0. Imprisonment

When Parasect opened his eyes he was in a room that was pitch black, laying on his side. The silence was so dense and pressing and the darkness so complete that he could've been dead. He tried to roll himself back onto his feet, but someone had fastened both of his large orange claws together so he could barely move them and manoeuvring around was difficult to say the least.

"Hello?" he called out briskly into the darkness.

Everything that had happened was a blur. He'd been travelling with the Golbaten force, a large Golbat called Alpha had hit him repeatedly around the head with one of his large wings when he'd been walking too slowly. This didn't bother Parasect too much; his Tochukaso mushroom absorbed most of the impact, which had encouraged him to do it deliberately in order to annoy the Golbat. The next thing he knew they'd been jumped by a large number of Magnemite who had surrounded them and issued such large discharges through the air the Golbats had nearly all been paralysed. Parasect remembered with a silent flush of pride that he'd managed to knock out a good dozen of the Magnemite with his spore attack, which had enabled both him and the Golbats to run for it. Unfortunately they'd become split up and due to the fact that his claws were tied together he had been very restricted in his running speed, and when he came face to face with the Metagross, his Tochukaso hadn't yet recharged enough for another spore attack and he hadn't been able to fight back, which annoyed him immensely. He could barely remember anything that had happened after that.

"Parasect?" a voice called out suddenly, making Parasect jump and spin around, fighting to keep his balance. There was no doubt his fungus hadn't been watered for at least a day, as when he tried to draw more energy from it, there was barely any left remaining but he managed to draw some and felt fractionally better.

"Who is that?" he snapped quickly

"Watch your tone." Came the unknown voice again

"Which Golbat?"

"Alpha."

Parasect groaned. Of all the Golbats he could've been imprisoned with it was this one, "Where are you?"

"In a separate room to you. I can only see you through glass of my own cell wall."

"How can you see me? It's pitch black in here."

"I'm a bat remember. I live in caves. It's usually pretty dark in caves." Alpha said in a voice dripping with sarcasm

"Okay I get it." Parasect wasn't in the mood for anything. After he'd recovered from the initial fear and confusion he was starting to feel angry and bad tempered. How dare they keep him locked up here and all because of that godforsaken Snivy, "When I get back…" Parasect murmured low enough that only he could hear, "I'm going to kill that grass type." And a large part of him really meant it.

"Are any of the other force members with you?" came Alpha's voice from nearby again

"Not as far as I know."

"Ah. I'm with Omega. I guess that means Beta and Gamma aren't here." Alpha told him.

"I don't care."

"You should." Alpha sounded bitter, "All three of them risked their lives to protect you. So did I. If it wasn't for you none of us would be in this mess. The least you can do is care about whether they're alive or not. Beta and Gamma may have even flown back to go for help to get you out. Even you should care about that." Scowling to himself, Parasect didn't respond to that.

"Good evening." Said a voice and suddenly the room Parasect was in was lit up very brightly in an instant and Parasect felt as though he'd been blinded. Blinking several times and screwing his eyes up trying to force himself to adapt to the bright light, Parasect staggered forwards and hit something hard. He was staring at his own reflection. They wouldn't put a mirror in his cell, if that was what it was, would they? No…looking around Parasect squinted at the light. There were four large spotlights on the ceiling one pointing at each wall. There was no doubt that all four walls were made of glass and the lights were designed to prevent him seeing out. Instead he was surrounded by his own reflection staring out at him on all four sides. It was disorientating but Parasect stared in the direction of the voice and forced himself to glare

"Where the hell are we?" he asked his reflection furiously

"You expect me to tell you something like that?" Said the voice again and suddenly something struck Parasect

"I recognise your voice!" he exclaimed suddenly, finding it to be true, "You were the Commander in the Metagross base!" There was a brief silence from outside the glass chamber

"Yes." There was a faint irritation in the voice of the Metagross Commander as she accepted this statement, "Then you are the Parasect that we have been searching for. I surmised as much." There was another silence

"Why look for me?" Parasect called out again

"You broke into our base." The Commander said coolly, "We want to know how and why. You can give us this information voluntarily, or we can force it out of you."

"I'm not involved in any of this." Parasect spat feeling his temper reaching its limit again, "I don't know what's going on, ask the Golbats if you want information about the Snivy."

"You know about the Snivy?" there was an edge of surprise to the voice of the Commander

"Of course I do." Snapped Parasect

"Tell me what I want to know." The Commander seemed to abandon this point. Parasect wished he could see her facial expression to gauge exactly what she thought of this statement

"And you'll let me go?" Parasect asked aggressively, raising his claws

"No." the Commander said smoothly

"Then why the hell should I?" Parasect told her furiously, blinded by the injustice of it all.

"You'll regret it if you don't." was the only response he got

"There's nothing you can do to me." Parasect fell into an aggressive stance, blocking out the part of himself reminding him he was stuck in a glass box unable to see and for all he knew he could be facing a Legendary on the other side of that glass. All he knew was that Legendary or not when he got out of this box he was going to tear them to shreds.

"I'd think very carefully about that." The Commander warned him, her voice becoming gruffer, "You'll change your mind very soon. Tell us what we want to know and we might even consider returning you to Sinnoh."

"What?" Alpha's voice came from somewhere to his right, "What do you mean return us to Sinnoh?"

"You really think we'd keep you in Sinnoh, where the Ghost Forces can track you with their computers?" there was a sneer in the voice of the Commander, "Of course not."

"Where the hell are we?" Alpha's voice came again, furious

"That would be telling." The Commander's snide voice came again. There was no doubting from her tone that she sounded very pleased with herself, "But I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay, if you tell us what we want to know that is. And Parasect, I suggest you reconsider your position…especially if you want that mushroom on your back to stay healthy." Parasect had officially had enough. They could threaten him all they wanted, they could lock him up and blind him…but messing with his Tochukaso was a line. And you never crossed that line. He charged his reflection and smashed against it with his claws as hard as he could, but he rebounded off the glass and tried fiercely again and again and again…it didn't help that his claws were bound together.

"We'll speak soon." And with that the lights went off in Parasect's cell, plunging it into darkness once again. Parasect let out a cry of rage and slammed both his claws into the glass again and again but it held true against all his efforts to break through.

"For god's sake calm down." Alpha said testily from the neighbouring cell

"How can you be so calm about this?" Parasect spat furiously, whirling in the direction of his voice, "We're trapped in another region, we don't even know which one, we've no way of contacting anybody, no hope of rescue and they're going to torture us for information we probably don't even have. All for some ridiculous grass type." He slammed his claws against the glass again with a satisfying ringing sound.

"For a start…" came another voice which between flashes of seeing red Parasect realised must have been Omega, "The Metagross have already made one big mistake…"

"And what might that be?" Parasect rested against the glass front of his cell feeling increasingly claustrophobic as the pitch blackness pressed in around them.

"What are you talking about?" Parasect asked dismissively, fighting to calm down. He could feel that expending so much energy like that had been unwise; the energy store in his Tochukaso was all but depleted and he himself was starting to feel fatigued too.

"They've used the idea of darkness to hide what's inside this room from us." Omega told him, "But they've intelligently forgotten that Golbats have exceptional night vision. We can see everything in this room."

"Great. Perfect." Parasect couldn't find it in himself to be interested or grateful for this information. It didn't matter whether they could see him or not…it wasn't going to get them out of their predicament. He sat back down on the floor, folding his legs to his side, exhaustion setting in fast and deciding to preserve his strength. He wasn't going to look weak in front of the Metagross Commander next time she showed her face. And he was going to do everything it took to protect his Tochukaso.

"Do you remember the Pokémon that the Piplup, Squeak, mentioned to you?" Gamma asked and it was obvious to Parasect that he was talking to Alpha

"Hmm?"

"The Empoleon? His mother?"

"Oh!" Alpha made a sudden exclamation, "That's her!"

"Parasect…" Omega called across to him, "There are a group of cells like these across from us, glass boxes. We're sealed in a large warehouse type room, all sealed in glass container units. Across from us are another five glass cells but from what I can tell only two are occupied. One of them is an Empoleon, she looks to me like she's asleep. The other is a Pokémon I've never seen before in my life. Pink, looks vaguely like a squat Hippopotas with purple flowers painted on it…and it's floating."

"Very funny." Parasect said blandly, "I'm not in the mood for Arceus' sake."

"No, he's right…" Alpha's voice sounded again, "There is a strange Pokémon there floating about. But I've never seen it before, do you think it's from Unova, like the Snivy was?"

"It's possible," Omega's voice, "In which case…the Metagross Commander said we weren't in Sinnoh any more so as to prevent Mistress Haunter tracking us…there's no way they'd have brought us to Unova is there?"

"What the hell does that mean?" Parasect snapped, though felt a small feeling of dread surfacing in the pit of his stomach, "What region is that in?"

"It's not in any region known to Pokémon kind." Omega sounded suddenly gloomy, "No one in Sinnoh has ever been there before."

"Looks like we're going to be stuck here for some time." Parasect closed his eyes but the darkness was so complete it didn't really make any difference.

"No." Alpha said aggressively, "Either we'll break out…or Mistress Haunter will come to find us and break us out herself. Mark my words…we won't be in here longer than a month." Parasect didn't have the mental strength left to argue with the Golbat's futile hopes. Even the ghost forces couldn't magically find their way to an undiscovered region. And for the first time since his teenage years in Ohclaw's colony…Parasect began to feel genuine fear, and he lay back resting against his fungus and let the darkness of the cell consume him.