Author's note: This is a one-shot (maybe) side-whatever to my pokémon story: Pokémon: The Paralyzed Planet. This is kind of in response to a comment that Mysticdragon01 made to me… Anyways, onto the summary.

Summary: Ever wonder what it'd be like to be scarred for life? Haley has faced her enemy, Dusknoir, and come out of the experience scarred in more ways than one. Can she pull through the darkness, or will the evil of the paralyzed planet finally destroy her shining spirit?

Scarred

I know you think of me as strong. You've read of my experiences in the battle against the darkness that engulfs our world. I can tell that you admire my commitment to my goal, my seemingly endless energy and willingness to keep on fighting. I know that you think me brave, for standing up to someone so evil as Dusknoir, the Sableye, and Primal Dialga. You can try to deny it, but I see it in your face, that you pity me for my scars. You also admire that I seemingly shrug the scar away and keep going.

But what choice do I have? Do you know what I'm fighting for? Not for myself, I can tell you that. Not for the other pokémon in this dark world, not for Dusknoir or the Sableye or Primal Dialga. I'm not fighting for even Grovyle, or the memory of my mother, may she rest in peace. No, I'm fighting for you, and for all the people and pokémon who live in a world where the sun rises and sets each day, and where winds blow across the land, and rain can fall. You take these things for granted, and I guess that's only natural. But you can't forget how precious it is… enjoy it while you can, for someday you may not have it.

Ok, the end of my preaching. You're not here to get lectured. You're here to know about my struggles, aren't you? Very well, but be warned that my inner struggles are not kind, not pretty. What I fight inside everyday is a nightmare… you've been warned.

0*0*0*0

I gasped as I realized what I was looking at. I lifted my hand to my face, feeling it. A huge scar stretched across my face. It started just above my right eyebrow, extended across my right eye, disfiguring it horribly, and continuing down to my chin, cutting across the edge of my mouth, making it look like I was scowling. It was thick and white, with pink around the edges.

I try to put humor in this situation, but inside I'm breaking. I have never been one to care much about my appearance, but this is something I had never been prepared for… I looked ugly. And scary. I don't look like myself. Not only that, but it messes up my sight! I can barely see out of my right eye, and I know that the wound will not heal any more than it already has.

I wonder, for the first time… Is it all worth it? Was defying Dusknoir, insulting him and embarrassing him in front of his servants worth losing my eye? I'm not so sure it was. Maybe I should have given up long ago, before it had gotten this far. But I try to hide the pain; the past is the past, and there is nothing any one can do, now. But that time… when my mother died… that, too, almost broke me.

0*0*0*0*0

I see her open blank eyes, empty as an abandoned house. There was no light or life behind that gaze. The spirit that had been my mother was gone, leaving an empty shell of her former self. Just a vessel in which her spirit had resided, for a time. Now the spirit was gone, and I knew not whether I had the strength to keep going.

I hated Dusknoir in that moment. Never before had I hated anyone. But I knew now, that nothing would change my opinion of Dusknoir. There was nothing he could ever do to make this right… this was no misunderstanding… this was war. He made an eternal enemy today. True, he had not struck the killing blow, but he was in charge of the Sableye. The Sableye did nothing without his permission.

That's how I know he ordered my mother's death. But he made a fatal mistake in leaving me alive after this. Yes, I was broken, but my fury and need for revenge glued me together enough that I could go on; to take revenge for my mother's death. But Dusknoir's death wouldn't be enough. No, my revenge is to bring about the end to this paralyzed planet, as she had wanted to do. And if I ended up killing Dusknoir along the way, well, all the better!

0*0*0*0*0

But that's not all I've fought against. I've fought the worst battle one can fight: against myself. Strange as it may seem, I thrive in this world of darkness. It boggles my mind, but…. I kind of… enjoy the darkness. There's something about it that makes me… feel so… alive. Where everyone else, insofar as I know, is negatively affected by the never-ending darkness; I draw much of my strength from it.

That scares me… more than anyone can ever know. I fear that I may be dark… I know I'm not evil; for evil cares only for itself… but if my love of the dark causes pain in others; it cannot be good. Part of me doesn't want to restore time; just so I can continue living in darkness. That scares me as well.

But what I fear the most is my bloodlust. I've been careful not to let Grovyle see; in fear that he will become disgusted by me… but I've had to kill some pokémon in our travels… And it sickens me to the core, but standing over their corpses, I felt a sense of deep satisfaction and pride in my victory over them. I love to fight, to test my strength against another… that is one of the many reasons I challenged Dusknoir to a duel that cost me my eye.

It is hard, fighting my most basic instincts to bring about a better world for all. I wonder why I have these instincts in me. It makes no sense to me, unless pokémon are correct; humans are just naturally violent spirits who care only for themselves. But it seems more than just an instinct but a fundamental part of who I am… and I fight it every day.

There's a little voice inside me that whispers to me every day to stop fighting the inevitable… to join Dusknoir and Primal Dialga and be a ruler of a world full of darkness. It tempts me so; especially at the end of a long, fruitless day of fleeing the Sableye and looking for locations of Time Gears… when both me and Grovyle are short tempered; that's when the voice hits me the hardest… and I've come close, way too close for my comfort, to giving in sometimes. I fear myself.

I fear what will happen if we don't complete our mission soon. It will only get harder to resist the voice the longer our mission drags on. I don't want anyone getting hurt out of my actions… and I fear that I've got myself in too deep, on both sides of this conflict, to back down. I have to keep fighting through each day, struggling against wounds and loss and this inner voice that tortures me with 'what-ifs.'

0*0*0*0*0

So you've had a look into my most innermost thoughts; and I don't blame you if you are disgusted with me. I disgust myself, sometimes. I don't blame you if you hate me for what I feel… that I may in fact, be the biggest liability the PIT has…. But now you know what it's like for me; what I struggle with inside. And I can just hope that you remember I'm doing this for you…

Author's note: Sooooo, what did you think? Anguish, huh? I was just thinking one day about something Mysticdragon01 said to me; that he really admired Haley for being able to shrug off her scar so easily, and it got me to thinking… Haley tries not to show her emotions much, to make life easier for others… but what is she really thinking? What is she really feeling? And this is what came of it!