Hello. You may or may not recognize me. I used to lurk around this section back in '06-'09... I admit, I've not read pokemon fics since then, but I've been pestered into posting again... Ahem. You see my other story there, Spiteful Mutation? Yeah, don't read it. I'm leaving it up there to remind myself not to write crap without planning it first. This is what that was supposed to be. If you read that, you'll only confuse yourself, because it's been stripped down to the base and completely redone. If you've read it, I suggest you forget it ;3
Warnings!: Rated M from the start. (If that's not a clue...). Violence; brainwashing; dub-con; off screen references to non-con; Slash (yaoi), femslash (yuri), and het pairings; questionable motives; general crimes against humanity -.-... Probably more to come. I'll add them as they appear from now on.
/-/-/-/-/
She missed the sun.
It was always dark, now. She was cold, and hungry, and so weak that most of the time she didn't have the strength to keep herself from leaning forward. Her shoulders were in a constant state of agony from the way her arms were bound to the wall behind her—palms flat to cold stone, so high up that it forced her to bow forward, but a strange bar pressing against the center of her back kept her straight.
Her knees hurt so badly that she couldn't really feel them anymore.
Pain and silence. And hunger and thirst.
And screaming.
'Please help me! Please! Let me out!'
Crying.
'I won't hurt anyone! Please! I'll be good, I'll be good…'
More screaming.
'I'll kill you all! Let me out! Damnit, let me go!'
Whispers lost to the dark.
'I forgive you, it's okay. It's not so bad. I'm better this way. I like it. Can I come out now?'
Nothing made sense anymore. Why was she here? Where was she?
Bits and pieces of sights and sounds floated through her head, only to waft away into the eternal, primordial darkness. They were there, and then lost forever…
A little blue bird pokémon with a shiny black camera lens strapped to its head.—
A pale teen with disheveled brown hair and wide green eyes; face gray with agony and speckled with blood.—
A young man covered in sleek, short black fur. He smiled at her with short, sharp fangs and crimson eyes that sparkled with gleeful madness.—
A woman that resembled a Buneary, looking at her with such mournful brown eyes, but she spoke words of hope.—
People in white, surrounding her, everywhere she looked. They stared at her like she was something under a microscope...—
People in white, screaming. Guns. Pain. Their throats and faces split under something green and sharp like a blade. Blood everywhere.—
Painpainpain… White. A green, reptilian pokémon with a crimson belly and bright yellow eyes, extending its claw towards her invitingly.—
Panic! She was trapped in a dark alley, a large hand muffling her screams for help, and a sharp jab of a needle to her neck.—
Loneliness. A dark house. Long hours of searching for odd jobs to make some money. Regret: That she'd never trained pokémon… That she'd had a falling out with her family over her choice to leave Oreburgh and the strange, subdued way her father made them live. Like he was hiding.—
A woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, a man with dark green hair and gray. "If only you'd have looked more like your mother," He said with a smile, but fear made his shoulders stay firm as he hugged her.—
Confusion, anxious fear. "But I don't wanna leave, Da." He continued to usher her and her mother onto the plane, the light of false dawn the backdrop of their exodus. Her mother held her close and pet her hair. "Say goodbye to Mistralton City, sweetheart. Say goodbye to home…"—
A man with light green hair and eyes the color of scabs looming over her, eyes too sharp to make his smile anything less than creepy. "Oh, little girl, your father has been a bad boy. Now, you give him this paper and ask him if he knows what happens to traitors. There's a good girl…"—
More and more left until she was more empty than full and she retched and bitter bile flooded her throat and she choked and her shoulders burned.
And the darkness swallowed her whole.
/-/-/-/-/
Deep beneath the city of Hearthome there existed a complex unlike anything else in the region. Within that complex worked over a hundred scientists that few on the surface could remember, and barely any of that number even had records proving they existed at all. None were missed by the outside world, which was good, for few of them could ever chance seeing the light of day again.
This was their choice.
Also within this hidden complex were around a score of beings that most would hesitate to term 'people' (had any but the scientists known they existed), for all the intelligence and higher faculties remaining in them. It was they who the scientists were there for; their creations and their subjects. Very few of the intellectuals seemed to care that these beings had once been very much human—that their lives and livelihoods had been torn away from them through no fault of their own.
The beings were treated like animals; sometimes worse, and rarely better. They were neither human or pokémon, and because of their status as abominations –creations– they were given none of the rights allotted to either of their genetic originators. But most of them still retained the ability of higher thought, and think they did.
Plan they did.
The scientists had an inkling of this, but there existed elements to which they remained oblivious…
/-/-/-/-/
In a small, dark room secluded from the rest of the complex sat a man. The strange anonymity of his features was ruined by a livid, fresh scar that stretched across his left cheek like half a Chelsea grin. In the utter silence of the room the scarred man was still, his cool hazel gaze fixed on the wall of television screens; in his hand was a remote, and each time he hit a key one of the screens would un-mute itself.
Breaking the usual function for the surveillance screens, most of them appeared to be showing… news programs.
"-eni Rannulf, nephew of our own Elite Four's Karen, is still reported as 'missing'. As you will remember, his status has been such since he missed his greatly anticipated League match last year…" Kanto.
Click.
"…Adicus Lyle, 16, son of Argus Lyle, the president of Lyle Medical Technologies is still missing. New footage shows him leaving Ecruteak City in the company of an unknown male. If you have any information on the disappearance of Adicus Lyle, please call…" Johto.
Click.
"…grandchild of well know archeologist Sani Niyol has been reported 'missing' today. Sources state he disappeared from a Fallarbor emergency room after falling from one of the nearby slopes…" Hoenn.
Click.
"…a generous reward is being offered for any information leading to the whereabouts of Felice Aldair, last seen two weeks ago in Floaroma Town. Ms. Aldair, the heiress of the Aldair family fortune…" Sinnoh.
Click
"In other news, 'Team Plasma'…" Click.
The news screens went black before quickly flicking back to the default views of the many cells, halls and laboratories of the complex. The man continued to stare at the screen that had briefly displayed the Unova news, lips twisting into a frown and pulling his scar grotesquely.
"Damn." He cursed quietly, dropping the remote on a nearby table and reaching into his casually worn lab coat for a small, closed-circuit radio. "Morgan, come in." Brief silence as he awaited an answer, then a crackle of static and a woman's voice.
"Copy, Erebos. What do you need?" Her voice was low and calm, oddly distorted by static from the nearby mountain's magnetic interference.
"Don't let any of the field agents leave base—call them all back. Plasma's moving early. They need new orders." Even as he spoke, 'Erebos' was moving to the door, giving only a passing glance to a huge cabinet that contained well over a hundred pokéballs kept in stasis.
"Damn." The woman unknowingly echoed. "Right, on it. What are you up to now? They could really use you down—"
"Where do you think I'm going?" He interrupted sarcastically, rolling the small transmitter in his hand as if he were contemplating throwing it. There was a long silence, almost long enough to think the matter had been dropped, before the voice crackled through again, quieter than before. More urgent.
"Erebos, I know it worked for… His Kricketune, but it had been addled anyway. And… do you know what he does with that thing?" Her voice rose –and crackled– briefly with disgust before dropping back to a low whisper. "I'm just… Are you sure you really want to do this? With that specimen? She was the one who—"
Erebos cut Morgan off pointedly, silently pressing the call button on his transmitter to bombard her with static. The cold expression on his face carried over in his voice when he deigned to reply: The hall he traveled through was empty and quiet but for the buzz of the overhead fluorescent lights. No one was there to overhear.
"I know that well, Morgan; in case you have forgotten, I am the one that wears the scar, still." Then he lowered his voice to match hers, though it was more in mockery than care to hide his words. "And of course I know what He does to his little pet—I am the one who erased the tapes."
"You—?!"
"Get back to work, Morgan. Erebos, out."
The transmitter remained silent after that, and he slipped it back into his pocket, hand brushing the single pokéball he kept there. He knew that Morgan wouldn't let the subject drop so easily, especially when he had so conveniently 'forgotten' to say anything about his decision…
But that was an issue for another time, one that could be solved easily enough when he could show the fool woman the results of his work.
All the problems from that specimen came from nothing more than a particularly bad introduction to her lot in the compound… and an overdeveloped sense of worth. Without those, they would ultimately be much easier to handle… But why stop there? Wiping memories was a tedious and time-consuming process, fraught with complications, but very much worth it in this case. The fighting potential in that one was nearly unmatched, and if he could harness that..!
Fingering the scar that disfigured his face, Erebos leisurely made his way back to the busier section of the compound. To the isolation cell and the occupant that unknowingly awaited him.
He would have his revenge—it didn't even matter that she wouldn't remember why.
/-/-/-/-/
It still missed the sun, but in a distant sort of way. It missed the comfort and warmth of sitting in a golden beam of light, the nourishment of Its body and soul from the fire in the sky.
The 'sun' was only an idea, though. It didn't remember the sun—didn't remember seeing the ball of fire or ever sitting in a beam of light… Like someone had told Them of the phenomena, once…
But that wasn't right. It had been alone for as long as It could remember—no one talked to It, so no one could have told Them of the sun or the peace the fire promised.
It was confused. But not for long.
The air rippled in a torturously familiar way, and It groaned and leant forward despite the pain in Its arms: The bile still almost choked It as the Ripple pulled yet more from the aching emptiness of Its head. There was nothing left to take, though, and the emptiness refused to grown any larger, and the Ripple left It alone.
Over Its own hissing, hitching breaths, It didn't hear the darkness split and open… But It saw the white light when it came.
'Was this the sun?'
/-/-/-/-/
A/N: Aaand, cut. That's the prologue, and an interest check. As I've said, I haven't read pokemon fics in years, so I'm unsure how 'morph fics are handled anymore ;3