The Heart and the Might
Prologue
She leaned against the window glass, sighing appreciatively and giggling as a new scream echoed from the house. How she loved to hear children cry. It made her feel good to no end – and even better, it made her stronger. She didn't like children. She never did. After all, they always grow bored with everything, always demanding more of everything, and throw a stupid fit when they didn't get what they wanted.
No, she liked children screaming best, she decided. The shrieking of a young child was something she would kill to hear, and their misery was a delicacy.
Luckily for her, this place she lived in wasn't lacking in that. It was a small town after all, beaten down by starvation, abandonment of the government and ravaged by war and thugs until it could no longer even raise its head. Bad things happened all the time, the wild Pokémons were dangerous and vicious, and the inhabitants themselves were the lowest of the low. The perfect root for hatred.
The child – a little girl – screamed again, and she sighed again in appreciation. She giggled as there was a harsh sound and the scream was restrained to a choked sob. Ah, the fine things of life.
There was no more screams, but somehow the restrained sobs were even sweeter. She cackled softly, hovering near the window and trying to peek through the glass, but it was fogged, and the curtains were drawn. She made a sound of disappointment. If only she could see it!
"Hey!"
Annoyed but not startled or fearful at the sudden interruption, the banette slowly spun around to face the speaker. He was a boy, sixteen of age or so, with light hair and dark eyes. He was glaring at her with absolute loathing. "What are you doing here?" he spat.
She cackled at his anger, and the boy's face twisted into an ugly mask of fury. He hurled a rock at her, which she easily dodged. It slammed into the window instead, breaking the glass. There was the sound of that harsh voice again, a man, yelling in surprise.
In the weak moonlight, the banette could see the boy paled. She giggled at his expense and floated away just as the door swung open, fading into the shadow and reappearing on the rooftop, where she could watch the entire thing more easily.
The door banged against the wall as a tall, bare silhouette of a man marched out of the house and toward the boy, then brought a hand down toward his face in a startlingly strong slap. The banette tilted her head in amusement, floating up a little higher so she could watch the little episode better. She watched as the boy staggered, nearly falling to the ground, waiting expectantly for tears or argument.
Surprisingly, there was nothing. The boy righted himself and glared up at the man through his mass of light hair, standing tall in the moonlight. His eyes flickered toward the banette, and she could feel defiance radiating from his thin, underweight and undersize body.
For some reason, it made her shiver.
The man shouted again, profanities streaming from his mouth in an ugly torrent, but his drunken anger wasn't fun to the banette; it was annoying. He wasn't a child. He would never be able to produce the misery that only children were capable of giving off, and so it irritated her. He sounded stupid, words slurred together and made the shouting merely incoherent mumbling.
Still, the boy said nothing.
Twice the man hit him, once across the face and another slamming his foot into his stomach, driving him back. But the boy never fell once, only staggering upright again and resumed his glaring. It was a fun match, the banette decided, unconsciously leaning toward the fiasco with anticipation. Even though the man was stupid, it was very entertaining.
Finally, to her disappointment (but only because her amusement for the night was taken away), the brute grabbed a handful of the boy's hair and dragged him into the house. Her perfect night vision allowed her to see the boy flinching slightly, but that was all. He did not resist the thug, but he did not let it go easily either.
They disappeared into the tattered, rundown building. The door slammed shut, the girl's choked sobs resumed, and there was the sound of shattering glass, thrown against walls and the sound of a whip slicing through air, hitting flesh.
She remained where she was, for hours and hours.
Only the girl's crying was heard.
Stubborn. So, so stubborn.
The banette giggled again, covering her zipper-like mouth with her three-fingered hands. But so very fun.