After The Breaking

Author's Note: I've always thought kids working together in groups, without grown-ups actually telling them to, was a pretty cool feat, so I decided to get a handful of my OC's, launch them into a future where humanity had survived through a half-apocalyptic event, orphan them at a young age, and stick them in a huge city in a new region that had been made in the event. Did I also mention there's now a war going on? With air raids and bombs and huge battles and everything?

Oh yeah, and also:

"Talking."

Thinking.

A psychic Pokémon talking.

/Him thinking./

He stood in front of Arceus, and defied Him. He angered the Legendary Ones, those Pokémon with such power to bend the world to their wills, and He stood there and brought them to battle each other. He twisted their minds to be suspicious of all others, and then He brought them into battle. They fought each other, and as they did the world bent. It was twisted, burnt, frozen, flooded, dried out and renewed. Yet His purpose was not fulfilled. No matter how hard the Legendary Ones fought each other, no matter how much He twisted their minds, the human race survived. He was angry at this, as at the beginning of their species their leader at the time had turned his back on Him. And now He would get his revenge. The human race had abandoned him so many years ago, when he needed them most, and now he would destroy them. The Event, as He called it, had changed him. He was one of them back then. No longer.

No longer…

With a start, Timothy shrieked and fell out of his hammock. The dream had been so vivid this time… It wasn't the first time He had appeared in a dream. He seemed the kind of man to capitalise the 'H' in He for.

But he wasn't quite a man, was he…, thought Timothy. In fact, he seemed to hate mankind's guts.

Timothy sighed, and rubbed his eyes. It was just a dream. He wasn't real. The net he had fallen out of his hammock onto was nice and cool on this warm spring night. He wished his hammock was the same, but Timothy's body heat had warmed it up through the night. Some of the other kids had decided the net was better than their hammocks, so there was a mixture of kids on the net and in the hammocks.

"Timothy, you alright mate?" a voice groaned from the hammock next to his.

Timothy stood up shakily on the net. "I'm fine. It's okay, Luke. Go back to sleep. I just had that bad dream again." He added as he crawled into his hammock.

"Maybe you should ask Luna if it means anything…" the voice drifted off as Luke rolled over and went back to sleep.

"I would, but it's not the sort of thing you usually tell others…" Timothy murmured to himself as he drifted back to sleep.

"Rise and shine everybody! It's a brand new day and we don't have the food supplies to feed ya all through the rest of spring and summer as well! I need some scavengers awake! I know some of you boys eat more in summer, cauz yer always running around and getting hot an' bothered. Now up! Up!"

Timothy yawned and rolled over, dropping to the net. He lay there for a second, stretching, as he opened his eyes and waited for them to adjust to the bright light streaming in the warehouse window. Next to him, the net fluttered for a second as Luke similarly rolled out of his hammock.

"Mornin'." Luke said in a voice stretched by a yawn.

"Mornin' yerself. Have a good sleep?" Timothy asked over the noise coming from below, now that everyone was waking up. A couple of teenagers walked through the door in the makeshift wall sectioning the warehouse in half. Smells of food came from the makeshift kitchen over at the wall, and a few Pokémon drifted up from the large basement, where they slept. A few of the older teenagers stuck their heads through the doors to their private makeshift rooms held up on the outside of the warehouse, with the doors leading to the net.

Timothy began to make his way to the hole in the net, where he would drop down and be caught in another net near the floor. After making sure no one was on the other net, he launched himself down and out, revelling in the flow of air past his head as he fell towards the floor.

Whooompf!

He hit the net and it arrested his fall, and the large collection of pillows beneath it softened the landing. After the net quivered for a few more moments, he got out so others could jump down. As soon as he cleared the net, Whooompf! The net was struck by the twins James and Jane, who were inseparable, even by the seven metre drop. They faced everything together.

Timothy only glanced around to see who had hit the net, then turned his face to the glorious smells coming from the kitchen. A couple of girls and boys were cooking food the scavengers had found in abandoned houses, or stolen from houses during air raids. Air raids were usually at night, so the bombers wouldn't be spotted, and half the time during tea time for the citizens of Albar. As such, food would be left steaming at the table, ripe for the picking.

Lucy, the girl who had been shouting to wake everybody up, was now bustling around trying to get the orphan scouters out. They would have already eaten. Timothy ignored them and moved on to the huge makeshift dining table, still in a stupor from the combination of sleepiness and glorious food smells. Looking like a zombie, Luke sat down next to him. Across the table, Lucy sat down, having sent off the scouters and now looking for breakfast, same as him. She grinned wolfishly at him. Despite being brother and sister and only having a year and a half between them, they didn't look anything alike.

While his hair was brown, straight, and short, hers was a fiery red, curly, and past her shoulders. Her eyes were a light hazel colour, while his were a dull grey-blue. They did however have the same shaped face (slightly round) and body (Short, and a little chubby). She also had a mass of freckles, where he only had a few. There really wasn't much to indicate they were siblings.

"So, how was your sleep?" she asked.

He grumbled. "Not too good. Kept waking, then had a bad dream. Doesn't matter though, dreams don't affect me."

Her smile faded a bit. "Maybe Luna can help ya. She's good with dreams and sleep and that stuff."

He shook his head a little too quickly. "I'll be right. It's just a dream."

She looked at him doubtfully, but thankfully didn't pursue the issue.

Timothy felt a couple of sharp claws digging into his leg, and he moved back a little on the bench to make room for Rev, his Eevee, to climb up onto his lap. Rev, being Rev, made sure he dug his claws in as much as possible while climbing up. Timothy sighed. "Rev, I said I was sorry. I've still no idea what I did, but I said I was sorry."

Lucy frowned at him. "What's Rev on about this time?"

Timothy sighed. "I've no idea, but he keeps taking it out by moulting on my clothes."

She snorted. "He'll get over it eventually. It don't matter, you two ain't gonnna stop being friends, even if you take each other to the Distorted Dimension."

"Eev!" Rev sniffed at her. He curled up on Timothy's lap and ignored them all. Timothy chuckled, and waited for the food.

He looked around. It was a couple of days since the group of orphans found him, unconscious and lying near a bomb crater during an air raid. He and Lucy had been separated when they first arrived in the city, after travelling across the region from the only other city. The plane had landed smoothly, but an air raid was quick in the opportunity. Timothy remembered explosions and being ripped away from Lucy, and then surviving on his own for a few weeks. It was a huge city, so it had taken a while for the orphans to find him.

"Breakfast time!" a voice shouted, and everyone not at the table dashed over, pushing around and laughing. There had been more yesterday. At least thirty. Now their numbers were just over twenty, maybe a few more. That was only the young orphans, of course. There weren't as many teenagers, the older ones usually going off to fight in the war, but there were quite a few of them too. Most did their own things, wandering around as they pleased, but some stayed with the kids and helped. Most of them slept in the warehouse with the others.

Timothy licked his lips as his food was placed in front of him by Matilda, one of the cooks. She was an older teenager, but she'd rather stay with the orphans than fight, or help the war. He had toast with some fried eggs, and he grabbed a salt shaker from the middle of the table and shook salt all over his eggs. Smiling, he dug in.

Lock crouched behind the garden wall, breathing hard and clutching the sack to his chest. He hadn't thought the mech-worker would be back so soon, so he didn't have everything Alex needed. Blade, crouching next to him, had an amused look on his face, finding Lock in the third spot of trouble today. And it wasn't even breakfast time yet! Lock looked at the sky, and saw the sun low over the horizon, just behind one of the warships in the bay.

Well, the others would be waking up around now for breakfast, maybe. I might meet a few Scavengers looking for things, Lock thought to himself. He yawned. He'd been up all night. I need some breakfast myself.

Well, if you'd have done this earlier, instead of messing around over that orphan earlier, you would be back by now. You knew that the Finders would be there within half an hour. You didn't have to wait for them. That orphan was fine; he wouldn't have gone anywhere, Blade interjected. It's hard to do so when your legs aren't responding to you.

I know, but still, Lock thought back. He had a soft spot for kids, which was why he hadn't joined the war. They were recruiting anyone over the age of 15 years and 10 weeks, unless they'd gotten some other teenager pregnant, or were pregnant themselves. They had psychic Pokémon that could do that. And his girlfriend definitely wasn't pregnant. That was another problem though. Even if he did go to war, that would be abandoning her. If he survived, she'd kill him for sure. She would never go with him of course; she hated the war and fighting. Small training battles between orphans were fine, but anything bigger she hated.

Blade made a weird chuckling sound, picking up on these stray thoughts. Then he ducked his head down and shut up as there was a crash from the shed Lock had dashed from not even a minute ago.

"Damn orphans! Stealing stuff from my shed again! I'm going to have to set mouse traps or something! ARGH!"

Lock glanced over the wall and saw a large man tearing his hair out, and stifled a laugh. He was the only orphan that knew about this shed, and he'd been stealing stuff for almost a year now for Alex. Alex loved the little gadgets and bits and pieces he got from Lock, and had made all sorts of things. He was currently working on some new Pokéball type, and it so happened that the man tearing his hair out in the shed worked for a company that produced many things, including Pokéballs.

Well, Blade, it doesn't look like we'll be getting anything more for now. Time to go, I think, Lock thought to Blade, and at the Gallade's nod, they scurried along the wall, low as they could without crawling. As soon as they reached the fence they straightened up and leaped onto the wall, then climbed a pipe to the shed roof. The man must've heard their footsteps on the roof, because he walked out hurriedly, looking up, in time to catch a glance of Lock and Blade leaping from the roof of his shed to the roof of a shed next door. From that they jumped down over the fence into the streets, crossed the road to an old ladder, and climbed to the top. And off they went, running across the rooftops of Albar.

He was walking through an abandoned workshop. It lay on the west coast of Sinnoh, where most of the bombs were made. They were then shipped off to the Royal Sinnoh Airforce Airfield just out of Florama Town, where they were packed into planes and sent off to bomb the new region, Unbara. Of course, He didn't actually need to be here, except for making sure his tools stayed sharp. That's all the human race was to Him now. Tools of their own destruction.

That idiotic tribe leader so long ago had died of a broken heart, but not before making sure that He would be forever separate. Always alone, apart from the human race, even if He had once been one. That was all in the past now though. Infuriatingly, humans were some of the most adaptable creatures that nature could create. And if they couldn't adapt themselves to survive, they adapted the area around them to suit their needs.

And it all boiled down to the connection between humans and Pokémon. Wherever humans went, Pokémon stood beside them as friends, allies, helpers. He sneered. /Friends. Allies. I have no need for such uselessness. Tools, now. They are so much better… Especially when the tools happen to be the sort that will fight each other, rip each other apart at a moment's notice. Now, if only I had succeeded with breaking that bond in the Ruinous War…/

He had thought that the Pokémon would've sided with their respective gods, and torn themselves apart. As it was, they had helped to repair the damage between the legendary beings, and brought the humans back out of their hiding places. It had ruined His plan.

/But this time… with humans and Pokémon fighting… all they need is a shove, just to get things going…/

He straightened. He had a war to oversee, an evil group to prepare. Such little thoughts of friends and the like drifted away.

He had no time for that now. Business waited.

And that's the prologue. I really hoped you enjoyed. I've planned this story out, which is majorly unusual for me. I should actually finish this one, and I like where it's going.

Please, read and review. I might accept a few OC's later on, but first I'll see how it goes. Please inform me of any grammar/spelling mistakes, and anything you think would be good. Constructive criticism accepted, flames and hating will be deleted or ignored, more likely ignored because it means less effort.

~Lock

PS: I just edited this, there were some grammar/spelling/plot mistakes that I fixed.