Chapter One
Author's Note
Lo and behold, I returneth from the labyrinthine halls of summer procrastination and laziness!. In preemptive response to the questions a few of you may be asking:
Yes, I am still working on one dreary night I just have the writer's block from hell.
Yes, the following is a Pokemon fanfiction. But you know what? I grew up with Pokemon. I saw the first episode when it first aired in America, and I watched it every Saturday. I saw the first four movies in theaters and owned the first five on VHS at one point or another. I could pokerap with the best of 'em.
Yes, this story is dark. I know Pokemon is a shonen manga/anime and that it's not really a dark show. The darkness comes from me, it's always been a personal hobby to look at various shows (the more lighthearted the better) and say to myself: "hmm, now, if this were real how would this turn out. The answer is almost always quite depressing. If anyone reading this has read one dreary night you have seen the fruits of my distorted little mind and know what I'm talking about.
Last note (I promise) I'm not quite happy with this chapter, it feels a little too much like a list of character sheets to me. That was a necessary evil however, and the rest of the story will hopefully be more like the intro. Not quite that dark for a while, but more in that style anyway.
Bodies littered the floor, some fairly intact, some barely recognizable. The injuries that lead to their demise were many and varied, limbs removed, obvious stab wounds to the chest and neck, decapitation (neat and not so neat), crushed skulls, holes in various places, some of the bodies were seemingly disintegrated; all kinds of destruction. The faces of the corpses were varied as well, some looked agonized, others terrified, while others were furious, and still others were seemingly at peace. All in all it was a thorough mess and it was going to take a very long time to clean up. It was already starting to smell and the slaughter wasn't even a minute old.
It was all my fault. I'm the one who killed all these people. Every. Last. One. I somewhat idly wonder how many there are and what it brings my body count to now. It doesn't matter much, at this point a few more people won't make a difference in the nightmares I have. The fact that I'm so removed from this tells me that I'm in some sort of shock. Killing does that to me, it makes me numb. No matter how much I struggle I won't be able to feel anything through the pallid sheet of almost blissful nonemotion that has settled over me. I suppose it's a kind of defense mechanism, designed to keep me from breaking under the weight of it all and going even more insane with guilt than I already am. I know I could be like this for hours. How do I know this? I know this because there are two people I haven't killed yet, two people that need to be killed. The two people I least want to kill. I hear the sound of many footsteps rapidly approaching from the corridor I had come through not too long ago. If I was able to act like my normal self I might smirk at the irony. The cops showing up just a few seconds too late. Story of my life. I hear them entering the room. Then I hear the footsteps slow down and eventually stop. I turn to face them, covered in blood and other fluids.
"My god…what-what happened here?"
"It's…It's…"
There's a lot of mumbling like that among the lower ranked officers. The officer in charge recognizes me and only stares, not at the corpses, but at me. She has this horrible half sad/half disgusted look on her face.
"Hello Jen, I'm afraid you're too late." My voice is robotic, dull and lifeless even to my own ears.
"Seth…" Pity. She pities me; I'm not sure how to take that.
Belatedly, one of the officers notices that I'm armed. With a katana in fact, it's not mine. I took it from one of the corpses shortly before it became a corpse; it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
"Drop the weapon! Get on the ground!" The others quickly take up the shout, threatening me with various things if I don't surrender immediately. The noise shakes Jen out of her reverie.
"Stand down! He's not a threat! Stand down! Now!" The officers look confused, not quite lowering their own weapons and staring at me suspiciously, their pokemon growling and snarling at me. I'm not afraid, I could kill the lot of them before they could tell their pokemon to attack, it wouldn't even be hard. It doesn't look like it will come to that, Jen has them under control. She turns to face me again.
"Seth…What happened here?"
"I did your job." She winces, I don't blame her.
"Seth, you can't just-"
"What? Save your asses from getting killed? If you had walked in that door before I did they would have killed you. Plain and simple, they didn't have any other choice." I'm getting angry now. The anger is burning through that godawful numbness that was draped over me. Good. It's so much easier being angry. It doesn't hurt as much. "They've been backed into a corner; they have been their whole lives! They've had to fight just to live! Not to have rights, not to be recognized, just to live! To keep themselves from being killed by you humans!" I'm shouting now, officers and pokemon alike are cringing back from me. Jen alone is brave enough to stand her ground.
"I know. We don't have time for this. We have to stop Adam and Sarah." Her even tone only makes me more angry, but I reign myself in.
"No. I have to stop them. You'll only get killed."
"I can't just sit here and let you-"
"You can, and you will. If they're stopped by a human it will only be a matter of time before someone else rises to power and this starts all over again. If I stop them there's a chance that this can be ended permanently." I turned and made for the door that would lead me to the two people that could put an end to this. Jen runs after me and grabs my shoulder.
"Stop! I can't let you do this alone!" She looks determined. She really does want to help me. That sends a stab of regret through me, colder than the frozen sides of the mountain we're inside of. I turn around and slowly remove her hand from my shoulder. She is surprised by this. I take the chance to catch and hold her gaze, capturing her brown eyes with my blood red gaze.
"Jen…I've already killed a lot of people I care about. I'm about to kill two more. Please don't make me responsible for killing anyone else…please." She looks startled. Not afraid, it's not a threat. It's a plea. She's struck speechless for a moment. I wrap her in my arms and kiss her gently on the cheek. She is shocked into stillness. I break the short embrace, tears falling from my eyes.
"In case I don't come back." My voice is thick with years of pain and regret.
As I walk toward the room where the last two people I have to kill I hear her ordering her men back, they don't argue, I toss the sword I'm still hanging on to off to the side tiredly. It would only get in the way against the people I'm about to fight, to kill. The security door senses my presence and slides open with a whisper of sound, I walk through it into a corridor, sparsely lit by emergency lights. As the door closes I am cast into almost complete darkness. It's appropriate, I think as I walk towards the chamber where my targets await. The crowning achievements in a life filled with death and loss. The most beautiful and most grotesque faces soon to be added to my nightmares. The two spirits that will haunt me the most in Hell. The two people responsible for the deaths of thousands of people,
The two people I love more than life itself.
Further down the corridor the temperature drops rapidly, the chamber ahead must be open to the elements then, I feel myself assimilating the information and taking it into account, the better to take advantage of it in the fight to come. A habit formed through years of futile fighting and pointless deaths. I wonder if I'll survive what's to come, despite my words to Jen I'm pretty sure I will. After all, I've survived everything life has thrown at me until now, why not this? I seem cursed to outlive everyone that matters to me. I'm almost to the end of the corridor now. If only their families were still alive, if only people had been a little more compassionate, if only people were willing to see what they were instead of see what they weren't. If if if if IF. So many ifs. None of them matter now, but looking back I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, if one little detail had been different, one tiny infinitesimal detail had changed, none of this would have happened and we could have been happy. Maybe it was destiny that decided this. Heh, if it was, destiny better stay the hell away from me. 'Cause if it doesn't. I'll rip its heart out with my bare hands for making me kill my best friends.
*Many years before*
I felt a sudden, sharp pain in the back of my head. 'Why won't they just leave me alone?' I thought to myself, 'I don't bother them, why do they always pick on me?' I reached back and felt the area, there was no blood.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" It was Jason. Jason's the biggest kid in the orphanage, I'm the smallest. "Off to play with your furry friends again? Don't you know that the pokemon out there don't like humans? You could get eaten!" By now half the kids in the orphanage had gathered to watch and see what would happen. They laughed, I hate them for it. Why is it funny when he pushes me down or throws rocks at me?
"Just leave me alone." I say quietly, I just want to get away, as far away as I can. I start walking towards the woods, they can't follow me. They don't have pokemon to protect them, I do. Jason follows me as far the fence around the orphanage property, jeering as he does. It's no different from yesterday, or the day before. I ignore him as I grab the board I know to be loose and pull it aside, quickly slipping through before he can try to grab me. He's done that before. He told one of the caretakers that I was trying to escape and he had caught me. He was praised for being such a good boy, and I was yelled at for breaking the rules. I still haven't forgiven any of them. I slip the board back into place and strike out into the forest. Most people don't think of the area around Veilstone City as being particularly forested, but the southeastern outskirts still have a fair amount of relatively untouched woodland left.
I should probably explain something about this particular area: Veilstone, like all large cities, has numerous facilities that cater to pokemon in various shapes and forms. They run the gamut from the familiar pokecenters and pokemon breeders to the more…esoteric such as pokemon fashion clubs and stylists believe it or not. There were also some other less advertised facilities, such as an impound for wild pokemon caught stealing food or causing disturbances. There were also a great number of less 'socially acceptable' businesses that stayed in the shadows. Due to these facilities (the impound, the more shady breeders, and the black market in particular) there were actually all kinds of pokemon hanging around cities, Escapees mostly, the species of the escapees varied wildly it actually wasn't that unusual to find pokemon like archanine, sudowoodo or even chancey on the outskirts of any large city.
This forested area was particularly 'rich' with a fairly large amount and variety of rogue pokemon from the city. That was partly why not many people came here and it's also why I have the pokemon team that I have. Before long I find myself in a clearing I discovered on my first trip into the forest. The trees surrounding the clearing were berry trees, primarily oran, but there were pecha, cheri, and others too, if you went out a little further. I spent a little time climbing the trees and picking a mess of berries, which I threw into the center of the clearing, it wasn't hard, I'm small and light enough that climbing trees is easy; and the trees here are old, very old given that berry trees don't usually live very long. All of them are large enough to render a fairly significant harvest, more than enough for my needs. After I had gathered what I thought would be enough I climbed down from the tree I was perched upside down in like a zubat and reached into the pockets of my black sweatpants and drew forth six pokeballs. I do indeed have a full team of pokemon…pretty impressive considering I'm six years old. I don't have my license yet, and technically I can't have pokemon until then but I don't care.
I threw the small spheres into the air and they all activated at once, flooding the clearing with red light as my team materialized with a collective yawn and stretch. My espeon Espe immediately faced me and I felt the familiar sensation of her mind expanding into my own, it was like someone sliding their hand into your skull, it didn't hurt but it was a bit weird the first few times. Now it was as commonplace as breathing. Through her link with me I could understand the speech of the members of my team who were incapable of human language.
My team was odd, especially for a trainer as young as I was. It consisted of Lucia, a lucario I had found during my first trip into the woods near the orphanage, she had been badly injured by a trainer, one of the hits she had taken had destroyed her chest spike, leaving only a small bumpy disc where the spike used to be. She managed to escape but she would have died if I hadn't found her and brought help. The recovery process took a few months, pokemon heal much faster than humans do, but the damage was still extreme. I had stayed with her the whole time; she was touched that a human would be so willing to stay with her. I told her that the area near the orphanage was almost completely devoid of humans and she ended up living there when she was released from the pokecenter. I had continued to visit her after she was released and she became my first friend. She acted very maternally towards me, always worrying about me and fussing over any cuts or scrapes I might get. I don't really mind, its nice knowing someone cares. I try not to do anything to worry her but occasionally things happen, and when they do she's the first one there, picking me up and asking if I got seriously hurt.
The second member of my team is an espeon, Lucia found her wandering the forest, sick and underfed not long after she met me. She was dangerously thin and she had scars and festering wounds all over her small body when I had first seen her. I quickly 'borrowed' some medicine and extra food and brought them to the very clearing where I was now. I spent as much time as I could out here, helping Lucia nurse the small pokemon back to health. She was terrified of me at first, she wouldn't or couldn't look me in the eyes, cringed whenever I moved too fast or too suddenly, and whenever I touched her in the process of applying medicine she would tense up so much she shook. Despite our initial worries about her size and physical state she recovered quickly once she was given food and better care. Once she was sufficiently recovered she told us that her name was Espe, when I asked how she had gotten into the state she had been in she wilted and didn't answer. Lucia stopped me from asking again and explained later that she had most likely been abandoned by a trainer. One who wasn't all that concerned with the welfare of his pokemon. I was always careful not to give her any reason to be afraid of me, she became less afraid eventually, but even now she was very shy and seemed sad most of the time.
The third member of the team is Midnight, a female absol. Midnight was caught stealing food from a small grocery store, and attacked the owner when he tried to chase her away. The police were called and she fought until they overwhelmed her with sheer numbers. She was brought to the impound and caged there for a while before she escaped, once out she meandered her way out of the city and eventually made it to this forest. She followed her nose to the area where lucia kept a small den with Espe. Lucia was out gathering food at the time and Espe was alone, Midnight erroneously assumed that the den was Espe's and challenged her for it. Espe tried to explain that she couldn't just give up the den, Midnight attacked. Espe actually fought back for a while but she was in a losing fight, thankfully Lucia came back and intervened forcefully.
In the end Midnight was unconscious but not seriously injured, the den was a mess, and Espe was hysterical. I showed up to find Lucia trying to calm a frantic Espe whilst trying to clean up the den and keeping an eye on the unconscious absol not too far away. I helped clean up the den and got the full story. When Midnight woke up and saw me she assumed she was going to be sent back to the impound or just euthanized on the spot and had glared at me and told me (through Espe's translation) to just kill her and get it over with. I refused of course, and tried to start treating her wounds, which were painful but not serious. She snapped at me the first time, then Lucia had threatened to do some fairly horrible things to her and she reluctantly let me help her. I'm pretty sure she expected me to turn her in every time I came, and each time I didn't she seemed a little more confused. Eventually she accepted the fact that we weren't going to turn her in and she became a little more agreeable. When she finally was healed she visibly swallowed her pride and asked if she could stay. I didn't have a problem with it but I asked Espe to be sure if she would be, she was, Lucia agreed as well but warned Midnight not to do anything to Espe or me. It was a bit rough at first but eventually everyone made peace.
The next pokemon to join the growing group was Primrose the ninetails. Primrose had belonged to a wealthy family that fell on hard times due to the gambling debts of the patriarch. In order to keep the rest of his family from knowing how much money he was really losing he began discretely selling their possessions, eventually he had lost so much that he just couldn't hide it anymore and he had to fess up. The rest of the family was shocked and furious. The debt he had accumulated was so great they had to sell a great many of their things to pay it off. One of those things happened to be Primrose; they had sold her to a breeder. Since ninetails' were so rare they could fetch truly mind-boggling prices from breeders. Primrose was shocked that the family she lived with would just sell her like that, and didn't relish the idea of becoming a baby factory. It took her a while but she escaped the breeder and fled the city. Unfortunately for her, she had been born into human society and had been pampered her whole life, leaving her woefully unprepared for existence in the wild. She wound up lost and scared in the forest where Lucia and Espe found her, after hearing how she came to be there they offered her a place to live. She quickly agreed and took up residence in Lucia's increasingly crowded den. There had been some friction between Primrose and Midnight due in part to Midnight's combative nature but also due to the difference in their backgrounds. Midnight, who had been born in the wild and had to fight tooth and nail just to survive, had no patience for Primrose's lack of survival skills; Primrose on the other hand, was amazed and disgusted with Midnight's lack of tact and manners. Add to this the fact that both had a great deal of pride and not-inconsiderable egos, and things were ripe for infighting. It was extremely hard for Primrose to have to learn things that all wild pokemon knew seemingly from the get-go, and Midnight didn't make it easy for her. There had been some fights, but as Primrose continued to learn and failed to give up Midnight grudgingly had to acknowledge her skills. Fast forward to the present and Primrose was pretty much self-sufficient, she still carried some things over from her upbringing: she takes her grooming very seriously. I don't think I've ever seen her with a hair out of place, She also has a very precise manner of speech, and tries to follow the unwritten rules of proper behavior she grew up with at all times. She is also actively trying to groom me into a respectable member of society. I wish her luck, she's gonna need it. At first, I chafed at the semi-constant reminders of proper etiquette and not-so-subtle comments on my usually rumpled and untidy appearance but when I asked her if she thought I was that unsightly she was surprised that I took it that way and stopped trying to get me to conform to her idea of what is acceptable.
Well, she's trying anyway, now she only says something when I really go too far. I guess I could use it. I'm not exactly the most tactful person on the planet. It's gotten me into trouble more than once. One of the caretakers at the orphanage once said that it's like I don't have a filter between my mind and my mouth, whatever I think is what comes out.
The last two members of the team are odd, even for our little group. Bubble the floatzel and Sasha the luxray joined at the same time. They both belonged to the same trainer at one point in time; he released them because he couldn't deal with their odd personalities. He was, according to them, an extremely serious person who didn't waste any time with things like playing with his pokemon or relaxation. He was set on beating the pokemon league challenge and set himself (and his pokemon) to it with a single minded intensity that Bubble and Sasha didn't appreciate. You see, Bubble is extremely hyperactive, she goes everywhere at full speed and does things as fast as possible. This means she occasionally messes something up due to her haste, she can also be kind of…ditzy. This didn't sit well at all with the extremely strict trainer. She is also very carefree, nothing holds her attention for very long and she is more interested in playing than anything else, frequently blowing off her trainer's orders so she could run around or play.
Sasha is pretty much Bubble's polar opposite. Sasha is very lethargic, she likes a good nap in a patch of sunshine more than anything else, and when she does have to do something else she does it slowly, her trainer didn't appreciate that. Once you get past her almost complete lack of motivation Sasha is really quite nice, she doesn't have an unkind word to say about anyone and she's perfectly willing to listen to you if you've had a bad day…but you have to get past the lack of motivation, which can take a lot of patience; patience which her previous trainer didn't have.
He released Sasha and Bubble just outside of Veilstone, they agreed to stick together and ended up wandering through the forest and stumbling on Lucia's den. I was there at the time and I have to admit, they make a funny pair. I heard bubble long before I saw either of them, when they finally did come into sight Sasha was moving at her usual pace and Bubble was all but walking in circles around her talking at a hundred miles an hour and waving her arms around almost frantically. Sasha noticed us almost immediately, Bubble wasn't looking where she was going and ended up walking right into me and knocking me over. She ended up on top of me nose to snout. I'll never forget the first thing she said to me: "Oh! I just tripped over a human!...You're kinda squishy." Sasha just rolled her eyes and told her to get up. By the time she was halfway to her feet Bubble was talking to everyone at once, cheerfully jabbering about topics so random and varied none of us could figure out what was going on. Somehow, amid the stream of chatter an invitation to stay was offered and accepted. Having a conversation with either one of them was an exercise in patience, but they had become members of the group and I was happy that they did.
The group nearly broke up not too long after Sasha and Bubble joined, not because of a fight or anything but because a trainer had the bad (or good, depending on how you look at it) luck to stumble on Lucia's den. He tried to battle and capture Lucia, the others jumped in and he was sent packing, but he spread the word that there were some rare pokemon living close to Veilstone and you could catch one if you could take them down. Pretty soon a whole stream of trainers was searching for our little group. There were some pretty close calls and everyone was getting thoroughly sick of it when Espe plucked up her courage and suggested that I get some pokeballs and 'capture' them myself. This was met with surprise from most of us, myself included.
I never even thought about doing it; it would be betraying their trust. Midnight was openly hostile to the idea, and Sasha wasn't too happy about it either. In the biggest display of courage I've ever seen from her, Espe actually stood up for herself and defended her idea, that alone probably took Midnight off guard enough to keep her silent while Espe explained her logic. If I captured them, other trainers couldn't, so even if another trainer came by and tried to catch one of them it wouldn't work. She also pointed out that I could get medical supplies and a fairly constant supply of food, even in the winter months when food in the wild was generally scarce. This was enough to convince Primrose, who wasn't confident enough in her foraging skills to think she could make it through the winter without help; and Sasha, who liked the idea due to her lazy nature. I came out and said that I wouldn't force any of them into this and that even if I did I would never make any of them battle for me or anything like that. Lucia admitted that the idea made sense, and Bubble said that she side with Sasha. Midnight hemmed and hawed about it, but in the end she was forced to agree that the idea was practical. In the process she threatened me multiple times and repeatedly stated that she thought this could end very badly and if and when it did not to come crying to her.
With that decided, it was up to me to get some pokeballs. Fortunately for me, the orphanage was close to a general store that a lot of trainers frequented, so they got regular shipments of pokemon stuff. That store is where I had 'borrowed' food and medical supplies from before. Getting pokeballs was a bit harder because they were shipped in locked crates but I got lucky when one of the stock guys dropped one and spilled them everywhere. I was waiting at the edge of the lot the store owned, which backed right up to the forest without so much as a fence. I was able to run in and grab six while he was busy cursing and trying to keep some of them from rolling into a nearby storm drain.
That done, I headed back to Lucia's den where everyone was waiting. The process of capturing them itself was interesting since I couldn't bring myself to throw the pokeballs hard enough to make them activate, in fear of hurting them. Eventually Midnight got frustrated enough to smack one of the balls and accidentally set it off. Fortunately she remembered to reign herself in and didn't break the ball. I let her out again immediately, she mumbled about 'little weaklings' a bit, but was none the worse for wear. After that, I just let everyone activate the balls themselves. Soon enough, everyone was 'captured' and I had my team, if you could really call it that. Now, to those of you out there saying: 'oh, he couldn't use pokeballs, he's not a trainer!' allow me to tell you this: it's a common misconception that pokeballs only work for trainers, this isn't true. Pokeballs will work for anyone, but you can only store pokemon in a database, trade them, and legally win money from battles if you were a licensed trainer. If you didn't mind not being able to do any of those things you could live without the license, it was illegal, but I didn't really care.
A blast of light hitting me in the eyes brought me back to reality. I had been remembering for quite a while, long enough for the pile of berries to disappear. I went over to where everyone was sitting or laying and sat down between Lucia and Primrose. Lucia smiled at me and wrapped an arm around me in a one-armed hug. I smiled back and leaned into it, she was the only one who ever hugged me, and I have to admit that I like it.
"Hello, little one. How are you?"
"I'm fine, are you guys okay?" I asked this because I wasn't quite sure what it was like for a pokemon in a pokeball that didn't belong to a licensed trainer. I was pretty sure there wasn't a difference between a legal and an illegal pokeball but I wanted to make sure.
"Do you think we're okay? We've been caged in those stupid balls for hours." I thought Midnight was going to say something like that, and I pretty much ignored it.
"Oh do be quiet, honestly. I feel fine, Seth. Ignore her." Primrose gave me a small nudge in greeting as she spoke, and I stroked her head. Careful, as always, not to mess up her fur. Primrose and Midnight habitually took opposite sides in any argument that came up, no matter what it was, so even if she did have a problem she might not tell me.
"I-I'm okay." Came Espe's small voice. "I didn't notice anything w-wrong." I looked around and eventually saw Espe sitting a bit behind me. I smiled at her and waved.
"You can come over here if you want." She hesitated for a minute, but eventually came over and sat down on my right, within arm's reach. That was actually quite bold for her. I made sure she saw me move my hand as I reached out and gently stroked her once. She was still getting used to having a person touch her without hurting her, so I was careful. I looked at Sasha and was about to ask her if she was okay, but she was already asleep, and Bubble was just running off in the direction of a small pond nearby. I'd have to ask them later.
"Lucia, did anything go wrong?" She smiled at me again, and gave me a small squeeze.
"No, not that I can tell. It worked out very well."I smiled; things had worked out much better than I thought. I leaned against Lucia slightly and sighed happily. Lucia laughed quietly and pulled me close. Midnight made a disgusted sound and looked away muttering something about gagging. Primrose smiled and laid down, looking content. Espe hesitantly crept over to lay down next to Primrose, who shifted and gently draped a tail over her in response; just then Bubble came sprinting back. She looked around, and seeing that no one looked like they were going to play, pouted for a second before deciding to prod Sasha and try and convince her to play tag.
I looked around me, taking the whole scene in and smiled, everything was as it should be. Life was good.
Just then there was a loud snap, everyone jerked up and looked for the noise. Not a second later the head of the orphanage walked out of the undergrowth with a police officer and a teenager right behind her.
"Ah, I was wondering where you'd been slipping off to all the time. I must say, I didn't expect this."
Please read and review, my fragile ego needs all the boosting it can get, I also appreciate any tips I can get from more experienced writers out there. I don't really care what kind of tips I get, anything would help.
"He who shall, so shall he who!" Mark Seive A.K.A Ralph Puke.