A/N: Finally. My first Fanfiction, a Pokemon fic based on the Slenderman urban legend. It's been a long wait. After Internet breaking, no access, limited time, and huge writer's block, it has arrived.
There is a person I would like to thank here. This fic was originally an idea I had as an exercise to combat writer's block. To be honest, I didn't think it would be that good. But after seeking other opinions, I was persuaded to concentrate on this, as apparently it was "an EPIC idea!". The person who said this helped me with characters, gave tips, encouraged me, gave me the idea to make a series and restored my writing confidence, starting here. Therefore I would like to dedicate this story to that person- the Fanfiction author, EchoingBreeze. Thank you Echo. I owe you a lot.
Competition time- if anyone wants to guess what Pokemon the Slendermon will be, PM me. The winner will receive a guaranteed space for an OC in my next story. That should make things tasty.
(Some of you will have noticed that this has changed. Originally, chapter 1 of Slendermon was uploaded in August. However, I was unhappy with it's length and waffling, so I've changed it and reuploaded it. I hope you prefer it).
On with the show...
A lone teenager walked along the main streets of Undella Town in Unova, as the sun set slowly over the town. His name was Aaron Rhodes; 18 years of age, with piercing blue eyes, medium-length messy brown hair and pale white skin marked only by a strange 'V' shaped scar on his left cheek. Aaron had started his Pokemon journey late, at the age of 14, after his original Trainer application was destroyed in a Mail Office fire. After travelling through Unova for two years, gaining a top 16 in the Unova League Conference, he boarded a boat to Sinnoh, where after two years he finished in the top 8 at the Lily of the Valley Conference.
He had originally planned on heading to Hoenn, but the reason for him wanting to return to Unova lay written on a piece of paper folded inside an envelope that was tucked inside his jacket pocket. He had been forced to hitch a lift with one of his Sinnoh friends, another male Trainer called Ollie Coles, on the back of Ollie's Staraptor all the way from Hearthome City to Undella as soon as he could leave. Aaron watched as Ollie and his Staraptor flew off into the distance, before turning back to Undella and starting walking.
He smiled as he looked around; the posh villas up on the main beachfront, the long, sandy beach, the little forested area behind the town. And the smell of the sea breeze...
He then turned to look out at the town. It was early April, not really tourist season, and as it neared 19;00 the evening sun started to set on, officially voted, the world's best beach. Aaron wasn't in the mood for sunbathing though; he had more important things on his mind, so he started walking to the north. As he walked, he opened the letter for the umpteenth time, to read-
'Aaron Rhodes, your old schoolfriend Chelsea Summers invites you to the Undella Town Trainer's School Class of 2003 Reunion Party. Held at Chelsea's house, 6th April 2012, starting at 19:00. Food and alcohol will be provided, but feel free to bring your own. Be there or be square!' And here he was. 10 minutes to go...
Aaron remembered most of the class of 2003, and his fondest memory, despite the many friends he had there, was leaving at the age of 12; even at that age, there were power plays, exclusions of uncool kids, fights, cliques and hierarchies. Aaron tended to drift between most of them, and was an average student, which meant most people never really talked about him in the same bitchy way they reserved for outsiders and low achievers. Chelsea was the class slut (yes, even at that age), leader of the bitch brigade (as Aaron's other friends called them) and one of the hierarchy in the popular kids' group. The only reason she probably remembered to invite Aaron was because her 8-year-old brother Jordan (who was actually quite nice), was best friends with his 8-year-old brother Lee. He'd still go along to meet his oldest and best friends again, but he'd have to be careful around a lot of them.
He then grimaced as he passed a certain house on the beachfront; his family home. He could even see them through the window as he walked- his dad Michael, a Game Freak programmer who worked in Castelia City, blue eyes almost the same as Aaron's focused on looking at Aaron's mum while they chatted. His mum Louise, a sous chef for the legendary Striaton Bros, laughing at what Michael had just said. But he carried on walking.
He would have visited his family if he'd have had the time. However, he always talked to them at least once a day on his Xtransceiver, letting them know everything that had happened to him. Recently, Unova had been experiencing some technical difficulties with its phone signal and its WiFi, and Aaron hadn't been able to communicate, but now, the party beckoned.
He then had a thought, and pulled out a Luxury Ball from his coat pocket.
"Sceptile, come out," he said calmly.
It was a tradition at the Trainer Schools that when a student finished school, they could go to the region's Pokemon Professor and receive their first Pokemon. However, when Aaron arrived to get his Pokemon, Professor Juniper had run out of Unova Starter Pokemon, so she had been forced to give him a Pokemon originally intended for her research, given to her by the Pokemon Professor for Hoenn... a Treecko.
Aaron's stalwart Starter Pokemon had grown a lot since being given to him all that time ago. 2 League Championships and 16 Gym Badges, all achieved by Aaron with Sceptile at his side, all achieved with Sceptile knocking out at least one Pokemon a match. From day one, Sceptile had listened loyally to Aaron, and the two had become the greatest of friends, inseparable to the point where Aaron always walked everywhere with him (except today, but that was because Sceptile had a fear of flying). And boy, was he powerful.
Sceptile's yellow eyes widened as he took in Undella Town; he hadn't been in Undella in 4 years. "Tile?"
"I know boy. Home sweet home."
Sceptile pointed with a long green claw to Aaron's home. "Scep scep?"
Aaron understood. "Not now. I'd love to, but maybe after this party we can go see my parents."
Sceptile grinned widely, nodding.
"However," Aaron continued, "at this party, you're going to need to be in your Pokeball. Chelsea told me no Pokemon out in the house, otherwise it'll get trashed."
"Ti-ile..."
"Yeah, it probably will get trashed anyway, but she said it."
Sceptile nodded, understanding, before Aaron put him back in his Pokeball and continued walking.
"Hey Aaron!"
Aaron recognised that voice: his 8 year old brother Lee, the spitting image of him. Lee could be quite sarcastic and dry to strangers, but he was a very nice, cool kid, and treated Aaron very warmly.
"Yo Lee!" Aaron said, fist bumping his brother as Lee ran up to him. "How are you!"
"I'm great!" Lee cried. "Mum and Dad have told me everything that's happened to you, so I know about all your Gym Battles. You're so strong!"
Aaron smiled modestly. "Thanks. Have you missed me?"
"Nah!" Lee said, laughing. "I'm kidding, it's good you're back." Lee gestured towards home. "Do you wanna..."
Aaron shook his head. "I can't go visit them yet, I'm going to a party at Chelsea's. Maybe tomorrow."
"Hey, I'm sleeping over at Chelsea's with Jordan! Can I come with you?"
"Sure." Aaron turned. "Right. Party. This can't go too badly. Come on Lee."
As they walked the short distance along the New Road to Number 22, Chelsea's house, the front door opened and Chelsea's brother Jordan, Lee's friend, barrelled out of it. "Hey Lee! Wassup?"
"Alright Jord! Wasson then?"
"I've found a really cool place in the forest on Route 14! It's a secret building! We could have a fort!" Jordan then recognised Aaron for the first time. "Hey Aaron. Long time no see."
"How's it going Jordan?" Aaron replied, nodding to him. Jordan shrugged and lost interest.
"Anyway Lee, it ain't far. Wanna come see?"
"Yeah, go on then! See ya big bro!" Lee smiled, and ran off with Jordan.
Aaron sighed, watching the two 8-year-olds go, before adjusting his collar, smoothing his hair and knocking on the now-closed front door. It was time for Aaron Rhodes to party!
Chelsea answered the door, and it was amazing to Aaron how little she'd changed in 4 years. Her straightened light brown hair framed her light blue eyes, which would have looked very pretty, but was instead ruined by a huge amount of fake tan which made her skin look orange. Her slightly pudgy figure had been squeezed into a skimpy black dress on the borderline between clothing and lingerie, complete with her ample cleavage threatening intensely to break free, and on her feet were the mother of all stiletto heels. Ye gods...
Aaron had actually done a double-take at how stupid her remarkably slutty appearance was (she'd looked the same 4 years ago, but Aaron was still shocked), which Chelsea mistook for a double take at her good looks (ha! As if..).
"Look quite good, don't I?" she said smiling, ever the believer that she was better looking than she actually was.
"Er... yeah?" said a tongue-tied, still stunned Aaron, fighting with himself not to say what he wanted to.
Chelsea threw herself at him in a hug in response to his 'compliment'. "Aw thanks hun! Haven't seen you in ages!"
"It's... good to be back," said Aaron, still reeling.
Chelsea stood back. "Well, you're the last one here! Everyone else in the class is in here waiting for you!"
Aaron was slightly shocked at that last statement; he'd never have thought half the class would have turned up, let alone ALL of them. "What, everyone?"
"Yeah, and boy have people been up to loads! Don't just stand there in the cold outside, come in and get a drink! It's great fun!"
And so, ushered inside frantically by the hostess, Aaron Rhodes went to a party, hoping to Arceus it wasn't going to go wrong, and wondering what the Hell his brother was up to now...
(********)
An hour after leaving Aaron at Chelsea's for the party, after they'd gone to play beach football with their friends on the beach, and as the late sunset sank below the sea horizon, Jordan and Lee were both running south through Undella Town towards Route 14, laughing and joking all the way. They were having a Wailord of a time, playing around without a care in the world.
As they finally slowed down a bit and started walking on Route 14, where there was a thin layer of fog set in, Lee was getting slightly impatient. "Where is it Jord, where is it?" he kept asking excitedly.
Jordan halted suddenly along the western side of the route, along the tree line. "Here," he said triumphantly, stopping by what looked to Lee like a bunch of ordinary trees. Just normal, thick, oak trees, no different to the rest, except when you looked up at the branches between two of them...
"Knew you were missing something," Lee said, as Jordan untied his favourite red scarf from the branches and tied it around his neck.
Jordan grinned. "Only way I was gonna remember it. This way."
The two boys slipped between the thick tree trunks and weaved their way through a knotted hedgerow chock-full of brambles and thorns. Then, suddenly, it was there in front of them- a small clearing in the middle of the woods, surrounded by tall, imposing oaks. The grass was unkempt and long, rising like a second hedgerow around the centre of the clearing, where a squat, windowless concrete building lay.
The boys walked over to what appeared to be the only door, a hulking slab of metal bolted shut on the outside. With a lot of effort, they forced the bolts back to unlock the door, before they pulled the heavy door open slowly.
"Man that was tough!" Lee remarked, sweat actually forming on his brow. He wiped it away with a sleeve. "We gotta do something 'bout that if that's gonna be our secret base!"
"Yeah, I ain't doing that every time we come here! Come on, let's go in!"
As they stepped inside, they walked into a long corridor down what looked like the entire length of the building. While it was getting dark outside, overhead lights in the abandoned building were inexplicably on, a fuzzy ivory glow illuminating most of the corridor but leaving the sides in shadows.
"That's weird Lee. Why're the lights still on?"
"I dunno. Wait..." Lee stopped to listen to the silence. "No generator noise. This place must still be running off the mains."
Jordan grunted, nodded, and the two set off again down the corridor. There was a glowing light at the end, green, the kind of green light you get from a glowstick, so they started walking towards it. Around halfway down the corridor however, they found doors on each side.
"You take the left, I'll take the right. Ready?" said Jordan.
"Got it! 3, 2, 1..."
BANG! Both boys pushed the doors with all their might, expecting the kind of fight the main door had put up. Instead, they got no resistance, and the doors swung open fast, rebounding off the far wall into their faces.
"Owww..."
Lee's door had opened out into what looked like a cross between an Internet cafe and a library- towering pine shelves on the walls held many thick, bland books, while a bank of unoccupied computers stood on a long table down the middle of the room. The standby lights were still on the computers, meaning the mains power for this room hadn't been killed either, but there was a layer of dust blanketing them all; they hadn't been used in a while.
Lee selected a thick book off the shelves at random, and blew the dust off the cover. Coughing as it blew back in his face, Lee could just make the gold printed words out on the plain black cover- 'Completing Procedures; Pokemon Genetic Enhancement Volume IV Part 1.' There was also a Post-It note on the front cover, which Lee peeled off to read- 'Solution 14 in glass cupboard- extracted WG gene as per page 214.' Lee pocketed the Post-It note. Interesting...
On the back cover, the only words were 'Written by Dr , Scientific Institute of Orre.' Lee was smart- he knew about Orre, the far off desert region where very few wild Pokemon lived, and he knew what genes were. But he was also curious- who was this mysterious 'Ein' person? And why did he take such a vivid interest in how to manipulate Pokemon genetics?
"What've you found Lee?" Jordan shouted from the other room suddenly, nearly making Lee drop the heavy book on his toes.
"Not much," he replied, setting down the book by a computer. "Just books and computers in here. What's it like in your room?"
"You may wanna come and see..."
As Lee crossed the room to the door, he looked back at the book on the table. When he set it down, he'd accidentally moved the computer mouse, which had taken the computer off standby. Now, the screen was on, with a mysterious background of a black and white shield, and a blue 'P'. Where had he seen that before?
"You coming?"
Lee tore his eyes away. "Yeah, on my way."
Crossing the corridor into Jordan's room, the first thing that grabbed Lee's attention were the huge syringes on the back wall, along with large knives, and many different surgeon's tools. There was also a long operating table in the middle, and an open glass cabinet, which contained suspicious looking bottles of liquid in it.
"Reminds me of the operating room out the back of the Pokemon Centre," remarked Jordan.
Lee's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, but operating on what? The books in that room are all on genetics and how to change a Pokemon's genes." His eyes fell on the glass cabinet again. "Wait a minute..."
"What's up?" Jordan asked.
Lee simply grimaced, and took the Post-It back out of his pocket. "Solution 14," he muttered. Walking across to the cabinet, he saw it; among the bottles of different Pokemon species' blood, among bottles labelled with the words 'PW102 Test Subject Blood', a small blue bottle, labelled simply '14'. He took it.
"See this Jordan?" he said, handing the note and the bottle to Jordan. "The post it was on the cover of one of the books. I reckon those," he indicated the syringes, "were used to inject this 'WG gene' into a Pokemon."
Jordan looked mortified. "That's horrible. And look," he pointed to more bottles, labelled in numbers, "these must be more genes. They were trying to make something in here."
"Then where's it gone?" Both boys shivered.
"We gotta show this to the others," said Jordan. "Call the police or something."
"Uh-huh. But first," Lee went out of the room, and looked down the corridor to the green glow, "we gotta see what that is."
Jordan nodded tentatively, and both of them made their way slowly along the corridor, Lee pocketing bottle 14 and the note again as they made it to an archway in the concrete and entered the room at the end...
"Oh shit," said Lee, a poor thing for an 8-year-old to say, but given the circumstance he would have been forgiven.
Jordan whimpered beside him. "Not good Lee..."
On the walls of the final room were many large computer screens, showing different figures of heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen percentage in bloodstream. All of this looked normal (ish), until you looked to the centre of the room. Then you worked out what the figures were for...
There, in a Perspex case in the middle of the room, cables coming from all sides to connect the back of the case to the computers so to provide the data, it stood. It looked terrifying. But the looks weren't the worst bit; the worst bit was that you knew it was alive, because what else was registering on the heart monitors?
The boys stood in scared silence for what seemed like an age, staring at what stood before them.
Jordan broke the silence eventually. "Look on the bright side Lee," he whispered, all bravado and edgy coolness in his voice gone.
"Yeah?"
"Those heartbeat monitors- Nurse Joy showed us a heartbeat that slow when we went to the Pokemon Centre."
"Yeah?"
"The Pokemon that had a heartbeat like that had a deep coma. It wasn't going to wake up, Nurse Joy told me. It was dying in its sleep."
"Jordan?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank God that thing ain't gonna wake up."
Silence.
"Jordan?"
"Yeah?"
"If that's what I think it is, it's impossible. It shouldn't exist, it's just a myth!"
"I know. It's horrible." Both of them shuddered.
"We need to get outta here Lee. Now. Tell the others."
Lee looked at Jordan. Jordan looked at Lee. They both looked at it.
"Run away!" they both screamed, absolutely terrified by it. They both tried to sprint out of the room at the same time, but in the struggle to get through the door first, Lee tripped over Jordan's feet. Falling down, he tried to grab anything as a handle to stop himself from falling, but his left hand missed. His flailing right hand, on the other hand, grabbed a bunch of dangling cables plugged into a mains socket, but his momentum pulled them out. Lee still fell over, adaptor plugs raining down beside him.
"Hey, wait up! Don't leave me Jord!" Lee yelled as he got back to his feet, stumbling quickly after his friend. Sprinting down the corridor, both boys made it out of the door at the end, and, after pushing hard and frantically, slammed it shut, Jordan sliding back the bolts before both of them ran together out of the clearing and off Route 14, not stopping until under the street lights of Undella.
Both of them collapsed, breathless, outside the Pokemart, panting desperately for air.
"Shit man," Jordan said finally. "That is not good. I really hope that thing stays in a coma."
Lee nodded, terrified of what he'd discovered, and silently wishing, like Jordan, that even if it wasn't dead, it wouldn't wake up anytime soon...
(********)
Back in the building, there had been consequences when Lee had accidentally pulled the cables out of their sockets in the prison room. The sockets were supposed in a fusebox which was supposed to be locked, so no-one could get into it and accidentally unplug the vital cables, but the door had fallen off a while ago, leaving the exposed sockets, and the exposed cables, which were then unceremoniously pulled out by the falling Lee. Result= the loss of all mains power in the prison room. The computers, the systems that made sure the thing was kept in a state they could imprison it in, everything, losing power fast...
The loud whirring and whining of a backup generator was audible now in the room, as it attempted to power all the screens at once. It was struggling though; it hadn't been designed to power this much, emergency systems only. So the backup generator sputtered slowly into death, the screens fading darker and darker... and the locked case, the prison of the thing, losing power too. And as the backup generator's last noises filled the room, one screen's final data readings painted a grim picture; heartbeat rising. Rising. Rising...
Silence and darkness at last in the screen room. Everything was still.
Then movement was visible in the Perspex case. Long claws twitched. A chest started to rise and fall slowly in a breathing pattern. Then a head tilted from side to side, slowly, as if taking the room in...
Bang! The door of the prison case was rattled as a long, muscly arm struck the Perspex, claws scraping along the inside.
Bang! Again, the door rattled, this time more urgently, struck again by its prisoner.
CRASH! One more time the door was struck, and this time was the last time; the force behind the strike threw the door off of it's hinges to strike the far wall. The thing stepped out of its once-prison, stumbling slightly as its feet, disorientated after its release from the catatonic state it was imprisoned in by force, got used to the feel of ground beneath its feet.
A guttural snarl finally escaped it's lips as it took in its surroundings, it's once prison home. Enraged, it lashed out, swiping at the computer screens with long thin arms, beaded with muscles and tipped with razor-sharp foot-long claws, slashing great long score marks in the plastic screens.
It felt so good to be free at last...
Raising its head to sniff the air, it turned towards the archway out of the prison room, the bolted metal door at the end of the long corridor. Another snarl, and the thing broke into a long, loping run, launching itself at the metal door and sinking it's claws THROUGH THE METAL with one powerful stab. It gave up trying to slice through the steel door however, as it was proving a challenge, so it resorted to a powerful kick from a long hind leg to force the door open with a 'BAM'.
Wrenching it's claws free from the metal, the thing took in the outside fresh air for the first time, the trees, the hedges, the sounds of Pokemon living peacefully in the forest. Freedom.
As the adrenaline of escape ran out, it started to feel slightly woozy and more disorientated. It was only about 2 minutes out of the prison, after all. It needed time in this new and exciting world to get used to it, to get used to itself, to know what it was capable of. Then it would hunt down those who imprisoned it, and make them pay in blood...
It was interrupted when two small Jigglypuff, one male, one female, took the wrong moment to wander into the clearing in search of Berries. At first they didn't notice it, standing there bold as brass outside the door, until the female Jigglypuff walked into its leg as it watched.
"Jiggly?" she said, curious at first. Her gaze travelled the long way up it's body, finishing up at its head, which by now was staring down impassively at her. Then she turned to the male, who was by now on the other side of the clearing. "Puff jigglypuff!"
The male glanced up from the Persim Berry he was eating, and jumped a mile into the air in fright at first sight of it.
"Ly puff!" he yelled, trying to get the female to move away from it. She didn't, and continued looking at it with a gormless smile until it brought up its leg and stamped on her viciously with a clawed foot, mashing her into a pulp against the ground. The eyes of the male widened in terror, but before he could run away it leapt from a standing start and landed, 10 metres across the clearing, next to him.
"Puff?" the small Jigglypuff said, petrified.
The thing tilted its head to look at him, then gave a little shrug and brought a scything claw down in a downward sweep, slicing through the Jigglypuff as he was a slab of warm butter. As the two halves of the Pokemon rolled away, it licked its claw clean of the blood, swallowing the lot.
Glancing up to the now dark sky, lit only by the little pinpricks of stars and by a crescent moon, it snarled again. It had escaped, it had killed, and there was more to come...
The thing bounded off into the darkness. And in Undella Town, as Jordan and Lee sat outside the Pokemart, eating hotdogs and wondering how the party was going for Aaron and Chelsea, they had no idea what they'd just unleashed...
A/N: There we go, Chapter 1, version 2! Please read and review! Criticism is gladly accepted, but please not too harsh.
Next Chapter: What has Aaron been up to at this party, while his brother's been running around unleashing monsters? Find out next time.
Until next time, adios amigos! :)
Sharkness