was, he remembered he had some antidotes in his pack, but would they work on a human like they worked on Pokemon? They eventually got a chance a chance to catch their breathe behind some rocks, and Curt wasted no time in pulling open his pack, and noticed his pack was wet and covered in glass. Somehow his medicine case had gotten open, and in the previous chaos, several of his medical supplies had gotten damaged, including all his antidotes. Curt was at a lost, trying to think of how this could have happened, he remembered to secure his med-bag before going into the forest, right? Did the tumble he take from Whips
cause his case to pop open? He did know for sure, all he knew was the he was poisoned and stuck without an remedy.

"Don't suppose anyone can spare an Antidote, hehe *HELCK*", Curt stuttered out with Lockjaw rushing to help him. They were so distracted over Curts condition, they didn't even notice Lady nicking Curts knife until she handing it to Cassie.

"Huh, hey what are you- BLUARK ACKH", Curt said those words a little to quickly, almost doubling over if Lockjaw wasn't there to support him, "Y-you know C-cassie, you c-could of just, HOLY SHIT G-GGACK!" Curt broke out into another coughing fit, yelling was not a good idea for him now. But could one blame him, seeing Cassie dig into the back of her neck like that? By the time Lockjaw had helped Curt right himself, Cassie had already thrown the knife to the floor along with....the tracker! Now it made sense, they couldn't have Team Rocket tracking them like that, the sooner she got it out the better.

"Si je ne le sors... Toutes nos tentatives d'évasion sera futile..Nous séparons, et couvrir plus de terrain", Cassie said, her tired eyes looking deep into Curts. Curt in response, darted his eyes around, confused, looked at Lockjaw who returned Curts gaze with one that screamed "Uhhh, I don't know either...".

"Uhhh, sorry Cassie, but I don't speak German...", Curt said flatly, giving her a confused look.

"Séparer. Nous séparons", Cassie said, this time a little anger in her voice.

".....Still don't speak German *erhp*", Curt said, finishing his sentence with a light cough.

"Qulle? Sorry, er, we'll split up to cover more ground. It'll be harder for the Rockets to catch us that way. We'll keep in touch with our transreceivers. You go with Gerald and watch each other. Jacob, go with err... Bailey was it? I'll go with Que", Cassie said, now looking significantly less dazed. Curt wasn't going to argue, O.K, he wanted to argue a little, Gerald still seemed a little...unhinged, but they didn't have time to argue with the Rockets closing in. Besides, he wasn't exactly in a position to question Geralds capabilities while he was hacking out his lungs. He saw Cassie clean his blade and handing back to him, and though a "Thanks" was uttered, the knife got Curt thinking on his situation as he slung off his backpack. The only companion he had left was Lockjaw, all through out his journey he had never been this alone, even when he started his journey had had Embertail, Whips, Lockjaw, and Jasper by his side. He didn't really like using this (not to mention its power paled compared to any one of his teammates), but desperate times called for desperate measures, he parents insisted he bring it with him, and now he truly saw why.

"Alright, let me just get...there it is", Curt said as he dug into his back and pulled out a sleek, chrome Revolver. Six shots were loading in the chamber, its slick black handle offered a comfortable grip to its hold, it was intimidating, it was beautiful, it was....

"A BB gun...I used it to scare away pigeons *BURGM*...b-back at home...", Curt said as he pulled on the grip, revealing the hidden case of the C02 cartridge, "this thing isn't even strong enough to bring down one of those Ratatta's, really, Lockjaws a much better defense against anything we run into here, still, it looks like a real .357 magnum, might intimidate a grunt or two if we run into them, but don't expect it to be any use against anything short of feral vermin..." Curt said and a small grunt (with Lockjaw blushing at the compliment), as he stuffed the revolver into his pants and concealed it with his shirt, he really wished he got that holster. True, he was violating several gun-safety guidelines right now, but considering the circumstances...

"And don't worry about our Pokemon. Nine will get them out. We'll meet with them around a body of water or outside, depending on the tomb's infrastructure. If you find a river or waterflow, follow it upstream. It inevitably leads to a way out," Cassie said, trying to give the group some comfort.

"Don't worry, I have faith in Nine, Raviel, Jasper, too, *ack* I know they'll keep Embertail safe, and Whips and Flare can take care of themselves too...", Curt said as he straightened himself out, "Well Gerald *ech* shall we get a move on? W-with any luck, maybe the poison will work its way out of my system *erhm*..."

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Charmander looked up at the tall, Rocky Mountains, home to many hazards, both from mountain itself, and the creatures that inhabited it, but none were more famous or dangerous then the clan of Flame Pokemon that lived deep within them. It was kind of funny, the forest that surrounded these mountains were lush and vibrant, one would wonder why the Charmander, Charmeleon, and Charizard that claimed these mountains as their home hadn't burned the surrounding area down yet. Maybe they cared for the forest, or maybe they recognized the role it played in giving the other creatures a place to grow and eat, until it was of course, their time to eat them. Either way, it didn't matter, the Charmander took an uncharacteristic gulp as he began up the mountains trail.

Embertail was going home.

 

[Storybook]

The boy's skin paled into translucence as he reached for Growlithe, strands of the watcher clinging to his metal frame, stray puzzle pieces latching on, only to be driven away by the pain of encountering this frozen abyss. His hand was wet with tears he didn't feel and his shirt, in such a close proximity to the relieved fire type, seemed to cry to, for ice was laced across its sternum, melting, soaking the sagging material. The steely eyed form moved to clutch the creature, void infected by the watcher's soft blue eyes. His hand wrapped around a clutch of long, soft fur, and then everything exploded into ice.

Terror clutched his heart with long, thin, bony fingers, as if dread, unrealized but met, had given a form to the rancid emotion. It strung his innards as if they were the bones of a harp, playing an acidic melody as Growlithe reared and beams of ice cut between the two. The boy's hand, clutching a swathe of fur, ripped it out of the beast's skin as the hand had earlier broken the vine, way back when they had first entered the cave, the jaws of darkness ripping fur from its creator and enclosing the beast. A stray beam encased the beast's muzzle and he yelped, scared, breaking the thin sheet that enclosed his jaws. But the beast's arrow of a nose remained encased as he panicked, short of sight and robbed of scent, his cries quick, confused, and pleading.

Que heard nothing.

Everything had vanished.

The Rockets, Growlithe, even the floor was whipped away from existence and Que was left with darkness- a something that had become nothing. The harp of fear encased his form, singing with crude magnificence, and because there was nothing Que attacked the watcher inside of him instead, its form a bucket of puzzle pieces of what might be and what could be and doubt and dread and hope and fear all at once, and the boy recognized them all as promises- of always, and of never. Promises were lies. Always was never. And he panicked, and he hated panicking, and he hated the feelings inside of him, and he burned in an acidic void to banish them, clutching his head as if he were hurt.

The watcher fled the steely eyed form, banished and hated and feared, and yet still it lunged to be a part of the creature, to fill the void, to not be alone and watching and helpless. The watcher was confused, buried in puzzle pieces that didn't make sense. He was insane, thought a mirage as he was overwhelmed by broken feelings and shattered images, by swarms of puzzle piece emotions that never fit together. He recognized, for a moment, that he was searching for solace in the steely eyed form, searching to be in control. And yet he retreated, because it hurt him as much as it hurt the void.

Flames. Light. Panicked heat, overwhelmed by desperation. Que opened his eyes he hadn't realized had been closed, the darkness, the nothing, infected by fire, the flames leaping, licking, helplessly raging. And behind it all was Growlithe, breaching the darkness that had swallowed him, releasing flamethrower after flamethrower in a confused panic, unable to smell, unable to see, overwhelmed and alone. He was a charcoal painting, it seemed, black and white, sketched into the darkness with a brittle white pencil, dusted with intricate detail of every line of fur, every gleam of the flames reflected by the chunk of ice on his nose, stubborn and cold, unwilling to melt, gleaming in horrific beauty. And the flames were the dust of the charcoal pencil, spread over the abyss of a world. Que watched, mesmerized, not by the image but by the simple fact of Growlithe's existence, arms still clutching his head, a steely eyed form and his blue eyed brother.

And then his arm erupted in pain and the image vanished into the darkness, swallowed from the thing it had tried to breach, white dust swirled away by the wind and speared out of existence. His arm throbbed. Left arm. But at this point the boy felt nothing, for the watcher had retreated, every tendril severed from the steely eyed form.

Except for one.

As if the burn on his arm had severed the tendril and encased it in him. As if the happening of the thing that he dreaded trapped the terror in him forever.

Yet the steely eyed form didn't feel anything. At least, he didn't think he did. The tendril had become subconscious, unable to be recognized, unable to be noticed. But it was as if the tendril controlled the boy, for it was the tendril of fear and doubt and dread, of terror and a sort of twisted hope, rent from the bosom of dread's desperation.

And then a sharp tug pulled him from the earth he didn't know he had fallen to, and the boy felt wind hiss in his ears as he was rapidly moved. Darkness vanished and the world fell into color- dark, earthy brown, grey ruins, firearms and fleeing people. The boy understood, somehow, what had and was going on, as if his subconscious had taken notes while his eyes envisioned a nightmare that didn't exist. He was standing, now, on his own, and the people around him seemed horrified but he didn't understand that it was connected to the blood congealing on Cassie's shirt. He lifted his left arm and examined the burn, placing the world into fact and fiction.

Fact;
I'm burned.
The tracker is gone.
Our Pokemon are gone.
We're running.
Fiction;
We will all meet up again.
We will all be okay.

And then, as everyone caught their breath and spoke and spluttered, he murmured to himself, staring at his arm. The top half was red and blistered in a width of about four inches starting about three inches from his wrist and stretching up, almost meeting the elbow but not quite. It was queer on such pale and unblemished skin, boiling and bruised, sickly pink, burning red. He recalled what had taken place, realizing that the panicked flames had only just licked his skin, avoiding the long sleeve shirt, for his arms had been clutching his head and the sleeve had fallen to his shoulder, and for the first time he reached to his forehead, as if checking for a bullet wound before remembering the odd, panicked faces that told the boy that they had missed. They had had nightmares, too, he supposed. No one was invincible from fear.

And then, his murmurings rose to full out speech as Cassie stopped talking, and it became clear that he was saying the same thing over and over.

"Always is never and promises are always broken. I should have expected this much."

And it became clear, as he spoke, to those that chose to listen, from his steely tone to the crinkles of the words, that he was speaking of the Pokemon's disappearance.

A long, lonely, treacherous howl echoed through the caverns, and for a moment, he felt a deeper void than he had experienced ever before, felt like he was plummeting, mechanical, with a soul of steel, incredibly and always alone.

And then the burn raked his arm and his hand quivered uncontrollably.

He felt, for a moment, fear, the subconscious piece that had become buried within him controlling his actions before he knew he was doing them. He was washed with a cold white wave, and his steely eyes glinted in desperation for reasons he couldn't understand. The boy's back tingled as the rodent scurried up to his shoulder, while for the first time the boy realized that Dedenne still clutched tight to him and had always clutched him, ever since she had awoken and teetered at his leg. With one hand he picked the creature up and clutched her against his chest, and with the other, the left, he rolled the swathe of fur over his fingers that was still tangled in their grasp. His eyes were featureless and his thin lips were straight and mechanical on the pale, ghostly skin, yet something caused his left hand to shake again, and before his eyes the visions of the people and Pokemon in the room whisked in and out of existence as if the border between existing and not existing was as simple to pass as a line drawn on the ground. His blue eyed brother hugged tight into himself, quivering, as the steely eyed form simply stared.

Another howl rent the air, lonely, helpless, sorrowful, the cry of a lone wolf, as the boy walked away, towards Cassie, slouching, dragged across the earth, skin pale, lips thin, eyes smooth.

The howl trailed through the caverns, echoing, a sound of pure sorrow, and its creator sat on the ground, muzzle pointing towards the sky that was shrouded by layers and layers of earth. His nose, at long last, was free from its cold oppressor, of which he had battered against walls and Pokemon alike and tried to melt with his own flames in a frenzy of chaos and fear, and the creature had sucked in the scents of the cavern only to find that his trainer's scent was gone, thin, lifeless, speared out by the wind. Words ran through his head that weren't his own, proclaiming that they would meet again, but he recalled the nightmare, the helplessness he felt in the oppression rent upon him by the world, the sorrow of joy, the fear made real as his trainer slipped away forever, not only in physical presence but in spirit, too, for the creature was helpless. The creature hadn't been at his side. The creature... oh, the creature had failed his task of love.

And Growlithe channeled the desperate sorrow, the guilt, and his love through his thin, wailing, echoing howl that slipped through every cavern and bruised the air.

Que, listening, watched the world slip in and out of existence as he began to run, closing the distance between him and the girl he walked with, reaching, for a moment, for her shirt, snagging it and tugging, pausing her, as he caught up. He released it, trailing beside her, hand shaking as his slouch deepened.

As if the earth were pulling him down.

 

[BurbleBurble]

"Damn, how did he...?"


Gerald was a tad upset at the fact he wasn't able to cave the admin's face in. A tad was an understatement, really. How would anyone be able to catch that? Well, perhaps his part about the gift tipped him off...that didn't matter. Now the man was rambling on about strikes...maybe Thomas was just insane under it all. A series of bright flashes stopped his train of thought. Seems Curt somehow got Raviel behind the group of Rockets. Clever, but the attempt was sadly dispatched by a group of Weavile.


Which reminded him of the Pokeball in his hand, containing June. he quickly reminded himself this wasn’t the monster that he saw in his dreams.


A red silhouette of the fox came out of the ball.


While June had heard the ruckus from inside her ball, she never expected the whole battalion of poison and dark types, especially being backed up by the additional army of Zubat and Rattata. Confused and frightened, she backed up towards Gerald.


“Long story. I’ll fill you in later. Right now, get in there and do some damage. Will-o-Wisp them all, Flamethrower them all, and Psychic on the purple ones. There are other Pokemon backing you up, and if things go bad, I’ll send someone out there to back you up further. Actually…”


He sent out Puff as well. After filling the Lopunny in as well, he sent the two on their way, with a last phase, “Go kick some ass!” However, by the time June and Puff heard the last words and began making their way towards the army, a Sawsbuck charged by, ready to gore anything in it’s path. This lead to Thomas talking about a third strike, and then all hell broke loose.


The horde of rats and their airborne counterparts charged through, followed by the Raticate, Weavile, Bisharp, Koffing, and Weezing. Screeching filled the halls, drowning out cries of pain, calls of trainers, anything. June tried firing off a few Will-o-Wisps, burning a passing Weavile and perhaps a few Zubat or Rattata that were passing by towards Whips, she brought down a singular Koffing and Zubat with three Psychic attacks, or she thought...all of her Flamethrowers only hit Zubat. A deep hatred for the creatures had found a place in her heart. Puff was similarly having trouble, all this noise was disorienting him, shooting Ice Beams erratically, attempting to use Jump Kick on one of the Weavile and the Bisharp, but managed to miss both times, the first time landing on his chest, the second landing on his back.


Gerald called for June and Puff, but was unsurprisingly drowned out by noise. He considered sending out Switchblades or Empty, but that would be even more pointless. Not only would they have no background (Which didn’t really matter in their cases, to be fair) but Empty would get brought down by a single status condition, dark, or ghost type move, which was no good. And the blades would hit anything they could, allied or not, without Gerald’s command, along with having a similar issue to Empty…


So Gerald watched the hopeless fight, with gritted teeth. He wanted to strangle Thomas right now, or implant a brick in his skull, or something terrible to the jackass admin. Or perhaps murder one of those infernal bats, screaming at the top of their lungs. When it was all over, June and Puff were trapped with everyone else’s Pokemon, surrounded by the rocket’s own forces. A look of surprise and shock was on the fox's face, her eyes jolting around nervously, while Puff's was an angry, pained scowl at the surrounding Pokemon, especially the Weavile and Bisharp, for being smart enough to dodge his kicks. The Jump Kicks took a toll on the rabbit, evidently.

Gerald felt like walking up and punching one of the grunts out...

Then the squadron of Rocket’s pulled out guns.

He was experiencing second thoughts now. He wasn’t sure to duck for cover, or start running, or maybe try to return fire with more rocks... When the bullets miraculously missed the trainers completely, Gerald believed the second option was the best one. However, he did look back very quickly, and instantly regretted it. June's sorrowful, terror filled eyes.

That sent shivers down his spine.

When the trainers paused to catch their breath, the red head had to do something to take his mind off of the stare June gave him. Perhaps Puff. Was he doing fine? Injuries sustained by Jump Kicks could be pretty brutal...well, that was making him feel progressively worse. He glanced around at the other trainers. Perhaps they had something that could take his mind off the fox.

Curt seemed to be in a bad shape, hacking and wheezing while scrambling through his bag for something. Only his Croconaw was at the man's side, meaning that Curt had pretty much everyone on his team taken away. Meanwhile Lady was swiping something off his belt...a knife? Interested, he watched the cat bring the tool back to her owner, the creature never lost it's smug appearance. Cassie raised the blade, and...Gerald quickly turned away. A soft noise emitted into his ears as the blade pierced the woman's flesh.

He found something else to focus on. The girl who had been there when he awoke. She must've been very confused. But there was something...something about her that was familiar. Upon closer inspection, he recognized that face. "Bailey?" Her hair was quite different than it was a month ago at the festival. And she had a Meowstic at her side, which he didn't exactly recall, but that was definitely Bailey.

By the time he got over Bailey's appearance, the deed had been done, and the bug which they had been tracking Cassie with was on the floor, next to Curt's messy knife. She also started speaking french again, which Curt mistook for German..."I think that's French, actually. Not that I know how to speak it."

When she realized her translation error, she explained they needed to split up. Honestly, Gerald gave props when given, and this woman knew how to make a plan fast. Not only that, but she managed to put groups together quickly as well. Finally, she assured that Nine would be able to get their Pokemon out alright. That gave the man a sliver of hope, that at least June had a chance of escaping along with Puff.

Gerald was paired with Curt. No arguments there. Curt was a good friend, true, he was hacking up a lung, but still, he held faith that Curt could hold his own. He revealed a small pistol, apparently a BB gun. It looked like the real thing to be fair, and the appearance was what Curt was riding on apparently.

"Well Gerald *ech* shall we get a move on? W-with any luck, maybe the poison will work its way out of my system *erhm*..."

"Uh, yeah. Sounds like a good idea." Footsteps signalling the Rocket's approach and the ominous 'Shoot on sight' talk was enough to provoke a hasty reaction. "Need a hand up?" He didn't need an answer, really. Gerald pulled Curt up and quickly motioned to a crevice opposite to the one Cassie entered, before disappearing into darkness. Said darkness was short lived as Gerald showed a bit of cleverness himself as his Shedinja lit the depths with a soft light. "Hopefully not bright enough to point us out...you doin' alright Curt? Other than the poison, of course..."

-----

June felt abandoned. Cold, and abandoned. She couldn't tell if this was from the Weavile's frosted breaths or from terror. Maybe a combination of both. What had she gotten into? She hardly even knew half the Pokemon around her, and was only familiar with five of them! What had this day even evolved into...

It was supposed to be a search for a new team member. A new friend. A new experience. But now? Surronded by monstrous, heartless creatures who could leave a bloodied smear of her if they wanted to. Her hands trembled while she grasped her wand, which was similarly cold, but likely due to the surrondings rather than June herself.

But there was a voice, a masculine one, that found a place in her mind. The fox's eyes jolted around, to see of there was a physical presence of said voice. Most likely the male Ninetails, a foreign new force to her. Promises of rejoining her trainer. A plan. An escape plan...

Slowly, her arms found focus. Her weak grip was replaced with a strong hold on the grip. If it were living, she'd be choking it. A bright flame ignited at the top of the wand.

She was going to get out of here with the others, or die trying.

-----

A look of contempt was on the Lopunny's face.

A stare of anger, soured by the pain jolting through his back. He wasn't truly aware of the others around hin, June included, but he was aware of the enemy. To the smallest rat, the the pile of immaculate slime, and the especially the tall, icy weasels, and the similarly tall evil soldier.

His angry gaze was broken by a telepathic invader. A declaration of battle, and rejoining...hmm. The rabbit could not truly take one hit. If he was to win, he'd have to employ a enemy of his: strategy. When brute force fails, the second best thing was the thing that undid it. Strategy.

Puff's silhouette split in three thanks to a double team. A cocky grin took place on the Lopunny's face, as he and the doppelganger shadows fists glew a bright yellow, ready to connect a Dizzy Punch with one of the Weavile's faces.

 

[PentheWonderful]

To walk in an abyss. Dark and non-existent. Yet somehow real enough to contain her, support her weight and presence. Interact with her through each pebble she kicked away. Clattering, swallowed by the nothing before it is brought back into existence by Peridot's heavenly light. Into the void, a scene so familiar, almost redundant, being played over and over again in her head since the day she lost everything. Walking alone, haunted by the war raging inside of her. As real as the two Pokemon clinging onto her very person.

Peridot, her light.

Lady, her darkness.

The darkness contained, and the light guiding her through a nightmare. So poetic, it was almost a slap in the face. A joke. A cruel insult.

Cassie was walking quickly. That, she could feel from the strain in her legs, and yet there was so little to see, she might as well be standing still. It seemed all the passages, regardless of which, were that way. It's as if the hallway was built in a literal void, a black hole that not even light could escape, and anything beyond its path was nothing.

Vast, endless darkness.

Paths which Thomas scavenged, crunching the chip removed from his mouse beneath his boot. "I want them dead." Memorized by the ruin as his voice drowned away. They were running blind. But not dumb. Radars, keeping them aware of their locations. A total of eight Rocket members. Two into a single, random passage. And Curt and Gerald with the misfortune of having Thomas on their tail. Into the darkness, divided. And they greeted it with open arms.

At least, as much as Cassie was. She could just keep walking, and walking, and never think about anything else. A hypnotic spell that made you wonder if you were still on the earth at all or if you were simply a specter, hovering above the ground aimlessly. Alluring and irresistable, so comforting and safe in the arms of the enveloping dark. One could simply... Fall asleep.

However, a tug on her shirt broke the trance, and Cassie remembered she wasn't alone. She had a purpose, and she was alive. There were things to be done now, she was not thoroughly hollow just yet. And she discovered that she was scared, and she could be surprised out of her wits from just a simple tug.

Her entire body squirmed away from Que's sudden tug, a satin sheet pushed by the breeze. Her hand inevitably, or perhaps accidentally, grabbed hold of his wrist, keeping him where he was. Accusing. Stern. She'd found an object to lavish attention to. His hand, paper pale and large. She found her hand could barely wrap fully around his wrist. A splotch of red, miscoloring the purity of his white, barely peeping through the sleeve of his shirt. But Cassie knew exactly what it was. Her free hand, moving swiftly, pushing the sleeve further up his arm to observe blistering skin and tender flesh. It occurred to her Curt was also, for a lack of a better word, dying. The man was poisoned by a Koffing. He probably wouldn't last long if he didn't receive antidotes soon.

Broken, as everything always was, when footsteps faintly echoed through the passage, and it hit her that they couldn't continue on. They can't keep running. At least not like this. Exhaustion had drained her adrenaline just as the nightmare sapped her strength. "I'm so done with this..." Came her exhausted mumble.

On her shoulder, Peridot dimmed her light, scooting close to her trainer's neck and hugging it. A soft sigh escaped Cassie's lips, but nonetheless she soothes the small creature. Shifting her little green head, ruby night-vision orbs caught sight of the tunnel crudely dug low into the passage wall. 'Cassie! Cassie, look! We could hide there!' Exclaimed the Emotion Pokemon, shining her dim light to the hollow notch. Perfectly hidden by the shroud of darkness.

"That... Looks like a Pokemon's den..."

'Oh, it's abandoned!' Peridot exclaimed, this time with much more gusto and energy, bouncing lightly on Cassie's shoulder. 'I'm detecting a lot of abandoned dens in this vicinity... I wonder why...'

"I guess they got a whiff of Team Rocket and took off, huh?" Cassie winked at her Ralts, successfully drawing a giggle from her dear friend. At the same time, she tugged on Que's arm, guiding him to the burrow tunneling through the wall. She let him go first, while she produces her transreceiver to quickly type a message to Curt, stating, 'There are abandoned Pokemon dens in the walls. Hide.'

Adrenaline pumped through her blood. The footsteps drew nearer. Cassie nodded at Peridot, who ceased her effervescent glow. Once the den had devoured Que's form whole, the girl too was on her hands and knees, backing herself carefully into the cramped, narrow space. Sinking in deep enough to allow the tunnel to swallow her, and then scraping rocks and dirt to seal the entrance. And there they sat. In silence. In darkness. It was almost native. Home.

She could feel Que's form, close to her's, and she could feel the two grunts, stalking, nearing. She can hear their footsteps, echoing, reverberating in her ear and it was invading her space. Shaking, her hands pressing against her ears, curling further deeper, as far back as she could press. And there was warmth, and she remembered Que was there. Sandwiched in between, Peridot trembled, curling instead into the boy's larger frame. Breaths held, when footsteps were right before their blind eyes.

And left them behind.

Breaths were released, and light returns to them from Peridot's diminuitive body. But the darkness is missed. Without it, vision brings images of nightmarish space. Cramped. Small. Suffocating. Her breaths hitched. She couldn't breath. Heat, rising to her cheeks, her head spinning. Vision spinning. And locked onto the red splotch staining Que's arm. She breathed, and shed her messenger bag. From it, she produced a burn heal. "It's not too bad." Her voice beneath a whisper, moving back his sleeve. She applied the soothing spray directly to the wound. "... Greedy... Greedy flame." A pause, leaving her hands simply hovering in mid-treatment. Her mind, far away, watching embers ignite, roar and envelope. She hates it. And it hates her.

A breath through her nose, she handed him the bottle to take care of the rest. Peridot returned to her perch on her shoulder, as Cassie leaned back into the curve of the den. She was tired, oh so tired. Eyes heavy, body aching, simply shuddering, begging for more rest. Insomnia, she can't stay asleep. Paranoia, she can't stop listening, looking. Schizophrenia, she's delusional.

Tortured, torturous, torturing. She can't stop torturing herself. Eyes fluttering open, desperate and pleading as they searched for something that cannot be found.

"I'm so tired... But... I like this pain... I don't want to rest." Her voice gree smaller, eyes softening as shreds and tatters of the person she once was surfaced to converse with each other. "But, yes, I do... I don't want this..." Hardening, a different spirit, the monster possessing her body. "... Don't have much of a choice, however now do you?" Her eyes blinking slowly, as the girl overtook the demon. "... I don't..." She moves her gaze, watching the flash of yellow fur upon Que's shoulder, and she looks to his owner, and though it was the girl's eyes who watched him, it was the monster that spoke.

"Nine would've loved to chase him around. Maybe eat him."

'Stick close to me!' The milk furred fox bared his teeth to the Pokemon grouping tighter, closer around them, at the same time balancing a large Charmander on his back. They weren't assaulting, no. Most likely they were there just to keep them contained. They wouldn't be able to push past with reckless force. No, they'd need destructive force. Which drew his attention to the Koffing. The only one left not unconscious on the ground.

It was a nasty trick he remembered being taught as a Vulpix. He was ashamed to admit he was raised under the wing of several Mismagius where he came to master moves such as Hex, Grudge, and Confuse Ray. And also something dark. A lesson he will never be proud of learning. It's a good thing there was no shame in war.

'Hey, buddy, over here.' He spoke to the Koffing, with this, he conjures orbs of floating flames. Glowing, hovering delicately above their heads. The orbs catch its attention, along with most other Pokemon surrounding them; magnificent, and beautiful. They begin to fade, one at a time. All save for one, final orb, which moved peculiarly in a certain pattern. Yet, it was merely background light as Nine locked his ruby gaze with the Koffing's. 'Everyone put up Protect, Detect, or whatever you've got, just be ready to defend. If you have neither, then get behind me.' He said, eerily calm into the minds of his peers.

And as the orb popped, Nine immediately raised Protect. And while most of Rocket's Pokemon were left simply rubbing their eyes, snapping out of a daze, the Koffing began to glow, tremor, brighter and brighter. Nine shut his eyes, and came the supernova.

Explosion.

The deed was done, and his Protect was soon shut down. He observed the chaos, the calamity of injured and disoriented Pokemon. Singes. And a new hole blasted into the wall. 'Right. Off we go, then.'

Perhaps it was the determination of finding his trainer that dulled his moral code of stepping over fainted, and injured, writhing Pokemon. Or perhaps he too had a little bit of darkness inside of him.

Ensuring Embertail's safety on his back, he looked on to the cavern behind the wall. A chamber, so large and spacious, yet, void and hollow. Holding only a single passage. Only one way to go. Yet, dark and forboding. The fire types' lights filled the room easily, illuminating paintings, crude, archaic and ancient. Depicting humans, monsters, and Pokemon.

Darkrai and Cresselia.

A battle.

And the slaughter of five Cresselia, one after the other lured by the Darkrai's presence, hoping for battle, but instead met their fate, hunted for crescent wings by human poachers.

A curse, laid waste by Darkrai to those who had wronged the five Cresselia. Five victims far from innocence, twisted into creatures of nightmare, destroying everything in their path. Transforming what was once a shrine built for Darkrai, into a tomb, for those with a death wish.

'Shit.'

 

[Curtkid]

"Y-you know Lockjaw, I-I *erumph*, I didn't get a chance to say it back there, but t-thanks for saving me back t-their *ech*", Curt said to his alligator buddy, who responded to the praise with a blush and a scratch behind his head. The bashful Croconaw always had trouble taking compliments, probably as much as Flare did, still he had to give credit where credit was due, Lockjaw always pulled through when it came down to it. But they could dally too long on pleasantries, the echo of Thomas' "Shot on sight" command, faint as it was, still rung through Curts head. Though Curt was able to keep up with Gerald and Lockjaw, he wasn't able to do so without much difficulty, he had a feeling this poison wouldn't be passing through his system easily. Never-the-less, he knew he had to keep moving, as bad as the poison hurt, it was better then being struck down by a bullet, and he informed Gerald as such.

"Y-yeah, aside from the poison, I-I'm alright, and even then, I've been through worse, what a-about you though, you seemed to snap their for a minute back there?", Curt asked Gerald, he wasn't going to directly bring up the guys personal experience with his nightmare, but he still wanted to make sure the guy was still mentally sound, "normally I-I'd *erhm* appreciate going ape shit on Team Rocket, but right now we need to- whatwasthat!" A clattering of stone could be heard moving in on them from behind, and quickly, with the clattering also came several harsh voices, one of the voicing being easily recognized as Thomas. Curt froze for only half a second before quickly turning to Lockjaw and Gerald, the expression on their faces all told the same idea without exchanging words: the needed to hide.

Quickly and surprisingly quietly, Gerald, Lockjaw, and Curt all hid in the shadows of the rocks, Curt and Lockjaw stayed together while Gerald went to the other side of the cavern not too far off. Curt almost immediately felt a cough coming up but was able to stiffle it at the last minutes, right before the Rockets came into view. The trainer, after stiffing the cough, removed the revolver from his belt, thumb ready to pop off the safety and open fire if need be. Lockjaw stood at Curts side, occasionally peaking behind them to make sure the Rockets didn't have any extra Weaviles or something of that kind to sneak up on them, his body had a faint nervous shiver running through his body, still, the Croconaw was still ready and willing to assault the Rockets at a moments notice. They wouldn't go one the offensive just yet however, they would wait to see if Gerald would make a move, they'd rather let them pass by, but if Curt and Lockjaw saw Gerald being an attack, then they wouldn't let the boy face them alone.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"(I believe it is....this way Whips, come on, if we hurry we just might be able to meet up with them before anything else does)", Flare said as they moved through the caverns winding paths, stepping over stones and keeping an eye out for any openings in the floor that one could step into and end up with a sprain. Flare and Whips had joined up shortly after she and Nine ripped the weapons from the Rockets and, after quickly dispatching of the Rattatta and Raticate, were able to flee down one of the many dark, damp passages that the caverns presented to them. Whips grumbled at being forced to run, yet again, but he understood the logic of divide and conquer, the Rockets were at their strongest in a big group, but in smaller groups, even cut into thirds or quarters, they would be much more susceptible to attack, the Rockets strategies relied on them sticking together. Flare was using her flames to illuminate their way through the caverns, she and Whips had ended up in a particularly dark part of the cavern, and without it, they would have been separated from each other a while ago.

("We just need to go a little bit deeper, if we go a little bit further then it will be harder for them to track us in this darkness, especially now that they've split up as well)", Flare said, prompting Whips to arc one of his eyes' (dragons didn't have eyebrows), "(oh, right, I forget you can only sense other creatures when it's raining, they split up, and without that tracker on Cassie they won't be able to find us easily, and even if they did have some other tracking technology it won't work well deep underground, I think Embertail mentioned it once, and if what he said was true, technology like that won't function well underground, something to do with..So-nar waves, I believe he called them, having trouble reaching the equipment through thick cavern walls..or maybe that was the one with that used Sadle-lights? Eh, I can't remember which was which though, I have to admit, the Charmander seems really foolish, but Embertail does know his way around Human tools and equipment)".

"Gerrrrooo", Whips growled out.

"(I'm sure Embertail will be fine, Jasper, Raviel, and Nine will do everything in their power to see that he will be kept safe, though I do worry about how an extended period in the nightmare will effect him...)", Flare murmured, if a telepathic voice could murmur.

"Rowwroh, geeehrah!", Whips responded, his face turning into a scowl.

"( I know how you feel Whips, but *sigh*...I honestly believe the Rocket's are the least of our worries...)", Flare said, her normally serene face adopting an expression of concern," eliciting a look of mild surprise from the Dragonite,"(you felt it too didn't you? The thing we saw in our nightmares, perhaps not as strong as I did, but...there is something in here, something ancient, something powerful...and the sooner we can meet up with the others the better...)"

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"R-reh, reh?", Raviel asked Nine, arching a brow in confusion. Neither he nor Jasper understood why Nine was so frightened by the pictures on the wall, it looked mostly like a bunch of gibberish to them. Jasper thought she recognized one of the pictures as a powerful Pokemon in a book Curt and Embertail showed them, but even she couldn't exactly remember the finer details of the Pokemon. They admittedly looked fairly pretty, and Jasper and Raviel especially liked the pictures depicting the battles, but if they learned one thing from watching Indiana Jones is to never touch anything that glowed...that and never put aliens in a sequel to a movie series about treasure hunting.

"Bekketah?", Jasper growled, basically asking Nine what was the reason for the hold up. If it was dangerous up ahead, they could find an alternative route, but judging by the Ninetale's expression, this wasn't something they could just walk around. It was clear that a magically inclined Ninetales was far more in-tuned with the magical properties of these chasms (though Raviel also seemed to be giving hints of...picking up something) so they'd be waiting on him for directions for the most parts regarding magical issues. Even Jasper couldn't give them much advice regarding actually making ones way through caves, as she had spent the last decade of her life living with her father in Curts families garage. Still, her excellent night vision could help the group navigate the cave stealthy if they so required, but ultimately it was up to Nine to take the lead. Hopefully it would be enough to help them get through the horrors that awaited them.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Embertail made his way up the mountain path, it was kinda funny, not to long ago, the idea of him and his brother reuniting with his family filled him with excitement, now it only filled him with dread and apprehension, but that was before he knew what he was. All of a sudden, Embertail felt an overwhelming desire to not move forward, but somehow, through some mysterious force, he felt himself being pushed forwards one of the bleakest moments of his lives. Other Charmander gradually began popping up the further he went into the mountains, a bit further in Embertail would begin seeing a few Charmeleon scattered among the Charmander, all part of the same clan, his clan. Charizard would not be seen this early in,
the few of the clans mightiest warrior's that had managed to reach the sacred level held themselves up in the deepest, highest reaches of the mountain, sparing with each other and preparing for their inevitable, intense battles.

Letting out a nervous sigh, Embertail grabbed onto the rocky side of the mountain and began his climb up to the Charizard den. The stone, scored black by countless centuries of flames from the Char-line, made the stone crumb and loose in some areas, the Lizard Pokemon almost slipped and fell to the hard below more then once. Thankfully, the Charmanders agility and reflexes allowed him to save, but it did give him the impression that only those who had the power of flight would be able to safely access their domain. But eventually, Embertail made it to the top, and a great open chamber, as scorched black as the mountain as he had just climbed, stood before him. Taking in one last breath, the Charmander began ,making his way deep into the mountains.

 

[BurbleBurble]

Curt was doing good for a poisoned man. However, he seemed concerned for Gerald's mental state...

"Heh heh, yeah...I'm fine, still pissed off, but not ready to start screaming again. Smart move using my anger to cover Raviel's attack, though." He had to give accolades where necessary, that really was a smart move, even if it was quickly shut down by the Rocket's. Speaking of...

Gerald heard the clamoring, especially once Curt pointed it out. He could hear Thomas's harsh voice... He didn't like that man. Not one bit. But it was a bad time to deliberate who to not like. Curt and Lockjaw hid behind some shadow casting rocks, and Gerald did the same, behind a pile of rocks perpendicular to the two.

Gerald had no doubt Thomas would check any hiding spots. But he learned that screaming and going all Leroy Jenkins didn't work, and would likely get him killed this time. He needed a bit of strategy. His Pokemon would be massively useful here, but the process to get them out was too loud and noisy for his liking. Perhaps another rock? But something else caught his eye. A weighty brick. It was much harder to throw, but it was a harder hit.

He gazed around the pile of rocks tentatively. He needed to wait for Thomas to turn around. Hopefully, Curt and Lockjaw could disable the other grunt. Hopefully.

The moment was at hand. With a heft, he pulled the brick back, and threw it at the back of Thomas's head. he quickly dove for cover, and prayed lady luck was on his side.
-----
June's hands were trembling. She didn't know why, but perhaps she was scared of the brutal reality of it all. The force the Rocket's Pokemon made were closing in for the kill, and were too strong to simply blow a hole through. Or so she thought. The male Ninetails seemed like he had a plan, a rather devious one.

The attention of the creatures were caught by brilliant wisps. June had to admit, they were nice looking. But she didn't mind for them. As eight wisps faded into darkness, June noted another creature who's attention was caught by the wisps.

Puff.

He must've still been trying to beat up the Weavile at rather close range when Nine let out the flares. So much for strategy against brute force. But a issue arose when she attempted to grab it, and it faded away. Double team was still active.

Annoying, but there was time to grab the Lopunny right nearby. No dice, as it faded into nothing once again. Nine had now issued his warning, and the last orb had burst, and many of the Pokemon were coming free if the daze, including the rabbit. Puff's true location was in front of the Bisharp. Blinking and still a tad confused, he was unaware of the explosive end approaching. So June had to do something, and fast. So with a flick of her wand, she flung the rabbit behind Nine with Psychic, and jumped for cover herself.

When it was over, the creatures around him were all down, at least for the moment. Puff was recovering, still a bit dazed, and June was doing good as well. With a small grunt, June got to her feet, and gave a paw to help her rabbit friend up.

The explosion unveiled another corridor, one most of the trainers Pokemon were heading in. This time though, June was holding on to the Lopunny. Didn't need him jumping in the line of danger a second time against a opponent too large to handle...it reminded her of Gerald.

...She wasn't sure how to feel about him. Should she be sorry for him, yes, he somewhat overestimated the might of his two glass cannons, and got them captured. No, he didn't come back for the two, and he likely never would. But did he have a choice? Those people had weapons. They had a large advantage and vendetta against all the trainers. What a emotional dilemma...

Nevermind. While she was figuring out her feelings, Puff broke free of her grip. The proud creature was near the front of the group, strolling about as if there was nothing wrong. Thinking like that would kill him one day, June would bet her life on that.

The fox couldn't help but note strange glyphs and pictures decorating the wall. On closer inspection, it became apparent the pictures were a story. From what she gathered, there was a creature of darkness, and a creature that was quite bright. Pure opposites. The creature of light came to the lair of the darkness creature, anticipating a battle. However, the process was interrupted by a human, with weapons. The creature was struck down, and stripped of it's glorious wings. This vicious cycle continued four more times, with a different creature and a different human. The fifth time however, the creature of darkness corrupted the humans, transforming the men into monsters, destroying everything in their paths.

June's blood ran cold.

'Shit.' The Ninetails remarked.

Her sentiments exactly.

And if on cue, Puff stopped dead in his tracks. While the Lopunny paid no attention to the story, what he was paying attention to was the soundwaves. Puff was foolhardy and brash, but not an idiot. What he felt up ahead was danger. Worse danger than the Rocket's, or their Pokemon.

What was up ahead terrified him.

 

[PentheWonderful]

Anger. Annoyance. Boundless irritation.

Thomas was not being paid enough and this entire ordeal was a big waste of his time and energy. It simply. Isn't. Worth it. And yet there he was, trudging the through the bleak and barren like there was no tomorrow.

Flahlights held methodically together with their guns. Aimed, armed, and deadly. Sweeping carefully along the narrow path they tread. Stepping quietly, he and his partner. After all, they wouldn't want to spook the prey now would they? This job just can't end soon enough, Thomas thought. Between the hallucinations and short moment of unconsciousness, this place rattled his nerves, and it took a lot to rattle the admin. This wasn't the first time he had to pull a trigger.

The man beside him, a dark skinned, dark haired man, was no different. He'd supervised him before on different missions and he never failed to finish the job. Whatever it took. He personally found his devotion and loyalty to Giovanni quite absurd, but perhaps it was simply because Thomas himself was only in it for the money. Which further bolded just how this entire fiasco was not worth the five hundred pokedollars he received monthly. Not one bit. He had gone way too overbudget for what it was worth, and yet, pride was an awful thing. There was always the option of simply calling it off and assuming that the trainers would die off on their own in this admittedly intricate maze, and report the ruin instead for further investigation.

But no, he just had to witness them die with his own two eyes and by his own two hands. Thanks a lot, pride.

Speedwalking ahead, each to check behind rocks and ledges. Finding nothing. Yet with each check, the Rockets had their backs turned, and, as a result faced away from forward. It was around one of these checks when it happened.

Thomas honestly had no idea what'd happened to him. One moment he was awake and fully functional, and the next, he was out like a light. He recalled a brief, yet robust pain on the back of his head. His finger spasmed. The trigger pulled. A deafening bang reverberated, echoed, and amplified in the passage. Its bullet flew, slamming into the floor and richocheting off the walls to lodge narrowly where Gerald was hidden. And the grunt took action. Rushing forward and leaping lithely onto one of the many rocks for elevation, the trainers hidden in the darkness were revealed.

He opened fire, two shots to each trainer respectively before moving agily leaping onto the next rock forward. His assaults came as a steady, coordinated stream. Calculated. Precise. Clearly he was a senior grunt for a reason. In the heat of the situation, his free hand folded to his belt, snatching a spherical object unlike a pokeball. "Fire in the hole!" He announced, pulling a tab off the object and hurling it precisely between where the two trainers were.

It was a grenade, and it erupted with the force of Explosion.

The grunt had jumped down from his perch in order to take cover behind the many rocks situated along the passage. Shards of the grenade shot with the force of a bullet, burying itself into anything within its path. During it all, Thomas somehow found strength in himself to rise. Prying his eyelids apart to greet a hazy vision. His head throbbed, and he could feel moisture running down his neck.

Two plus two is four.

Ten minus five is five.

Six times seven is forty two.

And the square root of one hundred ninety six is fourteen.

Okay, everything's still in tact.

He pushed himself off the ground, and turned over on his back. Hazy eyes slowly came into focus, and a blot of aquamarine catches his attention. A thought occurred to him. The men still had some Pokemon left, and they had none. Stealthily moving his finger to activate the earpiece hidden in his left ear, he said quietly to his team, "There are tear gas bombs on your belt. Use 'em. Distract the Pokemon. Kill the trainers. Take the pokeballs."

And the grunt partnered with Thomas reloaded his gun, but also unlatched another spherical projectile from his belt.

 

[BurbleBurble]

Gerald had messed up.

Messed up badly.

He hadn't expected the Grunt to leap into action so quickly. Sure, the admin was down. But it seemed, no, a pack of cockroaches do not scatter when the leader was down. In fact, they go batshit crazy.

In reality, Gerald should've been thankful. The bullet shot by Thomas in a glaze missed him, just barely, lodging itself a few inches next to him in a small cavity of rocks.

But he underestimated the grunt. He was no mere grunt, but more akin to a professional criminal. He shot scarily quickly.

Gerald. The poor, poor sap.

He didn't get shot in the chest. He flipped himself to attempt to dodge roll, and in a way it worked. The boy thought he got off scot free. Until he gazed over at his arm.

The bullet itself didn't precisely pierce his arm. No. He didn't have a piece of hot metal lodged in his arm, thankfully. But there was still a divot of his jacket and flesh taken out. And it hurt like hell.

The blood stained the normally blue jacket a sickly crimson. Once again, he should be thankful. Maybe he'll look back on this and will be. It didn't pierce any arteries...just some muscle and tissue. Better than it could be. Worse than it could be.

Life's about give and take, a buinessman once said. And Gerald did give. But he didn't want to give more. Using the hand that wasn't spasming with pain, he firmly gripped a ball on his belt. Similar to how the grunt stripped the grenade off his belt. However, rather than a explosion releasing, a grayish beige shell revealed itself. A Shedinja, his Empty.

As the grunt yelled fire in the hole, Gerald called out a command. "Empty, Protect, now now NOW!"

A blue shield formed infront of the shell, and it watched as shrapnel and stones collapsed and lodged themselves in the ever small crevices. And when the Explosion ended, the shield followed. Pebbles and grenade remains clattered on the floor.

Gerald felt bad enough. But he remembered about Curt.

He prayed that man made it out alive. Perhaps Lockjaw knew Protect, almost all Pokemon could learn it after all.

But now was a time to strike back.

"Empty." He sputtered up. "Shadow Sneak. Follow up with a X-Scissors." The Cicada remains faded into the shadows, zig zagging it's way towards the grunt. While Shedinja had a lot of weaknesses, luckily it lacked one to tear gas. Can't blind what lacks eyes.

Gerald was unaware of the fact his arm stopped writhing: he simply started using it again. It was only after another jolt of pain he realized it was the shot arm. But it didn't matter. It stopped bleeding and worked. That mattered more than anything. And it was a gripping another Pokeball.

And from it came two unsheathed blades, pink clothes trailing behind them.

"Switchblades." Gerald had sat up now. But still was laying low. "The person on the rock needs to go. Swords dance, and do what you need to do. Suck the life out of him. I don't care." The swords were surprised Gerald literally told them to do what they wanted on this man. "But don't hit the hiding guy or his little crocodile! Go, go!"

In the heat of the moment, the little psychopaths forgot to use swords dance, or listen to what Gerald said not to hit. Cacophonically slamming together as they zeroed in on the target perched on the rocks, who was reloading his gun, along with snatching another bomb on his belt...

The blades, like Empty, lacked organs, but they had eyes. Maybe it would slow their progress. But for now, they were murder machines, bent on the destruction of the man before them.

Lifes about give and take. And it was Gerald's time to take. Hopefully, he didn't take from Curt in the process.

 

[Curtkid]

O.K, on the list of things Lockjaw and Curt were expecting Gerald to do, that ranked at about number four, still, it did give them moderate surprise (Lockjaw more then Curt) to see Gerald just balls of the walls chuck a freaking rock at Thomas. Gerald really had a thing for chucking rocks at people apparently, but this time he managed to hit Thomas upside his head with a satisfying crack, bringing the man to the ground! Curt and Lockjaw almost considered moving on and advancing on the other grunt before the sound of gun fire forced them to hold their position, Lockjaws hide was tough, but even asking the Croconaw to tank gunfire was a little much. Thankfully it looked like Curt wouldn't have to ask Lockjaw to do that as the sound of clattering metal was heard meeting the stone near Curt, Gerald, and Lockjaw. Curt was no stranger to human weaponry, and Lockjaw had immersed himself enough in human society to know that what the Rocket just threw didn't look good, but now it was time for Curt to return the favor to Lockjaw as he grabbed the Croconaw and pulled him towards some nearby stones for cover. His words telling Lockjaw were lost under the Rockets shouts:

"Fire in the hole!", and moments later, an explosion filled the cave.

Fortune hadn't completely abandoned the trainers and Pokemon though, in the grunts' panic and haste, the man forgot to cook the Grenade off, giving them a few extra precious seconds to get behind some cover. Curt and Lockjaw threw themselves themselves behind some stony cover just as the grenade filled the caverns with an intense, fiery explosion. In Curts opinion, it was a moderately impressive explosion, maybe as powerful as one emitted by a Graveler, give or take, and it was certainly powerful enough to shake the entire caverns. Curts attempt to cover his ears only proved mildly fruitful, the man was certain how long he sat there with his ears ringing, his gun dropped by his side, but through the pain, it occurred to Curt to check on Lockjaws condition. The Croconaw was no stranger to running behind something and cowering, though he had become significantly braver since evolving, right now the poor guy looked like he was on the verge of having that he hadn't had since he was a Totodile, way back in Glimmering Caverns, his breathing was heavy and he was coughing like hell (damn poison), he was shaking, and his eye's were as wide as dinner plates. Curt reached out a placed a hand on his partner, stroking his shoulder and trying to give him a reassuring smile, it was funny, thinking about the Glimmering Caverns and the times Lockajw was a Totodile was giving him feelings of nostalgia, even in a situation as tense as this. Perhaps Lockjaw was picking up on these emotions, as the Croconaw seemed to be calming down a bit, which Curt was extremely thankful for, a "Lockjaw freak-out" right now

"You alright *erhm* buddy?", Curt whispered to the Croconaw, and though Lockjaw still looked terrified, he returned the trainers soft words with the faintest of nods. The the faint sounds of the clash of battle were heard, causing the two to peak out from behind the rock, and then immediately duck back down. The area was filled with Tear Gas and it was unsettlingly close to them, meaning that any plans of advancing on the Rocket was thrown out the window. Thankfully, it wasn't all bad, Gerald (from what Curt could gather) was on the offensive, he had more Pokemon then Curt and seemed to be doing an excellent job of handling the Rocket. It looked like, for the moment, that all Curt and Lockjaw would be able to do was stay low and hide. Gerald was too far away to make contact (they obviously scattered in different directions to avoid the explosion) and Curt couldn't think of anyway for Lockjaw to dispel the Tear Gas.

It was at this moment, they saw, out of the corner of their eye's, Thomas, the man himself, looking just as banged up as him, issuing orders and speaking into what looked like a head piece, he wasn't even looking in their direction. Lockjaw and Curts eye's grew wide, after all the shit they'd been through, after constantly being thrown in literally the worse possible scenarios, they finally got a break, and they almost couldn't believe it, they were surprised Curt's coughing earlier didn't give them away, maybe he just didn't hear it? Either way, They wouldn't waste this chance, not a shot in Hell, Curt and Lockjaw quickly huddled together to begin discussing strategy in hushed voices. Thomas may have looked injured, but the man had proved resourceful before, they weren't going to let their guards down around him.

"A-Alright...Lockjaw, I know you're not the stealthiest Pokemon, but I need you to sneak up on him and incapacitate him with Aqua Tail, right now I think he only believes Gerald has his Pokemon on him", Curt said, talking slowly so not to trigger another coughing fit, "I'll keep his attention with my gun, so long as his attention is on me, there's a good chance he won't notice you, besides, you'll do way more damage to him then a BB." Curt finished his words with a reassuring smile, to which Lockjaw gave a small blush to before attempting to disappear into the Shadows while Thomas' attention was on Gerald and his Team. Lockjaw felt a shiver run through his spine as he clambered his way across the shadow cavern wall, keeping one eye on Thomas and one eye on where he was moving to avoid kicking any rocks or making any noise that could give him away. It was funny, right now he wasn't feeling so much scared as he felt...anxious, perhaps though that was more dangerous then fear.

Curt, meanwhile, was lining up his shot best he could from behind the cover of the stone through a narrow gap, making it rather hard to take proper aim. In the end, the best he could do was aim at Thomas' "knee area", though perhaps that was for the best, in spite of everything that he had done, Curt still didn't truly want to kill the man. Maybe he was soft, or maybe he wanted to give Cassie a chance to have her way with him, he wasn't sure and right now he wasn't going to think about it, his aim was already being thrown off by the poison, he needed to focus. Taking in a deep breath, Curt pulled back the hammer on his gun, lined up the sights, and pulled the trigger. A faint crack, similar to a fire cracker, filled their section of the cave.

 

[PentheWonderful]

Smoke, dust, and tear gas.

Vicious, merciless, attacking anything and everything within its reach. The grunt had pulled down a pair of goggles attached to a breathing aid, hidden beneath his cap, in time for the projectile to unleash its agony inducing contents. Thomas had done the same, with sloppy hands and a bobbing head. He could see, though barely, through the shroud of thick white, before remembering his goggles had heat monitor mode. Rightfully switching it on, his vision was repaired. Outlines of living beings, objects, and walls each with their color coded temperatures. Everything was clearer, the shadows hid nothing.

Hey, why didn't they do that sooner?

He supposed it was his temper. Blind rage towards overworking that clouded his logic from functioning properly. Oh, well, they had the advantage now-

BAM!

A sharp pain right up his knee sent the admin howling, clutching his knee in agony and writhing on the ground he lay on. And then, as if that wasn't enough, an Aqua Tail came seemingly out of nowhere, knocking him into the rubble and then some. "OW! FUCK!" He cussed as freely as one could be. "Yeah, kick a guy when he's down, will ya?! HEY! How about I put on some glasses and then you can punch me in the face while you're at it, huh?! Fucking cunts!"

Like a pathetic rag doll, and Thomas was very glad no one could see, he flopped back down from the rubble he was blasted into for favor of the floor. Only needing to turn his head as the smoke enveloped every single body in the passage vicinity, he clicked the safety of his gun, somehow managing to keep it on hand with him and doing so in perfect unison with the grunt, pressing a hidden button on the side of the nozzle which clicked in an entirely new array of projectiles.

They raised their arms.

Aimed.

And fired.

Twice for the grunts' case. One for Switchblades, and the other for Empty.

It was a wonder how quickly they worked. One would suspect Team Rocket having implemented military training for their members. But still, bullets couldn't hurt Pokemon, no. Tear gas only did so much damage to them too. But to humans? To delicate, fragile humans? Those items did quite a number. All of the attacks were aimed, Curt and Gerald would notice, at them. Not the Pokemon. The tear gas was preventing them from looking back and scoping the scene, assessing it and giving direction. Now that their Pokemon were once again separated from them, sent out to traverse the wall of tear gas, how were they to be of any help at all?

And the bullets?

Ah, yes, the odd, slightly larger new projectiles went flying through the air with great precision, when compared to the Pokemon, disoriented by the gas, and their eyes stinging from the chemicals. The only immediate threat to the Rockets at the moment was Empty.

Which was why the grunt fired at it first.

The projectiles sprouted suction-cupped legs, latching onto their targets like Leech Seed and burying a needle into their bodies which sent an electric shock similar to Thunder Wave. Perhaps even Thunderbolt.

Even if the bullets missed, they still had spares within the gun, but Thomas liked his team efficient. Long-term against short-term results. The two Rocket members, grunt and admin, then proceeded to pull a second gun from their belt; this time with a larger nozzle, which fired nets. Typical Rockets. The grunt's net were aimed to take both Empty and Switchblades, while Thomas' hurled towards Lockjaw.

Clearly this Rocket Team was no ordinary dispatch.

 

[BurbleBurble]

His eyes burned. His throat felt like there were spines stabbing into it. The boy was hacking and wheezing out saliva.

Yet something urged him to keep going. A deep, bitter rage.

His Pokemon weren't faring much better. The Shedinja, paralyzed fell to the ground limply. One of the Doublade pair had the strange projectile attempt to seep it's needle into the blade itself. However, the electricity jolted through it's body, blackening the edges. It was latched tight too, as hard as the brethren blade pulled, the projectile refused to come off. It stopped them, that's what the "grunt" wanted anyways. No longer were they deafened and blinded by rage, but by the tear gas around them.

Gerald had to work fast.

The best advantage would be vision. Which, luckily, Empty could provide that without moving a muscle.

He struggled to sputter out words. Constantly hacking out the foul air, he finally found respite in his lungs.

"EMPTY!" The young man screeched out. "FLASH, NOW!!"

Light poured out of it's empty eyes, every slight crevice, and the void on it's back. Brilliant, blinding the light filtered through the fog, revealing shadows of adversaries and allies. And weapons, projectiles soaring towards his own Pokemon and a Croconaw. Gerald had faith he could distract the soldier-like grunt long enough for Curt to cut him free. First thing he needed was the blades, though. "SWITCHBLADE, SACRED SWORD!"

The unparalyzed blade glowed a bright blue as they brought down themselves on the net. The netting scattered as the blades sliced through it. "NOW, FLASH CANNON!" Were the final commands he spilled out before subccumbing to the gas. The red, irritated eyes of the singular sword focused on the shadow of the man who attempted to capture them. The tips of the blade glew a shining steel color, as a sharp beam released from it.

Gerald, on the other hand, knew there was no hiding. He distracted the grunt with the swords, and hopefully Thomas as well. That meant Curt could potentially free Lockjaw in the window of time he bought.

He heaved himself up. A sharp feeling reasonated through his arm. Right. He was shot. Wouldn't be throwing stones for a while. At least not with that hand.

He needed to find better cover. And something to defend himself with. He had one Pokemon left, but he needed to wait for the proper moment to let it out. It was easily spooked, after all.

There had to be something. The Rocket's would open fire again any moment now, and Gerald wasn't ready to die yet.

Before they shot again, he hid behind a pile of rubble. "Hid" since the only thing he'd be hiding from was bullets.

 

[Curtkid]

Funny thing about success, it seems to ebb and flow through out the course of ones life, though normally it didn't jump up and down like a Sponik on crack like it was right now. Curt honestly didn't expect to hit Thomas, between the poison throwing off his aim, the tiny amount of reasonable cover he could aim from, still he took it. If that wasn't enough good luck for them, Lockjaw was not only able to get the drop on Thomas, but was also able to successfully hit him with an Aqua Tail. Perhaps being smaller then the average Croconaw helped Lockjaw hide himself in the shadows to sneak up on the Rocket Admin.

"Yeah, kick a guy when he's down, will ya?! HEY! How about I put on some glasses and then you can punch me in the face while you're at it, huh?! Fucking cunts!", they heard Thomas scream, in a mix of fury and pain after being knocked into the cover of the Tear Gas.

"WELL HELLO POT, I'M THE ARCEUS DAMN KETTLE, *BLARKAK*!", Curt yelled back, his sentence being finished with a small coughing fit, not good as he saw wisps of tear gas from the sides of his cover. He knew yelling was still a bad idea at this point, but he felt it necessary to point out Thomas' hypocrisy, seriously, how many times had the guy attacked them when they were weak or off their guard? But apparently the Aqua Tail didn't do much to slow Thomas down, Curt knew Lockjaw would hold back to avoid killing or even seriously injuring Thomas, but Curt hoped he would have at least put in enough power to at least knock him out. Despite being in a good amount of pain, Thomas somehow managed to pull out an oddly shaped fire arm, the googles shielding him from the tear gas, and started firing at him and Lockjaw. Curt was safe from the rounds behind cover, but Lockjaw was a different story, thankfully, the Croconaw was still on alert mode as was able to dodge the round, a slower firing, electrified dart (thankfully he was able to make out Thomas reaching for some kind of weapon through the gas). Unfortunately, Lockjaw was unable to dodge the net gun, as the Alligator Pokemon was flailing about it , panic setting in as he desperately tried to get the net off him.
However, just when it looked darkest for them, Gerald once again came to their aid.

"EMPTY! FLASH, NOW!!", they heard Gerald scream. The flash of light illuminated the entire cavern, the Shedinja tactically placing itself in a position where Curt and Lockjaw wouldn't be effects, but the Rockets would. Curt knew he didn't have time to waste, he immediately reached into his bag to dig out him med kit, the tear gas was encroaching on him, and between the poison reaching its peak and the imminent tear gas, he needed to do something drastic. But first, the matter of Lockjaw.

"LOCKJAW, BUDDY! CALM DOWN! YOUR TEETH *ARKAGUGH* REMEMBER! USE *BLERK* U-USE YOUR TEETH TO BITE THROUGH THE NET!!", Curt yelled to his companion through the coughs. Curt's voice, even if filled with a sense of urgency often seemed to help calm him down, even in a stress filled situation, it also helped that Curts words were filled with sound strategy and at the same time, the coughing reminded him that his trainer, his friend, needed him help! A Totodile had teeth that could chew through just about anything, so even a strong net like the Rockets didn't stand for long against Lockjaws chompers. In no time at all, Lockjaw was freed from the next and ready to hop back into the fight. The sounds of attacks were heard from Geralds Pokemon, but they saw the boy himself on the verge to succumbing to the tear gas, it was time to return the favor.

"GOOD JOB LOCKJAW *BLRAKK*", Curt felt as though he was ready to throw up, O.K, now more yelling for now, "L-look Gerald needs your help, go to him and use Water Gun to try and clear away some of T-Tear gas", Curt said, his breathing getting heavy again.

"R-raw? Rawugh raugh!?", Lockjaw yelled, his eyes darting nervously between Curt and Gerald and his voice full of concern. Yes, Gerald was already being consumed by the tear gas, but Curt also seemed moments away from being covered in the stuff himself.

"D-don't worry a...about me, I got a plan, j-just *bhurm*, just please help Gerald, they're distracted by Geralds Pokemon for the time being, but that won't last long, just, please hurry!", Curt said, the worry in his voice being enough to motivate Lockjaw to start heading in Geralds direction, but not before quickly blasting his owns eyes and Curts with water to help ward off the tear gas. Hopefully, he would end up safely sprinting through Thomas and the grunt , make it to Gerald, and blast the area with with Water Gun to dispel the tear gas a bit, then give Gerald himself a soft blast of water to the face to wash the tear gas out of his eyes and help the wounded boy to safety.

Curt meanwhile, was preoccupied with a different matter, he already felt the sting of the tear gas in his eyes, and he knew he needed to hurry, Lockjaws water would by him some protection, but right now he needed a bit...more. He dug through his medical bag, still covered in sticky liquid from his broken healing supplies, hoping against hope that it wasn't broken, Thankfully, his prayers were answered as he pulled out a syringe of clear, white liquid and a long, thick plastic band. Curt felt a twinge of nervousness as he looked at the medicine he swore only to use in emergencies, he knew this was powerful stuff and would likely leave his usefulness to the team severally limited, but if he didn't then he was sure to succumb to either the poison or the tear gas. He winced as the stinginess in his eyes grew worse, he couldn't wait any longer, removing the cap off of the needle, tapping the vial, and then rapidly wrapping the band around his arm to help reveal a vein. There was no two ways about this, he promised his mom to only use this in a emergency, and this definitely qualified as an emergency.

Curt took aim as he stabbed the needle into said vein, and injected the morphine into his system.

With that, Curt sprawled himself out as the tear gas over took him, closing his eyes as tight as he could and even pressing his wet backpack into his face to try and keep that crap out of his eyes. If morphine was as potent as his mother said it was, then there was a good chance that the tear gas, hell, even the poison, would be reduced to a mild nuisance, and right now, through the burning in his eyes, he was praying that the Morphine would kick in soon. If you injected it, it effects you quicker right? Plus he was high on adrenaline so that should make it go through his system quicker right? Really though, he was hoping that Lockjaw was O.K, the electric dart could really hurt him! In fact, Curt was being to wonder if he should go after and help Lockjaw, now that he though about it, this tear gas really didn't hurt all that bad...

 

[Storybook]

Footsteps echoed in severe solemnity, baffling the deathly silence, they themselves an omen of terror as much as the lack of noise that they penetrated. They rang crisp and clear, massive simply because there was no else, swarming the air with a certain fearful pride, and Que was confused.

He feared the silence, and he feared the things that broke it. His body shook, skin pale, fear wrinkling his featureless face, and he quivered, pushing himself against the wall, curling into his legs as a frightened boy shrinks away, as doubt, the thing he thought he swallowed, reared in the footstep's wake. He listened, afraid that if he stopped the noise would disappear, afraid that if he did the noise would destroy him.

Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip.

Shoes on rock.

Clip. Clip. Clip.

Fading away,

Clip.

A whisper.

Ca- ca- c-


Silence.




Was he alive?




For a moment, everything was dead. Noise. Breath. Life. The creatures around him vanished, the heat turned cold, the world, previously thought dark, was swallowed in the abyss of nothing, and the creatures in it were left to regret the light they hadn't noticed until to late. Except- there was no thought, there was no regret. There was only fear. Sweat. Confusion.

And Que thought for a moment of the unspoken promises all around him. The promises of hope, and of noise. The promises made by every creature as they breathed and they laughed. The promise that they were something. The promise that they wouldn't fall into nothing. He saw, for a moment, the watcher, a blue eyed boy shadowing his steely eyed brother in the vast landscape of eternal nothing. The watcher, it seemed, felt horror. His eyes were wide and smooth, crinkled at the edges by tears, his hands were clasping his heart, his breath was short and rapid and fearful, body curled, drifting away from the boy. And the steely eyed form watched.

He, too, felt horror, but it was a different kind of horror. It was pure and unblemished by swarms of puzzle piece emotions, it was tyrannical and smooth, a sheet of cold realization, a facade of hope that broke itself on purpose. The steely eyed form's face was tight, skin pale and ghostly, mouth agape as the watcher, weeping, began to disappear. And as much as the boy despised the emotions that ravaged his blue eyed brother, for a moment...

... he wanted them.

He didn't want them to disappear. For a moment, he wanted a world where everything was always, he wanted to pretend that world was this world, he wanted to feel secure in the knowledge that nothing will change. He wanted it so badly... he wanted it so badly that maybe just one more answer would give it to him. One more puzzle solved. One more knot untied. One more game played.

Just one more.
The one.
And if it wasn't...
then just one more. One more. One more. Somewhere along the line something would have to fall into place. Something would be solved. There would be no questions to ask because there would be an eternity of bliss and peace and nothing would ever change. Infinite would become forever. Always would stay always. He would wish to be happy and loved and never alone, and his wishes would come true. If only he answered that one question... that one last puzzle, untied the last knot to discover what in Arceus was wrong with him... what was wrong with the world. And then, with that answer... fixing it would be as simple as snapping a piece into a puzzle, as smooth, as soft, as perfect. The last piece... and then no one would ever leave just to never come back. No one would be taken away. No one would die. No one would promise that they'd be there forever, because they wouldn't feel the need to blindly state that they couldn't. The boy's hand feverishly shook. He wasn't finding it fast enough. Growlithe was gone- his protector, too. One by one by one... darkness. Pain. The answer... the answer mocked him, betrayed him, evaded his grasp.

One more, one more. Who was Cassie. Who was Thomas. How did they dream. What did they fear. Why did they fear. One more, one more. Who was Gerald, and Curt. One more, one more. What did they hide. How could he figure out. What did the shake in their hands tell him, or the blindness in their eyes. One more. Oh, please. One more. He was running out of time.

Darkness swarmed him- translucent darkness, a black hole. He felt pain and pretended to be numb because if pain was true than that meant that the answer wasn't out there, that the end he wished for was never. It would confirm that such an innocent, childish wish was only for children, was only for the dumb or the hopelessly empowered who swaggered through life thinking everything was fine and dandy. His fear would form doubt. Doubt killed. Doubt swarmed. Doubt was a virus, a mallet that shattered, a hand that tore up the puzzle and threw its pieces into a giant, confusing, mess. Pain and doubt were connected, so he would be numb.

Except he wasn't. The watcher... blue eyed, feeble formed, curled, curdled, shivering, weak, afraid. He was fading, slipping away, leaving the boy in the darkness... leaving the boy with only fear, only knowledge, with a vast expanse of nothing that dragged at him, drawing his shoulders to the floor. He was metallic, smooth, pale, afraid, vainly searching for that one answer that didn't exist.

And he was alone.

Rusty.

Afraid of the dark.

Afraid of the light.

The longer he believed he was numb... the truer it would become. Darkness and light would fade together and everything would be clear forever- a limitless nothing, a world with no substance, no pain, no hope. He would stand in it alone, a ghost in a land of never forever, where silence didn't exist but neither did noise, where everything had become nothing, no joy and no fear. The weight of knowledge would drag at his shoulders- of the dark truth, of existence's facade, and the earth would push him forwards as he sulked in an eternity of lies disguised as truth. There would be nothing but a ghost in a land that was clear forever.

And Que was alone.

And then his left arm writhed, as if to remind the boy of pain and fear and doubt, and he bit his lip as light swallowed the darkness that rebounded into his eyes.

The cave.

He was in the cave.

Peridot glowed, a disintegrating sphere of light and color.

He remembered the footsteps, and how the girl had spoken, as if his subconscious had recorded the world for him while he envisioned its end. For a moment, they all vanished, wavering on the line of existence, and Que was the watcher, the steely eyed form's blue eyed brother, watching the numb creature below him, ravaged by terror he didn't know he felt.

"Please don't," he heard the form say, the notes in his tone rusty, wavy and crinkled, his right hand pushing away the burn heal as she set it in his palm.

"I like it this way," and the creature's face was calm, yet wrinkled by terror, the unblemished skin bruised by doubt and fear. "I... it makes me feel alive. If there's nothing-" and there was a definite break in the boy's voice at the jagged, tacked on afterthought, and so the steely eyed form stopped speaking, staring at the shoelace in his hands that, during the darkness of the cave, had become his solace as he swiftly and easily plucked the knots free from his wrist.

And the blue eyed watcher knew what he was about to say, the realization dawning on the boy's pale face as he slumped into himself, head between his knees. ".. I can't tell whether I've stopped existing or not."

Had he actually spoken? Did it matter? The girl began speaking, but he didn't listen, lost in the vague discomfort of existence, overwhelmed by puzzle pieces that swarmed his form in emotion he didn't understand. The blue eyed watcher curled into himself with a sigh, startled to hear the steely eyed form speak, the reason for the words as clear in his mind as if he had spoken them himself, recollection a shadow on his face. Pride was idiotic. Pride was the power to think there was forever. And the pride... oh, yes, the pride had felt fear. Satisfaction welled in his chest. Sickness tainted his voice. He tasted an answer.

"They were afraid of failure. The rockets, I mean. Their footsteps were hard and angry. Crisp. As if everything had to be perfect. As if everything had to be forever. Absolute. Definite. Always."

And then the watcher realized that Cassie had stopped speaking long ago, her last words hanging in the air with brutal, nightmarish demeanor. He listened to their echo, and Que was the steely eyed form once more, staring at the object of the words. But his eyes, as they stared, seemed different. Lighter. Avoiding.

... he wasn't looking for the answer in her.

"She might appreciate that right now."

And the words seemed to be true, for the Dedenne was pacing, twitching on the ground, moving in odd, repetitive movements. Her whiskers twitched once, then four more times in quick succession. Her ear flicked, and she repeated the motion again, four more times. Her tail flicked- once, than four more. It seemed a repeating pattern, held to with a certain amount of blind vigor. Anything that she did she must do five times. The idea was almost religious, as if it were a code that had to be met, or else the world would fall into disaster. Worry wrinkled the rodent's nose, and her whiskers sparked as she tapped the floor with one paw five times. Then, abruptly, the creature would stop, mindless concentration tainting her eyes as if she were constantly counting, and she would clean herself- rubbing her paws against her skin, grooming her whiskers, combing her fur with her teeth in quick, rapid, repetitive gestures. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five.

Pieces fell into place. The slow, shivering movement she portrayed constantly, as if something was always on her mind, always tainting her thought, as if her body was always dirty, never good enough. The constant twitching, the rhythm as she led the rockets on a false chase, bouncing off of the branches- one, two, three, four, five. Pause. One, two, three, four, five. The slow, thoughtful scurrying down into dead man's drop, as if every stone had to be calculated before she laid a paw on it. And then, when the Rockets fought, the creature had done nothing but cling, twitching, as if the specific amount of times that she tapped a claw against his leg could somehow make everything alright. One could add these oddities to the tightness in which she clung to her trainer as they fled, and perhaps receive a conclusion. Que wasn't quite sure what it would be... except.. that maybe she didn't like being alone as much as he did. His eyes narrowed. It hurt to not seek for answers.

The world vanished and reappeared again. The boy took a deep intake of breath, then buried his head in his knees. With hands tying and untying the shoelace in a repetitive, instinctual action, the boy began to hum, as if trying to evade the silence that shadowed the abandoned den of which they had clung to. It was a low, soft noise, crinkly and smooth, like aluminum foil, rusty, full of thought and evaded pain. Despite the intense nature the song usually claimed, Que hummed it dully, softly, the range of notes crinkled and slim, so that much of the confusion and pain it had held was lost. Occasionally, words would slip into the hum as his mouth instinctually formed them, as if he had forgotten the rest of the song except for the specific lyrics that hung, trapped in his head. The boy made no move to leave the cave and his eyes, given sight by the slightness in which he raised his head from his knees, betrayed his lack of thought in the subconscious song. He focused them on the girl- on her hands.

"......cold, and the game is old........ you turn, and...... one long treacherous riddle.......can I trust you. Should you trust....... ....... that moment of reckoning. Faces change. Even smiles grow strange............. so many faces the real self often erases, enticing lies......... feel the terror draw ever nearer the more you..." He paused for a moment, as if stuttering, yet his eyes were more inquisitive than calm. Gloves... did those matter? Was this a piece he had missed? "The more you stare in the mirror........ hold your own... face the wind-" Que paused. It was clear he knew the next word, but the boy refused to speak it. His eyes focused into nothing. [OOC: The Riddle, from The Scarlet Pimpernel]

Que sighed, sinking into himself, humming slowly, in a crinkled tone. The noise died away, but the boy continued to hum

in silence.


Despair. Terror. Hatred. Love. Each different than the other- each powerful, intense, mind-controlling figments of a creature's subconscious. Most people feel them. Most Pokemon let it control them. Fuel them. Drive them on. Most creatures... love emotion. Stick to it. Grab onto it and never let go because it makes them feel human. Alive. Sad. Happy. Enraged. Upset. It gives them a different point of view, one that strays from truth into magic, from fact into fiction, and somehow... they think it saves them.

Maybe it does.

Growlithe understood this, in a way. He understood how powerful it was to feel something, and how addictive. He understood how some latched onto pain because they thought if they let it go than it would never leave. If they didn't grasp it at its roots and tear it with their teeth they wouldn't have a way to fuel revenge- if they let go of the pain, they wouldn't have a reason to hate and if they didn't have this hate they wouldn't think the way they did - furiously, irrationally, willing to do anything - and if they didn't think this way than they couldn't defeat the reason for the pain and it would keep coming back. For some, this reasoning was true. This was what they feared. For most, it was an excuse. They were addicted to emotion. They would stay miserable.. because they wanted to. Because it felt good to be miserable. They latched onto their pain and told themselves that it was logical. Sometimes, even, it made them feel good. Righteous. Life was pain- Hah!

It happened with other emotions too- the addiction, the lust, the wallowing. Happiness. Fear. Love. But despair was most common. When someone wallowed in despair and couldn't seem to come out- people had a word for that. Depression. But as far as Growlithe knew... there was no word for an addiction to the other emotions. No word for when someone would go crazy just to find someone to love. No word for when someone would murder just to fill their lives with money, and joy. No word for when someone would light a match and watch their house burn before them because they couldn't get enough of the adrenaline in their veins, the fear in their voice, the fire in their eyes. No word for when someone would make themselves miserable because misery, for some reason, just seemed right. Because they couldn't escape. Because they knew no else.

Emotion was illogical. It trapped. It killed. It gave hope. It took hope. It murdered and destroyed and created. It was, as a whole, contradictory, for hatred and love could cause the same things for the same reasons at the same time. It turned against itself- one week, it was causing peace and new life. The next, some idiot was fighting another because they couldn't seem to deal with envy and both would end up dead. Emotion was insane. Illogical. Terrifying. A savior.

And perhaps not despite but because of this, creatures small and large were addicted to it. Look at his team- his friends, he guessed, those that would stand beside him even if they said they wouldn't. Clove was addicted to anger and envy. Zepp was addicted to hope. Shank was addicted to pride. Que... if it had to be someone, than Que would be the one addicted to despair... yes, Growlithe had been with him long enough to know that his master was addicted to feeling pain.

And Growlithe?

... most creatures would conclude he was addicted to no emotions, that he was a creature of acceptance, who let emotions pass through and moved on. Quite on the contrary, however, the creature was addicted to them all. He was a creature of acceptance, but only because he loathed it when there was nothing to accept. Day by day, he would let emotion overwhelm him, and he would cherish it like the newest illegal drug because Growlithe was convinced that emotion was both purity and the greatest evil. It was the contradiction he loved. The feeling of something else controlling him. The illogical nature of a thing that wrapped all in its tendrils and yet never seemed to make sense. The greatest riddle. Oh, yes.

He needed an illogical puzzle like this, to think and dream and ponder on. Time was lonely, and he had found a way to spend it.

And so he wallowed- not like a rock, but like a feather. He would dip his threads into the pool of hatred and let it sink into his skin, but never would he stay. Wind would whip him onto the next- on to despair, on to love, on to fear, on to contentment. Every time he landed into a pool, he would carve part of it into himself, lolling in whatever it was he felt, mind fiddling with a constant riddle. And then he'd move on, as light as a feather, seeking the next pool.

He cherished emotion, and as such every emotion he felt was deep. Primal. He was addicted. He wanted it all.

Perhaps this was why his howls, in a moment of peace at his capture, felt so raw. Perhaps this was why, when the creatures he found himself with began to form a plan, he fell mute, closing his lolling, drunken, failing eyes and wallowing in the sorrow of failed love. And then, just as quickly as the grief had overwhelmed him, it would leave, and he would move onto the next. Fear. What was this voice in his head, that came from no direction, that had no scent? Excitement. Shrapnel flung like ragged tears, as terse as a failing breath, skimming past his skin, directed by the numerous, thrown up protects. Hatred. He could smell the pain of their enemies, and it somehow felt right. Regret. Where were they going, did anyone deserve this? Confusion. He was overwhelmed. The voice from nowhere tickled his skull, the scent of fear overwhelmed the beast's arrow of a nose, the coolness of the ancient wall washed over his snout, fatigue and regret and terror seemingly ingrained within the curiously dented surface, as if it had been purposefully flawed.

His ears perked, his drunken eyes lolled in their sockets, as useless in darkness as they were in light. He whined- within the sound no words but a powerful sense of confusion muddied by a sort of warped determination. It was a sort of rusty noise. A plea, perhaps. A nudge to move forwards. And then the creature, nose high in the air, searching for scent, barked. Softly. A question- who was in his head? Who tickled his skull with words he didn't think of himself?

The protector snorted at his question, her gaze trying to avert from the murals on the wall, uncomfortably clipping her hooves against the rubble on the floor. A mural. Silly. Had to be.

She shook her antlered head, staring back from where they had come, eyes darting and narrow, as if paranoid. Her powerful neck swung against the opposite wall, muscles tight, snorting in frustration. Dust and rubble crumbled onto her skull, filtering the few threads of light emitted by the various fire types in the room and dusting the image, causing the anger in her gaze and taut stance to morph into wariness. She almost seemed panicked, left ear flicking involuntarily, black eyes mad and darting.

She hated it all.
The Pokemon.
The people.
The place.
Herself.

This couldn't end soon enough.

 

[PentheWonderful]

Bullets running out, hidden weapons wearing down.

There was no escape, no mercy.

No victory, no loss.

Just life and death. Gain, theft, separation, and confusion.

Flash. Disorienting. Flash Cannon. Lethal. Pure, raw energy, blasting through the cloud of thick smoke. Massive. The shockwave alone broke through weaker rocks, cracked the frail walls. That shockwave was a savior. Merciful, knocking the grunt to the ground before the real blast of lethal energy streamed above him, leaving him a watcher. Helpless. Disarmed. Vulnerable. What was a human in the shadow of a Pokemon’s strength?

Thomas’ misfortunes had worked with him as an advantage. Already being flat on the ground, the Flash Cannon whirred right above him, incinerating whatever dared stood in its way. The beam trailed down the passage, slamming into a wall somewhere far on the other side. Shaking the ruins to the very core. Freeing rubble from the ceilings to threaten whomever it sheltered beneath.

Noise. Oh, so much noise.

It stirred something, from the deepest pits of the ruins. Something locked away by a curse and time.

Tremors.

A long, distant, raw, agonized, furious, melancholic, blood curdling, bone chilling wail. Inhuman. But not quite Pokemon either.

The sound of a true monster.

"Great... Job... Genius..." Came Thomas' ever weakening slur. Crimson. He lay in a pillow of crimson. Dampening his hair, coloring his ears. "You woke up... Whatever lives here..."

Breath taken away from the grunt. He struggled to recuperate. He spasmed, he groaned, he writhed. Thomas bled out. Slowly, oh so unbothered as he ripped the sleeves from his uniform, folding one into a pad.

Bam...

Wincing when he placed the padding in the fracture on the back of his head.

Bam!

Tying the other sleeve around his head to secure it in place.

BOOM!

It was coming from the walls. Eminent. So close, and yet, not a body to be seen. But one could feel it. A burning energy, challenging the power of a Lucario's aura. A faint stench. Occasional whisps of foul, gamy rot. Haggard breathing. Shaky. Bile-ridden. It heaved with a wheeze, and exhaled with a growl. Stalking behind the walls.

There were no sounds, and the creature was confused.

Until the grunt got up, and coughed. It was utter disaster after. A massive limb, a hand, bursting through the wall between Rockets and Trainers. Flesh, not fur. With humanoid fingers and fingernails, but amplified ten times. Swollen and coated in numerous foul smelling sores and tumors. The grunt leaped towards his admin, yanking his arm over his shoulder to escort him back the way they came, dropping him into a crevice before entering it himself.

And now the beast, the creature with the massive arm blocked the trainers' way out. The hand, it knocked each surface it could lay itself upon. The noise reverberated through the passage, like the blast of a speaker beating against your chest in a rock concert. It paused, laying limp. Yet a second later, its pair emerged. More foul, rotten, and deformed. The walls of one side of the poorly dug passage collapsed in on itself. Bulldozed with the massive strength of the arms.

As if stone were simply cobweb.

It heaved itself into the passage, finding it a tight fit, and the full force of its stench overpowered even the tear gas. The Rockets were lucky to be wearing goggles and breathing aids. It turned its body to face its prey, and a monstrosity was revealed. Once a man, deformed so far by the darkest, foulest nightmares, into a beast. Misshapen. Disproportionate. Its torso bulging in every direction with countless tumors, back hunched by the pus spewing sore that dominated it. Its legs small, malnourished. Nothing but twigs in comparison to its arms. Its head was bald, decorated with swelling and sores. It had no nose, or lips, and its teeth rivaled that of a Sharpedo. Its eye sockets hollow, with the exception of an eye dangling from one of them.

The only other impressive trait it had, were its ears. Large and pointed. Much like a Noibat. This creature was blind. It could not smell. But it could hear. And it simply loomed there, turning its head back and forth.

Awaiting someone to make a peep.

Even in the den Cassie and Que had buried themselves in, they could hear the chaos. Though faintly. Cassie found herself captivated by it while Peridot quivered on her shoulder. Light flaring. Bright. Dim. Over and over again until the trainer found herself seeing spots.

Blink. Rub. Blink some more.

And yet, she seemed to be the only one to hear. To see the spots, and once again Cassie wondered if she was slipping further and further into insanity. Her eyes locked to the sealed entrance. Wanting to break through them, yet, something in her small heart whispered and willed her to stay put. The silence. Oh, how she loved the silence. Words from the pale boy were sucked right into the vacuum, never reaching her ears. She found solace in it. In the vacuum of nothing and darkness. There was no life, no reality. Nothing to touch her, hurt her. No- no, no no no no... She can't. She can't slip away again, not again. There was still life, still reality even there. Nine. Nine was out there, somewhere, and he needed her, and she... She needed him too.

Stranger. She took refuge with a stranger.

The monster slithered back into the crevices of her shattered mind and allowed the girl free reign again. And she longed for familiarity. She missed faces she knew. Curt, oh, why wasn't he answering his phone? Did he even receive the message- no, wait. They were underground. No reception. "Stupid..." She killed her friend. Her hand hit against her forehead. "Stupid, stupid, stupid..." Remorse and fear and worry mixed into a bitter blend inside her stomach. She wanted to vomit, she wanted to... To...

"......cold, and the game is old........ you turn, and...... one long treacherous riddle.......can I trust you. Should you trust....... ....... that moment of reckoning. Faces change. Even smiles grow strange............. so many faces the real self often erases, enticing lies......... feel the terror draw ever nearer the more you..." He paused, and her throat pushed out two words,

"Shut up..."

But he couldn't hear.

"The more you stare in the mirror........ hold your own... face the wind-"

The vacuum refused to devour it. Or perhaps, the girl wanted to listen. And yet, the monster did not. It raged and clawed its way for control, and yet, the girl held her ground. And her face showed the battle. The denial, acceptance, anger, understanding, fear... Longing...

Eyes. Not her's but she could feel them. On her hands. Fixated. She felt she could really vomit this time, from the way the monster repulsed at having her deformity watched. Discovered. A gag. Her body lurched forward. She could feel acid rise to her throat as Peridot struggled to hang on. 'C- Cassie?'

Gag. She trembled. Shaky breaths turning into laughter. Soft, and agonized. A person dying slowly. "It's not nice to stare..." Hushed whispers. Fear of sound. Eyes fixed instead on the burn heal resting in her hands. Rejected. She forgot it was there. "You're strange... I would've paid all the money in the world to rid of my burns..." Fidgeting, her hands unsteady. "If I could give them to you, would you love it? Or hate it? Maybe... Love to hate it?" Her hand proceeded to constrict the bottle, rattling it, splintering the glass, to listen to them snap and crack. Pouring whatever was left onto the ground. "God, I hate it. I hate it. And yet... Yet I would be nothing without it. And I'm still something with it. That's what you were saying, right?" The shards went sliding down the glove's fabric, between her fingers while she lift the limb up to gaze upon. "That I'm still here. Ugly proof that I've lived that moment, and it was real."

Her free hand began to tug upon the fingers of the glove, freeing it from its place around her hand. Light shone upon skin, sinewy, rippling with abstract deformities of mounds, lines, and shape. Its color was pale pink, a stark contrast to her lightly tanned complexion. Cassie stared at them, each wrinkle, crater, and line, and she wept. She wept and she touched her tears with the true deformity of her hand and she wept some more. It was Nine's mark on her. And she loved it.

And he was out there, somewhere, being brave for the Pokemon that weren't.

'This way. Hurry.' Said the Ninetales once the wail had ended. His fur stood on end, and his mystical powers were simply screaming at him to move. He steadied Embertail on his back before taking off into the only way they could go; the mural room's entrance. The dark, beckoning passage overgrown with darkness.

His ruby eyes flicked to Jasper and Raviel with an apologetic look. 'I'm sorry, I'll explain later, but we must go!' He rushed on, once again, nudging Puff forward from his frozen stupor with his head. 'Go! Go! I'll catch up, just go through, and stay together! If anything happens, holler!'

He counted the Pokemon. Jasper, Raviel, Puff, June, Shank, Growlithe... That's it? No, no, that can't be right. There were more of them! 'Flare...' His eyes widened, and he braved the dangers to run back out their entrance to find the female fox, who undoubtedly had Whips as well. 'Flare?!' He called as loud and far as his telepathy could go. 'Where did you go?!'

Ahead, the door transported them to a long, wide hall. Similar to the one they arrived in. In its center was a statue of Darkrai, guarded by pillars and decorated with urns and vases corrupted by time. The hall they stepped in was an elevated platform, and below as a sheer drop to nothing. It was strangely serene, as the one place untouched by the chaos. Perhaps it would provide rest.

That is, before Team Rocket's Pokemon came to.

 

[Curtkid]

Curt sat behind the rock, the tear gas now completely encased the trainer, cloaking him in the piss yellow, stinging mist. The mans eyes were a blood red, tears streaming down his face in large amounts, like the Dead Sea itself was running from his eyes. Any person that saw Curt sitting there would assume he poor soul would be in an incredible amount of pain, but, honestly, Curt didn't feel bad at all, in fact, he felt...kinda good. He wasn't sure why Thomas or Gerald were freaking out about it, this tear gas crap didn't hurt at all! Speaking of Gerald, now that he felt better, he figured he'd better get up and go find the boy, his team, and Lockjaw, just to make sure they were alright. Curt had just picked himself up and was getting ready to move when the entire cavern seemed to shake with some dark, twisted power.

Even in the midst of his high, he took notice of the massive crashing of stone, and the horrific mass of soar ridden flesh that had entered the area. The beast looked like a car-cash victim that had been put back together by a mad doctor in a hasty attempt to make some sort of Lovercraftian monster, but even through its deformed appearance, one couldn't mistake the incredible power it held, easily enough to tear a man in two, but equally obvious was it's lack of ability to see, the way it ran and thrashed about with no rhyme or reason, scratching and screaming at nothing. So long as everyone stayed still, everyone stayed quiet, they would be fine.

"Damn, that thing is ugly", Curt said responding to the creatures appearance, his voice slightly slurred do to the influence of the morphine and sounding rather flat considering the circumstances. The creature, its movements jerky and sporadic, let out an other worldly roar as it barreled at Curt. Hands over feet, mouth wait and loosing spit everywhere, pieces of the floor crumbling under its mighty arms and it zeroed in on Curt. The creature let out one last roar, and leapt at Curt with all the fury and savagery of a mad beast let loose from its caged, it claws ready to tear whatever in its way to shreds.

"Opppsie, almost forgot my bag", Curt said. His timing literally could not have been better, the moment he bent over to pick up his bag, the abomination had charged right over him and crashing through another wall, any later and the beast would have torn him to pieces, any sooner at the beast would have picked up his soft movements and adjusted his directory to hit Curt. But nope, the boy accidentally picked the perfect time to move and caused the creature to ram head long into the stony wall, shattering it to pieces. Curt wouldn't be able to tell how long the creature would be stunned for, or if even its tumbling had even caused it any damage, but Curt really didn't care at the moment. With a "Huramp", Curt pulled himself over his cover and walked through the beasts stench and tear gas, though from the serene expression on his face, one would think that he was walking through a meadow on a cool spring day. His movements weren't exactly fluid or graceful, but he didn't appear to be stumbling about or sluggish, his walking just seemed very... nonchalant, like there wasn't a rampaging beast ready to kill them. Thankfully, the distance between Curt and Gerald and Lockjaw wasn't as great as he thought, in fact, he was able to fairly easily locate them by the clear patch in the middle of the tear gas. Apparently Lockjaw had made it to Gerald and offered the man and his team some assistance without too much trouble after all! A faint clattering of stone announced Curts presence, Curt stood tall and proud as he approached the other survivors of this horrific exposition in to this hell hole.

"Huh...why did I come here again...", Curt said with a confused look on his face, before looking at Gerald and Lockjaw, "OH right, you guys! Good job clearing up the area Lockjaw! And Gerald, man Gerald, you and Empty and....uh....Bitchblade? Was that what you called the...sword-pokemon-thingies? Kind of a mean thing to name a Pokemon, but....Well, anyways, you guys did a number on that Grunt, great work-"

Curt was interrupted by a loud, unearthly screech, the monster had reappeared, and had bounced back from whatever injuries it had sustained fairly well apparently. The monster, even through its twisted, pulsing, horrific visage, one could almost make out an expression of anger, true, anger and even a little bit of...frustration. But all Curt could think about was how often things seemed to interrupt him.

"Huh, oh yeah, that thing....well anyone got a plan to deal with that, Gerald? Lockjaw?...Lockjaw, you O.K? You don't look all too good...", Curt said flatly. Lockjaw, however, had an expression of sheer terror on his face, not since they fought that alien back at meteor falls did he ever feel fear like this, and even then he at least had Whips to look to for courage. No, they didn't nearly have the group they had when they fought that space monster, and this thing looked even scarier then that thing! Lockjaws entire body began shaking uncontrollably, his breathing became rapid and uneven, he felt a wild, uncontrollable fear building up inside of him, and he wanted to...wanted to....

"RAWUGHRAUGHRAUGHWRUAHG! RUAHGWARAUGHRAUGHRIAWUGHA!!!!!!!!!!!", Lockjaw screamed at a near deafening volume. The Croconaw hadn't had a freak-out like this since he was a Totodile, his resolve to be more brave back when he fought Cassie, Ryu, and Fang, which had sparked his evolution to a Croconaw, but even his new found bravery had its limit. That limit, it had turned out, was an eldritch, twisted abomination with a one track mind for killing everything it got its hands on. And, in the end, that was enough to send Lockjaw sprinting around the caverns screaming his head off, with the monster, obviously being attracted by the noise Lockjaw was creating, charging after it. Thankfully, while Lockjaw normally wasn't particularly fast, during a panic he became the Arceus damn Flash, and it appeared the monster was having a bit of trouble keeping up with the panicking Pokemon.

"Wait...uh, Lockjaw be careful, O.K buddy!", Curt yelled out to his companion, not sounding nearly as worried as he should, "hey, uh Gerald, you got a plan, because-and I don't want to rush you or anything- but I thhhhiink Lockjaw mmmmiiiggghttt need yours, and Empties, and Bitchblades help soon....seriously though, why would you name your Pokemon Bitchblade?" Clearly the morphine was taking its toll on Curt as much as it was giving him help.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Embertail sprinted through the cave, claws over his head in a desperate attempt to block out the voices that plague his mind, all to no avail. He tried to ignore them, tried to tell himself that the voices weren't true, that they were wrong about him, but still, deep inside his soul, he knew they were right. The revelation, the truth, had plagued his mind since the day they decided to climb this mountain to see his family, to get answers as to why he was cast out, and in the end, he wished he never made the choice to see them, to hear their reasoning, that day he learned, the truth wasn't always something someone should seek out.

Monster....Aberration....Freak....Shouldn't have been born...Should have never existed...A living sin....Would have been better if he had died.....

Tears threatened to break through the Charmanders eyes as those words ran through his minds, such vile words, made all the more powerful by Embertails belief of them being true. Even when he was young, he was able to piece together that his clan, his parents, kept him hidden away out of shame, but he always thought it was simply because he couldn't breathe fire. Yet never once in his life did he consider the reason behind his inability to breathe fire or to evolve, and when he learned the truth...Embertail was always a cheery and optimistic Pokemon...person, but that day, the day he learned, it broke something inside of him, something that would cause him to never look at himself the same way again. So he was doing now what he wanted to do back then, what he always did best, he ran, he just ran and ran, trying to out run the voices in his head, until he came to a brutal stop.

Embertails eye's grew wide as the nightmare conjured up the culmination of his fears, the very source of what cut through the Charmanders happy image of himself like a hot knife through soft flesh. Infront of Embertail stood his parents.

 

[BurbleBurble]

Gerald wiped the water out of his eyes, which had regained the ability of sight, which also revealed his savior, Lockjaw. "Thanks Lockjaw." The boy gave a pat to the crocodile's head.

The Flash Cannon was much stronger than he anticipated. Special attacks weren't usually the best thing for a Doublade to attack with. But the Rocket Grunt's threat was neutralized as he was knocked to the ground by the shock wave it produced. And the beam went on. And on. And on. Until it met an wall at the end of the tunnel. Pebbles and rubble scattered on the floors. And something distant. Primal. Almost human. Almost not.

Thomas berated him. Had the nerve to tell Gerald he woke it up.

"Yeah? No thanks to you jackasses! With your guns, and grenades, and tear gas, and prolific cursing! And yet we're the cunts? Go to hell, Thomas! And take you squad with you!"

But then he heard it. Something loud, something in the walls. Every breath exasperated and anger filled. Terrible whiffs of something. But, it didn't know they were here. It was a tense, quiet moment.

Until the grunt coughed.

All hell broke lose, comparable to the Rocket's Pokemon assaulting...no, that was an understatement. It completely devastated the landscape, with a huge cacophony of rage and destruction. The admin and grunt used this time to slip away. Cowards.

An awful, hideous beast that wasn't human nor Pokemon entered. It lacked most facial features, except two small black holes that were presumably the eye sockets, a singular eye holding on with some tendrils leaking out of one. The mouth was like a bear trap, filled with multitudes of teeth that nothing like that ever should've wielded, yellowed and rotting in several places. Almost no bare skin, all covered with tumors and bulges. One last dominant feature it had was the biggest pair of ears Gerald had ever seen, sharpened to a point. The beast could hear, very very well. And to top it off, the room filled with a stench comparable to hugging a Garbodor and taking a deep whiff of it. Absolutely, positively, hands down the worse thing he ever smelled.

He felt like screaming. Under most conditions, he would. But, in fear of alerting the monstrosity, he chose internally screaming.

Of course, Curt didn't feel the same way.

"Damn, that thing is ugly."

Gerald took a glance at the monster, and then back at Curt. Was the man drunk?

As the monster roared, and leaped towards Curt, Gerald covered his eyes. He didn't want to see the bloodbath that was...

"Opppsie, almost forgot my bag."

Out of morbid curiosity, he peeked a singular eye from behind the walls of his hand. Then quickly dropped it in surprise. Gerald watched in awe as the man nonchalantly picked up his bag, completely dodging the beast! He was completely flabbergasted.

"Y-you...what?"

Utterly stupefied at Curt's odd actions and lack of caution at such a threat, his jaw was basically hitting the floor.

"Huh...why did I come here again...OH right, you guys! Good job clearing up the area Lockjaw! And Gerald, man Gerald, you and Empty and....uh....Bitchblade? Was that what you called the...sword-pokemon-thingies? Kind of a mean thing to name a Pokemon, but....Well, anyways, you guys did a number on that Grunt, great work-"

Bitchblade? That...was pretty funny. Had there not been a giant horrible monster threatening them all, perhaps he'd giggle. Speaking of, it was recovering from crashing into the wall rather quickly, and already about to start charging them down again!

"Huh, oh yeah, that thing....well anyone got a plan to deal with that, Gerald? Lockjaw?...Lockjaw, you O.K? You don't look all too good..."

Curt actually had a point this time though. Something was off in Lockjaw's eyes. Maybe terror?

As Lockjaw screamed his head off, yes, it it was indeed terror in his eyes. The little croc was running around at a breakneck pace, continuing his noisy cries, distracting the abomination from anything else while at it. It was pretty incredible too, despite the Croconaw's usual speed was much slower. It took Gerald a moment to recover from the spontaneous chain of odd events that transpired. Words from Curt snapped him out of it though.

"Wait...uh, Lockjaw be careful, O.K buddy! Hey, uh Gerald, you got a plan, because-and I don't want to rush you or anything- but I thhhhiink Lockjaw mmmmiiiggghttt need yours, and Empties, and Bitchblades help soon....seriously though, why would you name your Pokemon Bitchblade?"

The eerie calm in the man's voice was kind of odd. As if he was underestimating the threat of the beast. "Oh, it's not Bitch, it's Switch, like one of those knives that- Oh never mind, I'll explain later." He went to his own Pokemon's aid, who were rather unfazed by the beast's appearance (They were all ghosts, to be fair...), and with a little help from the free blade, removed the device from the fallen sword. When the swords reunited to form a full Doublade again, Gerald handed out some commands. "Bitc-I mean, Switchblades! Keep that...Thing occupied! Your a lot less fragile than Lockjaw." The blades were clattering in anticipation. They had a new thing to cleave into! They charged off in yet another blind slashing spree. The one on his Shedinja was much easier to remove though, thanks to the rather uneven surface it had. Still paralyzed, but could still move with it removed. "Alright Empty, same as before. Shadow Sneak, use X-Scissors is you can." At least Shadow Sneak would give him some agility while Paralyzed.

But it was fairly obvious this would all just annoy it. The men needed an actual plan to get it out of the area. Stone was just pointless, considering how easily it smashed through all of it. It's legs were rather weak looking...perhaps aiming attacks at them would work? Or...maybe it could be convinced they were walking away, with some rocks. But he just had one thing to point out to Curt first.

"Hey, maybe you should get ready to return Lockjaw, in case he gets into a bad situation..."

-----

Puff twitched. Sounds, oh Arceus the sounds...He probably wouldn't have moved if it weren't for Nine pushing him ahead. The wail, the raging monster...it all tapped a primal feeling in Puff. The one to flee for his life. With leaping bounds, the Lopunny was more than happy to stoop down to a coward like level and run from his problems.

June was unnerved as well, the bone chilling cry giving her a jolt of worry and terror. Similar to her rabbit teammate, she was more than happy to go ahead into the shrine of Darkrai ahead.

The first thing she noticed was a deep, deep drop. Out of curiosity, she whipped out a magazine she wasn't very fond of. It was about an ace trainer who lost everything thanks to a badge scandal. If only the fox knew. Next, she took her lit wand, set fire to an edge of it, and dropped it into the dark void below. The flaming paper faded as it fell into the emptiness below. There was no thump as it fell to the ground. June took a large step backwards, as she did not want to fall for more than twenty seconds. Now she was eyeing up the other exit. Hopefully there was a way to the surface if they kept following it. Though it wouldn't be safe to venture off alone. Anyways, how long could Nine take collecting Flare and Whips? They were both rather noticeable, Dragonite were about seven feet tall and Ninetales were hard to miss in general thanks to its fire typing.

Puff, however, was pacing back and forth. His muscles were tense, ready to leap off at the first sign of danger. He heard something distant, but from the cave from when they came. You see, all Pokemon have different footstep sounds. Ninetales make elegant strides. Dragonite make hearty thumps. Bisharp make metallic scraping noises. Weavile have excited tapping. Of course, he paid them no mind. Yet another distant sound alerted him, but this time it was from below. It was distinct crunch, like burnt paper getting scratched on jagged stone. There must've been a floor to the cave, but anyone would have a terrible time while taking the drop. It was a good two to three minutes to wait for death.He really should've warned everyone of the occurrence of the Bisharp and Weavile steps, but other than June (And maybe Curt's Pokemon), these Pokemon were rather foreign and strange.

It must've slipped his mind.

 

[Storybook]

Words, shadows, sobs, footsteps. Wails and crys, wraithe-like, thin, deafening, moldy, deadly, dark. Compelling. Monsters welled from the earth, in the caverns, in the girl, in his imagination, beastly, devilish, and destructive, covered in tumors and boils or simply shadows that infected the skin. Fear, rage, disgust. Demonic, overbearing. Pain. Curiousity. And the girl sobbed into her hands, silence somehow overwhelming it all, a blanket of ice on a hellish night. A shard of frost seemed to sink into the boy's skin, crystallizing from the line of his hair, and as he slowly processed her words, he found he was cold.

"I.. don't know," he breathed at her daring thoughts that attempted to piece together his shattered visage. "I don't know."

Silence, a welt on a crystalline pool.

"You're strange," the boy countered after a moment passed, voice crinkled and curious, not a note of aggravation in its tone. "You laugh when you are in pain and you cry when you aren't."

And as the boy spoke, he seemed to change. The light filtered his form like a brush, sweeping away the confusion and pain from the ghostly mirage of his face. His pale skin grew more opaque, his steely eyes lightened into a dusty hue, his thin lips, straight and simple, almost appeared to thicken into a contemplative frown, and his round, unblemished cheeks seemed warmer in the wavering light that was dusty and cold, like a frosty morning's breath. Que tilted his head, and all at once the boy appeared like a child.

The world fell away around the boy, chunks of the illuminated cavern fading out of existence one by one until all that was left was the boy and the girl, sobbing into her ravaged hands. His eyes, dusty and curious, pondered the scars in the calm manner of a boy playing chess, detached and contemplative. Scarred hands- burnt, withered flesh. So there was another piece.

His fingers flicked involuntarily, right hand toying with his lip, for it hurt to raise the left. She'd had a Ninetales. He was smart, too, just as she was, understanding the look in her eyes, the code of her hands. They had seemed to mirror each other in action and thought, moved in the same ways, flicked their eyes together, turned their heads at the same time. It was a trait common in partners who had been together for a long time- one that the Purrloin and Ralts didn't seem to mirror.

... and she had no other Pokemon on her?

The boy picked at his thoughts as they strayed away, curling his fingers into his lips. Had Nine burned her? Did the rockets? There was history between them too- that of hatred, pure and unblemished, and of knowledge, powerful and malevolent. Yet the scars were old, imposed upon her hands, sunk into her flesh as if they were a part of her. They held the subtle intensity of age, as opposed to the putrid, standoff distaste of something fresh and new that played better with the rank loathing she and the Rockets mirrored in each other. So between the two... he would bet on the fox.

But then why did she hate them? Why did she cry? A scar was a scar, no matter how putrid, withered like twisted tears. And she covered them, too. She was... ashamed. Was it some sort of failure to have acquired these ravaged hands, some sort of test she failed, some sort of hope demolished? He wasn't ready to settle on the fox as the cause- no, it was all too confusing, too many options left hanging in the air. The feelings with it... the boy wasn't a fan of feelings, but he knew at least how to match them with a source. And yet this was a girl who laughed when she was in pain. Did laws apply? Was logic scorned? How could he solve a puzzle if the pieces made no sense?

Thinking he'd missed something, the boy twisted his lip, reviewing what he knew. The girl was called Cassie, to start. An informal tital, like some sort of nickname that had become more of a name than the name it was created from. Had she another name that she had forsaken? Then again, he'd only heard of the one he knew through friends and enemies... never from the girl herself.

They'd never actually been properly introduced.

Pooh formalities.

The boy paused, feeling a warm sensation seep over the tip of his fingers as they twisted his bleeding lip, sore with ponder and thought. "Cassie?" he started, glancing up from his hands. "What is your-"

Que stopped speaking without warning, gaze devolving into nothing as if some sort of monster had creeped out of the misty, wavering folds of light. He broke his gaze from her hands, tilting his eyes up towards her face as she cried. Or had she stopped? He couldn't seem to tell anymore. The world tricked and thumbled and changed. And changed. Oh, how he loathed change.

The light sifted his image as he stared, confusion seeping into his skin with a dark, rusty tinge, innocence unveiled by the mirage of dust and light. His eyes asked "why are you crying?" and his bleeding lip seemed to inquire, "can I cry too?" as if the ruby stain on his opaque skin was just all too much. When the boy finally spoke, his voice was light and distant, edged with a rusty tone.

"Do you hear the train?"

Silence from the boy as his ears imagined sounds that didn't exist, whirring phantoms, crumbled cries, the screech of steel traipsing over the earth. Had the girl spoken? Did it matter? The world had stopped, and only he could move within it.

The boy seemed lost, tears crinkling at the edge of his smooth, dusty eyes, pearls of emotion the boy didn't feel planted on his cheeks by the watcher's shaken breath. It seemed forever that he stared, that time had stopped and trapped the boy in just one moment, unmoving, confused, with opaque skin and pearl tears.

Que stared into nothing.
Listening.
Watching.
Feeling.
Sensing phantoms of a time long past, wind that bit and tore and mocked, frosty windows, empty rooms. Frost, ingrained within his skin, seemed to infect the boy's forehead, curling, slithering out of his hairline, burning the warm tone that had washed his features into a whitewhashed wasteland.

"It's come to take everything away."

Whatever illusion had preserved, twisted the boy back into childishness, vanished, whatever trick of the light that molded his curious face subdued by the true despair within his voice- a voice that the boy himself didn't hear, far away and insignificant. His opaque skin paled into a ghostly hue, his dusty eyes plated into a steely cover, his frightened frown curling into a straight, thin expression. The pearl rolled down his cheek and disappeared forever.

He rose his left hand to see the clot of fur it held, bristles that tickled his numb skin. Fright still tainting his ghostly cheeks, the boy jerked into himself as the muscle spasmed, clots of fire wrenching out the strength in his limb before everything went dead.

Eyes of a void, Que stared at his partner's fur.

Opened his palm.

Tilted his hand so that it fell away.

Fire wrenched his hand into a spasm, fingers curling, wrist afire just as the last thread slipped from the skin, and Que was aware of silence, wraith like and sinister, seeping into his form. He breathed just to break it, he moved just to chase it away, yet still it hunted at his footsteps, a void that sucked at his shadow, dragging him down. Face a sheet, lips thin, eyes of a void.

Unthinking, unhearing of the calamity that had stricken a distant part of the caverns and crawled into his ears like some sort of brooding bug, the boy grabbed for the girl's shirt, missed, then tried again, sweat seeping out of his palm.

His movements stirred the stifled den in which they resided and the beast's hairs lifted from the floor as if to remind the boy of their prescense. For a moment, everything vanished- for longer than ever before he found the world swept out of existence, and then his whole body shook with feverish calamity, and he found he was no longer ice cold but as hot as magma, sweating, skin seeping with a rusty hue as if it were infecting him, flushing his cheeks, burning his pale forehead, and he realized that his eyes were closed.

"Can we go? I don't think I can sit here anymore."

Emptiness. Sickening emptiness that sucked at his throat and churned his belly, tore at his fur and raked at his skin. Growlithe yelped, noise rushing into the sickening void he found below his front paws as they churned in a desperate attempt for solidity in the empty air. His failing eyes lolled drunkingly in their sockets, back legs twisted as they tried to hold the beast onto the cliff edge, tail thrashing wildly and raking the cold, dusty stone. Thorns trapped his chest as he began to fall, wrenching the air out of his bellows so that his arrow of a nose strained to grasp it again and his mouth hung wide as if he were choking, throat convulsively swallowing in his panic. His yelp devolved into a strained scream, thin and wailing, dragged out of his throat by the void of the wind. He flung one churning paw below him to hit something hard and branch-like, smooth and thick. Horns.

Panicked mind groped for pieces of reality, realizing that some sense of a creature was holding him from the eminent death of the ledge he had found actually wasn't ground that was just abruptly darker than the rest of the damned stuff. Cursing his drunken sight, the beast tried to fling himself away, curling his shoulders and wrenching his neck in panicked, whole hearted movements. He heard a resounding thud as pain stamped his side and the beast found himself sprawled across surprisingly unwieldy stone, heaving for breath and whimpering as shadows moved, blots of existence that melded in with the rest of the world, ever so slightly lighter or darker. He sucked in scents over his tongue, trying to gain a picture of the scene, a low whimper rising from his throat.

The protector stood above the beast, spindly legs kicking the earth with vengeance as she nosed him farther form the edge, eyes wild and darting, left ear flicking involuntarily. Breathing in rapid, feverish bursts, she stepped over him like a protective mother, legs sprawled and neck hung low, swinging subtly. It was apparent that exhaustion had sunk deep into her bones, so deep that it seemed even before the ordeal had begun she was tired, oh so tired. Froth soaked her flanks and her nostrils flared, hate in her eyes. The beast, sprawled, lifted his head with a whine she ignored before flaring his nostrils, lips curling into a snarl, mane bristling as he lay, prone and exhausted, straining at enemies he could smell but couldn't see. She kicked him lightly with one hoof, overprotective, flattening her ears and gnashing her teeth.

Strangers. Everywhere. Advancing on her, overbearing. The light was her enemy, the shadows, too, the world was trying to beat her down- evil lurked in the darkness, Pokemon in the shadows, poison in her veins, vengeance in their gazes. Hatred, deep and burning, churned in her chest, disgust tainted her throat, envy gnashed her jaws together as she watched their calm demeanors, testing the drop, giving up with a sigh on their lips and a dwindling fire in their gaze. Her flanks, coated with perspiration, heaved, and she swung her neck from side to side, adreniline the only fuel for the deer convinced that the world was her enemy. She hated the world because it hurt her, and it hurt her friends, and it hurt itself. It slaughtered her, beat her down, terrorized her, destroyed her, poisened her and mocked her.

Everything was her enemy in this world... everything but Que. She'd just have to find him, and it would all be alright. He saved her once and he would do it again. It would all be alright. It would all be alright. Please. Please. I would all be.. It would all... it would all just.. it would... it- it-

Oh- please!
Where was he?

 

[PentheWonderful]

Indeed, by the time the deafening roar of fear Lockjaw released, followed by his adrenaline powered dash down the hall, the beast was on his tail in seconds. There was only one path, which did not swerve or fork, and it led them right back to the main passage, where Trainer and Pokemon had been sleepwalking, trapped in an endless nightmare, but moments ago.

Unfortunately, within his rampage, his sheer bulk and size utterly demolished any and everything in its path. Including the passage itself. The cramped, crudely dug passage caved in on itself, blocking any possible thoughts of return through that same route. Saving them from the monster, severing them from danger, but also what Pokemon they had left. Trapping them where they were,

And there was no other way but forward.

Only then did Thomas and the grunt come stumbling out. The two turned to behold a new wall of rubble before them, and there was simply silence. The grunt had no readable expression, and simply turned to his superior for further instructions. "Sir? What are our course of actions now?"

Thomas, rubbing the back of his wounded head as carefully and as best as he could without sending a wave of pain through his body, muttered, “This job ain’t worth the money I’m being paid for. Heck, after everything we had to go through, Rocket’s way over budget with my service.”

And shamelessly, Thomas simply turned to the two trainers. “So how about this, since I’m no longer in office hours, how about we work together to get out of here huh?” He pulled on an insincere grin, somehow possessing the nerve to even extend his hand for a handshake. “Look, it’s nothing personal. It’s just business.”

Even the grunt looked appalled. “But sir, this is a betrayal to Giovanni!”

“Ah, shut it, Justin.” Was Thomas’ rude, yet firm response. The admin cast a glare to the grunt, Justin his name apparently was, that drew a reaction of immediately pressing his lips, despite the look of displeasure in his eyes.

His cold, blue eyes simply returned to Curt and Gerald with a much more... Hospitable look. As hospitable as he could possibly be. “How about it?”


-


"Cassie? What is your-"

Her head lifts slightly, allowing tears to roll freely down her cheek and plummet to the dirt below. Her eyes don’t meet his. They simply gazed ahead, but not really seeing. The soul they reflected was far away. Miles away from their predicament, their trapped bodies.

His question was incomplete. It didn’t deserve an answer. How do you answer a question that had no real inquiry? Not worth it, not worth the headache at all.

They both remained that way, in contemplative silence. Asking complete questions with no words and allowed it to drift through the air for someone, something, somewhere, else to answer. Tired silver and dusty blue. Simply searching for closure.

"Do you hear the train?"

Well, whatever it was Cassie was hearing, she was quite sure at the very least that it was not a train. Unless she’d somehow missed the announcement that the sound of a train had been changed and that was how they sounded like now. Probably not.

“It's come to take everything away.”

Oh.

Everything clicked together and she now understood.

This boy trapped with her was no different than she.

No different at all.

“That’s not a train. That’s the demon inside of you, coming out to get you, and take you away past the point you won’t be able to return.” Came her voice in a sullen whisper. Peridot trembled uncontrollably, for she could detect all the emotions emanating from both trainers. Those who thought they did not feel, but they did. They still did. And the strongest emotion of all was confusion. Plain as day, bright as the sun. They were confused. “They’re trying to own you, yet, you’re not really fighting them, are you?”

‘Why… Don’t you just fight them then?’ The Ralts asked, ever innocent. Ever pure.

“…We don’t want to.” Those silver knives flicking, piercing through Que’s muddled blue puddles. “Well. You don’t. Do you? You’re the strangest.” But then her eyes shifted to Peridot, and they softened into wool and cotton. “I’m just tired of fighting.”

‘I need peace. Closure.’

Another hum of silence washed through the cramped burrow. Yet there was desperation. A plea that was never answered. Drowned by a nonexistent wind which was pushing them closer to that point, the ledge she so feared. Insanity. She didn’t want to leave yet.

"Can we go? I don't think I can sit here anymore."

A breath left her that she didn’t realize had been withheld. Peridot hopped the short distance from her trainer’s lap to the ground, following closely behind as Cassie shuffled to her hands and feet and crawled back up the way they came. Her hands pushed through the wall of soil with a satisfying crunch, clawing and prying her way out of the ground.

Out of the grave.

Her body dropped and she dragged herself along the ground to free her legs. Space. Oh Arceus how she loved space. The freedom, the cool, crisp subterranean air somehow becoming a comfort to her broken soul. Dirt clung to her body, her hair and clothes, but Cassie instead found a face full of Peridot as the little creature pressed her body against her. A laugh. Brittle and weak. The girl sat up, and idly looked around. Left, then right.

She placed Peridot back on her shoulder and simply began walking. Deeper into the void, where she felt at home.

“…It’s… Que, right? Your name?


-


The beast could hear everything. Lockjaw's ragged breaths and the cadence of his footsteps. It could hear the crunch of small pebbles beneath his tumorous arms, but it felt nothing. It’d lost feeling in most of its body. Especially where the tumors and sores had claimed a territory.

It listened closely, and upon realization that the cadence was steady, it leapt forward, flying above Lockjaw for a moment as pus and blood rained from its rotting body, and it rotated itself ninety degrees just before his body slammed into the wall of the hallway. The ruin shook from the sheer force of the impact.

Walls trembling,

Ceilings crumbling.

It blocked one way with its body, leaving only one way to go;

Back.

Back to where all the horrors began.

The Team Rocket Pokemon were just coming to when a ball of cancerous growth and pus and fury came barreling straight toward them. The survivors of the Explosion hauled their fallen brethren and took off running right back to the entrance from which they came. The Zubat filed out, Weavile agily climbing up the jagged rocks and stalactites protruding from the cliff wall, and the Muk latched his slime and gunk onto the remaining fainted Pokemon to hoist them up along the wall with it.

Right past the milk furred Ninetales that stood stunned to watch their hurried exit. But turning his head a hundred eighty degrees the other way, he wasn’t so stunned anymore.

Fur standing on end, pupils shrinking into the size of pin pricks. For a brief moment, he was simply… Paralyzed.

But then a memory of Cassie, lying critical on a hospital bed flashed in his mind. Watching her step onto the brink of death, perhaps even a fate worse than that; handicapped. She could’ve lived the remainder of her life without hands. Without ever having a chance at normality. And he remembered, he remember damn well why he needed to be strong.

He couldn’t let her down again.

And so, as the Croconaw dashed by him, he bent down and grabbed him by one of the spikes on his back and yanked. Pulling him right through the demolished wall and into the mural room. The beast barreled ahead, and Nine ran. He ran like the world behind him was being consumed by a vortex and carried Lockjaw to where the others were gathered in the shrine.

Oh, where the hell was Flare and Whips?

As soon as he could drop the terrified crocodile, Nine was already beginning to cast all sorts of barrier moves onto the doorway; Safeguard, Protect,

But it was all for naught.

With such ease, the beast bulldozed the first wall into the mural room, and then right through the doorway to shatter the Safeguard and Protect. Nine was blown backwards, onto his back. But he managed to restrain his yelp and was quickly on his feet again and shaking the dust from his fur. He watched the creature, ears low against his head, direct with the lowering of his body.

The beast resumed its echolocation through tapping its finger onto the ground. Counting the number of feedback in its ear. One would be able to notice the fresh wounds on its face and arms, the number of stalactites still lodged in its rotting flesh.

And it simply charging forward again, ready to rip into anything it got its hands on.