Warning for death, violence, cursing, and events harmful to minors such as imprisonment.
Chapter One: The Underwater Dancer
'In the beginning, there was only
a churning turmoil of chaos.'
Water dripped from a pipe above her paws as the fox ran past, leaving a puddle for someone to clean. Idly, Vivi flicked a pale red ear at the noise, listening for anything behind it. When there was nothing, she hurried on, steps as quick and quiet as she could make them. She wasn't a meowth, for moltres's sake. At another reflexive sniff, her nose burned and she had to muffle a whine of pain.
Stupid humans and their stupid obsession with cleanliness. To get rid of germs was one thing, but it was like most of them wanted to get rid of naturalness altogether. Well, considering the enemy, she supposed that was plenty plausible.
Not that it truly mattered. Today, Vivi was going to start at her currently most important task, and might even cripple these bastards from the inside.
Somehow. She still had no idea what she was retrieving in the first place. What it would take for the higher-ups to tell her things was beyond her. Then again, some grunts were stupid. She dropped down to another wet pipe, shivering. She really hated water sometimes. Didn't these places want to avoid mold and not have all these leaky pipes and concerns? Vivi heard a dreadful clank and froze, leaping to the pipe above and out of sight. A man stepped by, uninteresting with his plain brown hair-fur over a pale, empty face and lack of visible identification. (Weren't humans supposed to carry those around?) Behind him he dragged… was that a Pokemon in that cage? Small tangela roots felt out from the air before shrinking back into the darkness as if summoned by Vivi's very thoughts.
The fire almost burst from her mouth, which probably would have overheated the pipes and brought the entire place down on her head. That would definitely cause her to lose her job, or worse. With care for her throat, Vivi swallowed the heat back down and grimaced, coughing smoke. Silently, she watched the cage Pokemon pass. It breathed slow, even puffs of air in the room. Her paws coiled to keep herself from lunging forward.
Arceus strike down humans like the scum that they were. Was ruining their own kind not enough?
When they passed her head, she continued her trek onward over the vents, hopping away from sharp metal with a few muffled curses. Vivi never wanted a grand mission like this again. The liberation of captured Pokemon from the Prison Spheres was more than enough for her.
She sniffed, sitting on her haunches and wincing at the chill of the metal. Shutting her eyes for a moment, Vivi tuned out the drip of the water and kept moving, paws racing with few cracks in the metal. At the sound of her feet, the humans looked up, but little more than that. They were so intent on what they were doing and saying to each other. They were so sure of their superiority.
A pair of them stopped suddenly in the middle of the hallway, conversing in low tones. She let out a mental plea to Arceus, if they even paid attention to those.. It was annoying to try and slip around humans when they bunched up like that. It was like dealing with a murder of murkrow.
Their voices rose a bit and Vivi curled on her haunches. She really did have nothing better to do than listen to these ingrates, she supposed.
"It still won't wake up," grumbled the first, pulling at the cart. The medicine bottles shook a little at each shove. "They're trying everything: electrocution, Dream Eater, artificial Wake Up Slap, a lethal dose of Chesto and Nanab, even. The thing just won't crack. Miracle it's still functioning after all of that."
"Subject Three has never wanted to make things easy for anyone, awake or asleep." The second's voice was smothered in half a gulp of what smelled like coffee. "Also it is part ghost. No one's managed to crack a ghost byrd properly."
Humans sure could be callous to their own kind, if it was their own kind. Even pokemon used each other's names when they wanted to feel the other's pulse beneath their teeth.
"Has there been any luck on finding the others?"
Vivi took careful steps forward, inching after them to hear. Would the higher ups appreciate this? Probably. Or they knew it already. She hoped that they didn't.
One man cleared his throat and muttered something offensive under his breath before responding. "Subject One has yet to be revived, possibly due to the state of Subject Three. Twelve has been located, and was nearly apprehended by Seventeen about a week ago. They escaped with a couple of witnesses, last I caught from the boss' phone calls."
"The boss sent Seventeen back into the field." The incredulity of the first man was only matched by his utter contempt. "Didn't you just manage to wake it up a monh ago?"
The second let out a sigh, almost like they cared."Mr. Ebony and the Director are of the belief that without Subject Three conscious, Seventeen is the most capable of locating Seven." They stopped the cart, peering into one of the rooms and taking a jar inside. Vivi twitched, but did not enter.
"Is it even wise to find Seven?" The poor man still sounded close to panic. "After what it did in Kalos, even."
"It's unwise to leave it running around freely, let's put it that way. Its freedom has brought the Byrds into the public eye for too long and too positively. You've seen what the prototypes have managed. If Subject Two had been-"
"Don't talk about that where the Alakazam can hear you," the first said to the second, who had a lecturing look on his face that Vivi recognized from her trainee days/ "You know that the boss can hear you."
They made a noise of disgust at the interruption. "Well, you asked."
Vivi stood, shaking her fur and stalking away before she could hear the rest. When the massacre began, she hoped they went first. A nasty smile crossed her face. Perhaps it would be good to look into this Subject Three. Pokemon or human, liberating it might be a useful idea. Her command would definitely find something to do with them.
She jumped to the ground, skidding quickly out of view of the cameras. She sniffed as she moved, running as fast as she could to avoid alarms. Not that she was sure of where, but something told her if she wandered enough, she would find the place she was looking for. And she would complete her mission.
It was too bad that the Covenant had been broken for so long and so thoroughly.
Once, humans and Pokemon had all eaten at the same table, had...
Vivi swallowed down a snort of contempt at the very thought. That wasn't the case now, that was for sure.
The walls all looked the same, but they didn't all smell the same. It took her a few perusals until she caught the smell of what was not antiseptic but blood and something like the residue of a Shadow Ball and liquefied sulfur. Gasoline? Was that what it was? She traced that smell and made her way up to a door. The numbers on its keypad were clearly trying to insult her and her lack of thumbs.
Humans.
Vivi debated just torching the lock. Overheating it would get rid of it quickly enough but it would bring every human down on her head in the process. Not worth it, though entertaining. She bunched her muscles and leaped for a pawhold on the wall, scrambling back into the vents. What an old building. Most human structures wouldn't let her get away with this. Vivi sniffed and listened. She could find a way into that room, or just wait and see who came along. No need to break in and steal from the wrong room.
With a mewl of a sigh, Vivi curled up under her tails and made to take a nap.
She dreamed of a long time before, of a set of trees and the sound of the good human children who climbed for the right berries and befriended any local pichu in range. The kind of children who held no Prison Spheres and barked and yipped akin to tamed pets.
The kind of children that screamed when the world turned to ash.
What woke her wasn't the sound of someone arriving, but a loud, blaring alarm. If she had been any bigger, Vivi would have hit her head. She winced at the klaxon sound and mumbled curses, watching as the once- quiet hallways were now alive with sound and color. People went rushing past the vent, not even looking at her. "Are they under attack?" Vivi mused under her breath. She hoped so, they deserved it. She could use that, too.
Two made it to the door. "We have to get it further in before that thing gets here!"
"Seven is after that?" One demanded of the other, eyes wide.
"Shut up and open the door!"
When the door slid open, Vivi leaped from the vent, fire bursting from her mouth. She barely waited to hear them scream, rushing past them through the open entryway. The door shut automatically but she didn't care. She could work on getting out with that experiment or whatever once it was free. Had to be powerful if it was locked up and sleeping like this.
She sniffed and stepped forward, looking around the room. Now that the door was shut, she felt the chill of the air. She shivered and then shut her eyes, imagining the belly-flickers of had to be precise with this or she'd set the entire room on fire. The ember in her mind's eye grew slowly, flickering yellow, then orange, then red. The warmth flooded her senses and wrapped around her fur. Vivi opened her eyes and moved to examine the room. Sterile, disgustingly sterile, a steady bloop-bloop of moving chemicals and liquid in a tank made her turn her head to the right to see it. The tank stretched above her eyes to the high, straightened ceiling.
There was a child in it.
A human child, which at first glance didn't seem to have anything resembling a human sex, floated oblivious to the chaos outside of its plexiglass shield. Not that it mattered. Not that they could have known, at any rate. Their eyes were peacefully closed, as if they were dead. But a corpse wouldn't be preserved like this, surely
She watched, transfixed, as something purple shot through the translucent liquid from an inner port of the machine at the bottom, bouncing around the glass. It didn't crack it even once, but Vivi swore the human's nose wrinkled. It continued to bounce, over and over until it wriggled into the port again, leaving nothing but the bubbles behind. Vivi sat back on her haunches. When it struck the child, it passed through. Then the child's mouth opened into an abyss.
Okay, maybe that was slight exaggeration on her part, but the unearthly sound the child made was most definitely not. She had heard mismagius and gengar scream that way, but humans? No, not even when they di-
Vivi shook herself. She had tried to do the right thing back then, and had been repaid accordingly. It wasn't like human pain amused her, especially not with a sound like that.
She opened her mouth and exhaled a great burst of white and orange flame. The glass didn't crack, which was incredibly disappointing. She had the hottest flame in the region. But it did warm over and that was enough encouragement for her. She released another flamethrower, even as the purple energy returned to continue its speeding wind and crash. It was almost disgusting. Okay, no, it was disgusting. And she didn't have much time left. Those goons had to have reported a Vulpix by now.
… What if this isn't my target?
She just had to make the best of it, because she was way too deep into it now. Vivi then froze at the sound of something slamming against the door behind her. She squawked at the second heavy thud and leaped away. Unfortunately there was nowhere she could hide, nowhere to run. She could just overpower them. She hadn't seen any tamed ones that could put up a fight or would even consider it. Such was the power of Prison Devices. How Byrds could even think of using them was anyone's guess.
She gathered a ball of fire into her mouth and prepared to heave it forward when the temperature of the room plummeted like a falling snorlax.
It wasn't gradual. It was decent one second, then frost was forming over her brilliant reddish fur. Vivi scowled. She was a fire type for a reason. She forced heat to cycle quickly over her skin and into her fur once more, but the cold remained, burying itself in her bones. She turned her head towards an ever so slight cracking sound. Then it came again, louder and louder still. Vivi, having some self-preservation, leaped as far out of the way of cracking glass as possible.
And just in time too. She sucked in air as the room flooded with liquid and plexiglass exploded through the room, shattering into the walls and ceiling and raining down.
Vivi coughed and spat the foulest tasting liquid she had ever had the displeasure of tasting as the rush of liquid subsided. As she hacked and wheezed, there was a strange thud.
Her head snapped up and she regretted it at once. Her body ached from her spine to her three tails. She coughed and shivered in the new cold before shaking her entire body to get the liquid off. It dropped off in viscous globs from her mouth and she hacked and wheezed until it was out.
Once she could breathe again, Vivi took stock of her surroundings and of the suddenly badly dented door. She turned her head, craning her neck to the now broken tank-
Wait. She had seen it crack, she had cracked it, but not that much. Not enough for it to shatter that hard. Not enough to flood the room.
But it had, and now the occupant of the tank was free.
Were they alive?
She began to move towards it, because eventually she was just going to have to carry this thing out with her tiny weight, or convince it to move. She probably would have to convince it or use a cart. That meant talking to a human, possibly a Byrd. The thought made her consider throwing up in her mouth.
At the edge of the rapidly expanding puddle, Vivi glimpsed one honey-brown foot dangling in one of the cracked pieces. Blood slipped down its side over the remaining frame of the tank. It twitched before her eyes.
The dented door slid open a crack and there was muffled human swearing on the other side. Vivi hesitated, breath coming out in puffs. In the back of her mind, she realized it was still cold. The door dented again.
Then the child from the tank floated up and landed on their feet, all at once. Their limbs and head dangled as though held from high strings. They lurched forward in an awkward, splashing gait.
There was a muffled curse. Someone had poked their eye in. They hurried to move back.
"It's awake!" they shrieked, loud enough to wake the dead. "Subject Three is trying to escape!"
For the love of Entei and Moltres' half-breed baby… That was about as far as she got in the thought before the child lifted their hand and the door burst off of its frame, flying in the opposite direction and leaving a loud splat in its wake.
Vivi froze entirely, liquid forgotten.
The child let out a raspy, croaking yawn. "Water..." Slowly, they straightened, lifting up to their full, short height. The child croaked again and their head lolled still until their neck caught on.
Then, they looked at Vivi. They smiled.
"Cute!" They chirped in their rasping voice, a smile pulling at their lips.
A/N: At long last, we are ready to begin. Hey guys, welcome back to Power Play. It has been a while. We are starting straight with our main characters and what a ride they will go through. These two have a soft place in my cold heart, so please treat them well! If you don't recognize the terminology, this is related to A Rusty Lock and its eventual sequels. Lucky for us, you won't need to read any of those to understand this one, not for a long while. But you'll probably recognize the terminology from there. Anyway, back to work I go!
Back into the L19 spot you go!
Please read and review. It really helps me out as a writer. Have a good one!