Disclaimer: Do not own pokemon, of course. If you're not fond of pokephilia, people attracted to pokemon, or anything of the sort, please stop here and get out because I don't need to accumulate hate just because it's something I like reading and writing about. In this story pokephilia is not illegal and a fairly common practice, as pokemon have evolved to the point that they all speak English, eliminating the speech barrier—and realistically, that barrier is the only thing keeping it from being just as common as interracial or gay relationships, considering they're cute, intelligent, and sentient.
CHAPTER 3: "Silencing the Truth"
"Wake up." Came a familiar voice, slightly impatient.
The Glaceon groaned, her entire body aching, and her sapphire-like eyes fluttering open slowly. As things came more into focus, she noticed she was on a hard, stone floor, in a small cell with thick iron bars, built into the side of a large room. She didn't at first know what was going on.
"Whuh… Guh…" She grumbled, her head overtaken by a pounding migraine, "Where am I?" She asked.
The human from before sat outside the cell looking at her from a desk chair, which was situated next to a small, monitor mounted desk. He leaned against it with his elbow, his hand fisted and supporting his head as he looked at her with an expression that was a mixture of pensiveness, and nonchalance. "You're in my basement. This area is a facility for detaining pokemon and human criminals alike." He stated, blandly.
As she laid eyes on the hated man, memories of what had transpired before came flooding back to her in a rush of pain and misery. She quickly became enraged, snapping from her position to grind her head against the bars, a futile attempt in trying to get to him so she could tear him to shreds. "YOU!" She snarled, launching an Ice Beam through the bars in his direction almost immediately.
The man didn't move, as the frigid laser left the cell, and struck some kind of invisible force, which emitted an electric glow, before cancelling her attack out entirely.
Gilliam did not change his expression or sitting position, merely staring at her the way one would expect a law enforcer to look at a killer. "I wouldn't waste the energy. I told you, this place is for detaining pokemon as well as humans. That cell is equipped with the most technologically advanced force-field the government can afford."
She growled at him, glaring as much hatred at the man as she could possibly manage. "You humans and your damned gadgets! Fight me like a real man!" She demanded.
The ranger's countenance took on an even more sourly unamused look. "Why? So you can kill me and escape to try and murder even more innocent civilians? I don't think so." He stated, flatly.
"You FUCKING BASTARD! WHERE IS MY SISTER!?" She growled, struggling again against the bars despite all the pain she was in.
Not bothering to answer her, he stared at her for a moment, then turned to look at a staircase, and put two fingers in his mouth, before letting out a loud whistle that almost hurt her ears.
From that direction came a few light stepping noises, and though it took a few moments, Melody came into view, poking her head shyly and silently around the railing of the staircase, looking at Gilliam with something akin to nervousness.
"MELODY!" The Glaceon cried, forcing herself against the bars even more than before.
The little Eevee's eyes shrank for a moment, but in her expression you could see that she was happy to see that her sibling was alright. She looked to the ranger, as if for some sort of approval.
The long-haired man nodded at her, beckoning her with a wave of his hand. "It's alright, sweetheart, come on in and let your sister see that you're alright. Maybe you can calm her down a little bit so she'll talk to me about what she did, hm?"
The Glaceon was astonished that her sister was out in the open, when she wasn't. Why was she being so friendly towards the enemy? Maybe she was just faking so she could get a chance to help her escape…?
The Eevee nodded timidly, scuttling into the room, and walking up to the bars, before sitting down and looking into her sibling's eyes with an expression that said she was… ashamed…?
The Glaceon calmed a bit, but was beginning to wonder exactly what was going on. "Melody… why are you listening to this human…? Don't tell me…"
And just like that, the Glaceon snapped again, slamming her tail against the bars, as if trying to break them, causing her sister to quickly dart in fear behind Gilliam's chair. "YOU CAPTURED HER DIDN'T YOU? WITH YOUR BRAINWASHING BALLS! I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THIS!" She vowed, positively furious.
Turning the chair around and ignoring her tantrum, the Ranger picked up the little Eevee, who allowed him to do so, and set her in his lap, as he pet her head, in an attempt to calm the poor thing down. "I did no such thing. The balls we RB Rangers use are not fitted with devices for making a pokemon non-hostile or compliant. She is wild and free still, just as you are. If you don't believe me, then just take a look at yourself. You still very much wish to kill me, even after being caught by that same kind of ball. If this were not true, you'd have not attacked several times since waking up. Take your own free will as proof that your sister has not been mistreated or captured in any way, shape or form." He went on to tell her.
The Glaceon stopped what she was doing, laying down for a moment, having overexerted and hurt herself. Her look was one of utter confusion and denial.
"…M… Melody… is it true? You haven't been captured again…?" She asked, her eyes beginning to well up.
The Eevee's eyes also began to moisten, and look even more ashamed than before. She however, in utter silence as always, shook her head to confirm this.
The Glaceon could tell when her sister was being sincere. The man was telling the truth. For a moment, there was silence. If she hadn't been captured, then why was she all buddy-buddy with the ranger? When she, her only sister, was sitting in jail?
Breaking the silence, Gilliam picked Melody up, and set her down on the ground very gently, petting her once more before turning to look once again at the perplexed Glaceon.
"Your sister… I'm sorry, Melody, I mean. She… can't speak, can she?" He calmly asked her.
Though weakened by the thought that her sister was working with this human for whatever reason, the anger returned to the Glaceon's eyes, as she glared at him from her position on the ground. "No, human, she cannot. And it's all thanks to humans like you."
Gilliam took a moment to process this. "Our data shows she has been captured before, but she's not currently registered to any trainer. It says she was released. Why don't you tell me exactly what happened, since she can't?" He asked.
"I don't have to tell you anything, human." She spat, looking at the wall. While weakened physically, her pride was still as strong as ever.
"I have a name, you know. And its Gilliam. Gilliam McAllister. I don't suppose you'd be interested in telling me yours?" He suggested, folding his arms.
"Diamond." She surprised him by answering immediately. "My name is Diamond. Because my will is unbreakable." She stated, refusing to swallow even an ounce of the afore-mentioned pride.
"Is that so? Will to do what? Keep hurting people? Yeah, you know what, we'll see about that. Listen, Diamond. I don't know what happened to your sister, but I have a feeling it's got something, if not everything to do with why you were shaking down avalanches on Snowbelle. I know you're not big on cooperation, and it's for that very reason you're locked up. But the sooner you tell me what happened to you to make you so sour towards the people of this town, the sooner I can help you." The ranger stated, his tone actually taking on a ring of sincerity.
Diamond felt disgusted that he would even suggest that she wanted his 'help'. Standing up from her laying position, she narrowed her beautiful eyes at him. "Help me? Why would you want to help me? And even if you did, what makes you think I need or want such a thing?"
Gilliam's unamused look returned. "Want, maybe not, but need? That's a different story altogether. And I imagine Melody here would be pretty sad to see you stuck in that cell for the rest of your natural life."
The Glaceon began to retort, but stopped, when she saw the Eevee nodding in agreement with him. Whether she liked it or not, she was stuck there until she decided to cooperate, and all Melody wanted was to see her sister released.
"I can't believe you, Mel. This man is protecting the people who hurt you. How can you agree with him so easily?" She asked her mute sister, "You should want nothing more than for them to suffer…"
The cute, brown pokemon looked at the ground, as if feeling somewhat guilty, but Gilliam answered for her. "It's truly a shame that your sister can't speak, Diamond, because I believe that's the reason you're misunderstanding her so horrendously. What exactly makes you think that revenge is what she wants?"
Diamond didn't hesitate in her answer, looking at the ranger as if he were an idiot for saying such a thing. "You don't know what they did to her, you fool! You don't know the extent of how she suffered at the hands of the man who caught her!" She proclaimed.
"No, I don't. Which is why I'm trying to get you to tell me." The man stated, simply.
This statement stood strong, silencing the ice-type momentarily. Averting her eyes from the strong, fiery ones of the ranger, she sat down in a manner fitting of a quadruped, looking at the ground as she considered what she was going to do.
"Look at me." Gilliam said, though in an oddly more concerned than commanding manner.
Diamond did not obey at first, but after a moment, she found herself burning with a curiosity as to how the man's expression had changed, and, almost shyly, her eyes trailed up to meet his.
"Make me understand." He said.
The Glaceon took a period to study this man. Her enemy. Or was he? The dark blues of the ranger's eyes spoke volumes to her, volumes of things she didn't want to believe. Was it possible that he was not like other humans? Was he capable of understanding things, seeing them from her perspective?
"Fine. But don't get mad when you find out that everything I've done was completely justified. I will not change my perspective on this matter. I've made up my mind on exactly what it is that needs to be done." She informed him, gazing into his eyes with an icy seriousness.
Gilliam's expression did not falter in the slightest. "Not asking you to change your mind. Asking you to tell me what happened." He clarified.
Licking her paw, the Glaceon groomed the shimmering fur atop her head, which almost resembled a crown of gorgeous azure ice, before sighing. "Very well then. It all started when my sister was taken away from me, captured by a man who went by the name of Larz…" She began.
*Flashback*
The snow came down as per the usual when the precipitation reached the right level, fluttering down in a rather beautiful cascade of flakes. However it's beauty was rivaled easily by the sweetness of a single song that cut through the harsh, wintry air.
"Even when the sun must set,
The night is dark but I won't fret~
Because you're here with me and that sun,
Will be back in the mooorning come~" Sang a lone Eevee, perched upon a rock, her eyes closed and simply enjoying herself.
The harmonious notes of this humble melody made up for its simplicity with the affection and enthusiasm poured into each and every note. Anyone to hear the honey-like vocals of this little musical number would be hard-pressed not to marvel at the sheer amount of love it exuded.
The Eevee was then playfully tackled by her sister, who'd already evolved into a Glaceon earlier that week. "Hehe, got you!" She giggled.
The Eevee tittered as well as they rolled around in the snow, playing with one another innocently. "Hey Diamond, I told you not to sneak up on me like that! Hey, that tickles!"
"It's easy to sneak up on you when you sing, silly! You block everything out when you're doing that…" She reminded her, batting a paw against one of her ears.
Little did the two of them realize, they had an onlooker.
An older man in a bowler hat, probably in his late fifties, cased the two pokemon from a distance, with a pair of binoculars. Next to him was a Sawk.
"Alright, Gi. You can hear that song, right? That's a voice worth a million pokedollars. If we can catch that Eevee, we'll win the contest spectacular for sure. Then when she becomes famous, I'll be able to make even more. This is my ticket to the big-time." The man chuckled, pulling out an Ultra Ball, and staring at it with a dark grin.
The Sawk, named Gi for his outfit, nodded, ready to obey his master regardless of his intentions. The particular brand of ball he was captured with had an extreme obedience rate, as the compliance regulators of these balls were more advanced and altered more of the initial capture data than that of most balls. In fact, in the Kalos region, this modification was illegal, but there was no way to tell unless somebody were to actually take it apart, and even then they'd have to be a professional to know the difference.
"Alright then, don't attack until I give the word, and do exactly as I instruct. If you knock the little one out, I won't be able to capture it properly, so don't screw up or you're history, got it?" The mustachioed man ordered, and Gi followed him in silence, perhaps shaking a bit with apprehension.
Diamond threw some snow in her sister's face. "I'm hungry. Want to help me hunt for something to eat?" she asked her younger sibling.
Melody shook the snow from her face, laughing amiably. "You know I'm not good at that sort of thing, Sis. I can find some berries if you want, though?" She offered.
The Glaceon smiled, turning around to go stalk some prey, scampering a bit before glancing back. "Okay. I saw a group of Swinub really close to here, so I'm going to go see if I can catch one. You're pretty good at finding berries, so I'm sure you'll get lots and lots! Holler if you need me." She finished, trotting off into the snowy woods.
"Okay!" Melody said, before beginning to walk in the other direction.
Gilliam listened to the story, realizing already where it was going by the way Diamond had said 'little did I know.'
"So I'm guessing she got captured while you were out hunting?" He asked, turning to type some of her information into his computer, his face scrunched in concentration as he made an official report based on what she was telling him.
The Glaceon glowered as she remembered the sadness she felt upon returning with her captured meal, only to find her sister missing. "That's right. I must have been too far away for her to call out for help, because I never heard anything, just came back with my kill to find her missing. I looked all over the place for her, but nothing. Try if you can to imagine the despair I felt, not knowing if she'd just run off, or been eaten by larger predators while I wasn't around to protect her."
Melody frowned, the only one in the room capable of truly knowing what had really happened, but being cursed with the inability to tell them.
Gilliam however knew she was still capable of answering yes or no questions. "Melody, is that when you were caught by the man called Larz?" He asked.
Shivering a bit at the mention of that name, she shyly nodded.
Saying nothing, the ranger continued to type up the report, the room being filled with the clatter of keypresses as he made sure to describe every detail.
"What are you doing?" The Glaceon then asked, feeling it rude that the man was not facing her as she tried to tell the story he was so insistent on hearing.
The man did not skip a beat in his work. "I'm detailing the things that you're both trying to tell me in a testimony file for future reference. Book-keeping is part of being an enforcer of the law. Now tell me how you ended up finding out what happened to your sister." He instructed.
Diamond was silent for a moment as she tried to comprehend what he meant by what he had said. She had never seen a computer before, and did not understand, but it was her best guess that he was making some kind of written document for other people in his position to read at a later time, so she wouldn't have to re-tell the story. Humans must have been more organized than she had first thought.
"At a certain point, I wised up and decided to go back to the last place I had seen her, to try and pick up her trail before the snow covered it up…" She began again.
*FLASHBACK*
Plagued with worry for her missing sibling, the Glaceon had just about given up trying to find her by calling for her, as she was receiving no answer. Nowhere in the forest, nowhere in their cave, nowhere to be found at all, she began to fear her beloved sister, the only friend she had in the whole wide world, had met with a terrible fate.
Deciding it best to try to retrace the Eevee's footsteps, Diamond moved back to the rock where she had been singing before, sniffing at the ground. Her eyes twitched, as she was met with an unfamiliar scent. She however could not identify where it was coming from, so she simply continued what she was doing.
Examining the snow, she saw the place where they had rolled around, and from there her own pawprints, and the tiny ones of her sister were easily visible to her eyes. Not wasting another moment, lest the trail run cold, the ice-type followed her sister's prints into the forest. She had gone on quite a walk. Noting the spots where the berries grew, she found that each of the good ones had Melody's pawprints near them in a standing position, shifted slightly as she had picked all those areas clean.
She continued to follow them a ways into the forest, when she noticed another set of footprints nearby…. No, two sets.
One of the prints looked like they belonged to a pokemon she had never seen before, and the others were incredibly strange, looking like… some kind of object had been pressed into the snow, not a paw or foot.
Looking at them closer, she identified the pattern, noting that both of these prints were left by creatures that were bipedal. Then she remembered seeing humans before, and that they, as soft furless creatures, wore these artificial coats of different materials they crafted, to protect their fragile skin from the elements. Also their feet were always bound by some hard, strange casings. Shoes, she believed they called them.
A human and a strange pokemon, she thought. The footprint sets were close to one another, and both left around the same time. This was enough to let her know that whoever they were, they were together. Noting that they had dipped behind the trees to a standing position every now and again as they went along the same direction as her sister's pawprints, she quickly came to the realization: they were following her… in stealth.
She remembered the stories she'd heard from other pokemon, (namely her parents) warning of humans and their magical devices, which they used for snatching up innocent pokemon and turning them into their pets. Sometimes they even would force them to fight one another, in some sort of sick, twisted sport… before her passing, her mother had always warned them to stay away from these creatures, lest the same happen to them.
Her eyes shrank with dread as a terrible fear welled up within her. "Oh no, Melody!"
She took off down the trail, following her sister's prints at a sprint now, eager to see where they led, praying to Arceus above that she would find her okay, or that there'd be enough evidence left for her to find out what exactly had happened, but as she came closer to where the sets of bipedal footprints met with the quadrupedal of her sister, she found a toppled tree blocking her path.
Taking a moment to examine the breaks in the bark, she immediately could tell it had not fallen naturally, but had been snapped by a powerful, blunt force.
"No… no no no…!" she breathed, beginning to panic and hyperventilate.
There were signs of a struggle. Her sister's prints were all over the place, spread out far enough that she could tell each time she moved she was running as fast as she could, but there were spots at breaks in the snow with indentions roughly the size of her body, suggesting she had been knocked down several times. Each time, the odd pokemon prints were close-by, at a loping distance apart from one another, suggesting that whatever it was had given chase each and every time she fled.
"No, NO! This can't be happening, oh Melody…." She began to cry, examining the prints further, struggling not to let the overflowing tears cloud her vision.
The human prints were always at a casual stride rather than a run, and always standing on the sidelines. As she followed her sister's trail, it came to a halt, and her heart sank to the very pit of her stomach as she stared at the final Eevee-shaped laying spot in the snow, as it was spattered with blood.
But… there was no body. No more Eevee prints. It was as if she just… vanished.
"MELODYYYYYYYYYYYY!" She screamed to the heavens above, breaking down completely, into a pathetic pile of misery in the snow. She cried for a good few minutes before she finally stood up, and did the best she could to clear out her eyes.
Turning around, she noticed that the odd pokemon prints disappeared as well… but the human's prints…
She turned to look at the distance, in the very direction they casually lead away from the scene. On the horizon lay a place she and her sister never ventured towards, as an odd number of humans had built things there, and they wanted little to do with it. All of her questions about her sister had been answered, except for the one… Was she okay?
"That… human town. Snowbelle…" She quietly said to herself, having heard other pokemon talk about it before. Her eyes filled with determination.
Gilliam took a break from his typing, turning around in his revolving chair to look at the Glaceon, who had been telling her story in rather intricate detail. He hadn't first thought her to be quite as intelligent as she really was, having lived in the wild all her life.
She stopped speaking as he stared at her, returning his gaze with one that was equally intense.
As they tried to see into one another's soul, Gilliam couldn't help but feel she was not as evil as her crimes indicated she might have been. Sure, there was a darkness in her heart, but was it her own? Or was it something that was brought out of her by another? When he peered into those eyes, they reflected with the pride of somebody who truly believed they were in the right—he recognized that quite easily after 10 years of being an RB Ranger.
"What are you looking at me like that for?" Diamond spat, averting her eyes, almost as if in embarrassment. It was the first time the ranger had looked at her in a way that was not judgmental, and she hadn't been prepared for it.
The ranger brushed the question aside, however, turning to type his report out again. "It's nothing. So you managed to figure out your sister had been captured by following her trail. Your tracking skills seem like they're pretty good, so I imagine you found her pretty fast. Go on."
The Glaceon hesitantly continued her story. From that point on, it was only bits and pieces, as she had only managed to locate the man a few times, but each time she did, the presence of other humans trying to catch her forced her to retreat. The man was also wary of her, knowing she was after her sister, so whenever she revealed herself, he would put her back in the ball, and have his Sawk and several other strong pokemon ready to chase her off. He was very careful not to ever allow Melody out in the open when she was outside. From what she gathered, Melody had been completely brainwashed, and the man used her singing ability to make money in something called a 'contest spectacular' or some such thing. She said she'd wanted to follow them to those events, but they took place out of town, and the man always rode in some kind of human vehicle that she could not keep up with, and was always forced to return due to the fact that she could not tell his ride's trail apart from those used by other humans, and they always went very far in them.
She went on to mention that, after a while, the man had gained enough popularity that it became even harder for her to get close to him, as he had hired other humans to watch over him and her sister, each of which carried a pokemon type she was weak against.
Gilliam couldn't help but feel his heart going out to her as she said things that truly made him feel pity. It was always 'I couldn't get to her because I wasn't strong enough,' or 'She ended up suffering because I wasn't paying enough attention,' or 'If only I had been more powerful, I could have saved her'. Everything came back to the love of her sister, who she was certain was not herself during the time that she was captured.
"I can tell you that if your sister could sing, let alone well, she would have made that man very famous in the contest scene. It's something like a talent show for pokemon, coordinated by their trainers. Winner gets a lot of prize money. You know what money is, right?" He asked, knowing she had been wild all her life, and currency might not have been a concept with which she was familiar.
"The metal pieces and scraps of paper you humans trade for goods and services." She said, showing that she was not quite that under-informed, "The man who caught Melody was utterly obsessed with it. In fact, the reason she can't speak now is because he abused her when she stopped being a good source of that for him. She lost her voice one night when she was supposed to give an important show because he overworked her, and when she failed to sing for the people, they all demanded what they had paid be returned to them. It was after that the man went ballistic, threw her to the ground, kicked her in the throat multiple times, and released her back into the wild, probably to prevent me from coming around and bothering him anymore about her. Her usefulness had been played out, so he discarded her… like a piece of trash." She elucidated.
Gilliam was taken aback, and it showed in his expression when he stopped what he was doing, and once again turned to look at her in bewilderment. "But… if your sister had been rendered mute, how on earth do you know any of that?" He asked, wondering how any of that was logical, given what he knew.
For the first time since being captured, Diamond's muzzle curled slowly into a dark, almost sinister smirk. "Because, when she was finally returned to me, and I found out she couldn't speak, I tracked that man down personally, and lured one of his little pokemon slaves away with the smell of my heat."
Not expecting to hear this, the ranger's eyes shrank a bit, his cheeks filling with color.
The smirk deepened as she released a low, feminine chuckle, his embarrassment seeming to delight her in a twisted way. "Fufufu, yes, that's right. It doesn't have to always be an inconvenience for us girls, mister lawbringer… it can also be a very useful tool. But as I was saying… just when he thought he was about to get lucky, I gripped his most precious part between my claws, and demanded that he tell me why Melody had gone mute."
The ranger audibly gulped, trying not to let it look like that disturbed him quite as much as it really did. He knew she was vicious, but that was just plain terrifying.
"I uh… I imagine he told you everything he knew at that point." He stated, before clearing his throat, as his voice appeared to be cracking for whatever reason.
The ice type licked her paws again, this time preening her tail in an almost sensual manner, for the moment very pleased to be not only a girl, but a very pretty one. "I could tell you the man's shoe size if you liked. Also, have fun adding that part to your little 'report'." She giggled.
The hue of the man's blush deepened as she cleaned herself in a manner he had to try very hard not to see as erotic. It didn't help that she was, in fact, almost impossibly attractive. Even if she was a pokemon, he was no more immune to raw beauty than any other creature.
However, the heat in his cheeks appeared to be a source of far too much amusement for her, so he simply averted his gaze, bringing up his information database, and clicking on the search function. "Eh…*Ahem* So let's start with the man's name… The full name, please."
"Laurence Alfred Rothschild." She stated, not stopping what she was doing, as her fur had become rather messy, and she rather liked it to be perfect.
Surprised to get even the man's middle name, he typed it into his computer, running a high-authority search for any kind of criminal records the man might have had, but turned up nothing. Either he had a clean record, or was well off enough to pay off all the right people to make it seem as such. "What did he look like?" He asked, extending his search to the internet.
"He was old. Hair graying, with big ugly whiskers coming out from beneath his nose. Unlike you, he didn't have a single bit of headfur. It was like he was ashamed of this, because he always wore something on his head… what's it called… a hat. A black hat. And he wore a coat of the same color, fastened at the center, with an odd thing tied to his neck, and tucked into it." She informed the ranger.
Gill found very little information on the man, though he did turn up a social media account that had pictures matching her description. From what he gathered, the man was indeed very well off, having had multiple successes in the contest scenario all over not only Kalos, but Unova as well, which appeared to be the land in which he was born. Picking Melody up again, he set her in front of his computer screen, and enlarged the man's profile image so that she could see.
"Melody, is this him?" He asked.
She backed away from the screen, suddenly shaking. She however, after a moment, looked up at the ranger, and nodded.
Gilliam looked at her for a moment, before standing up and stretching. He had been seated for quite a while. "How long ago was it that she was captured, and how long ago was she released?" He then asked the Glaceon.
"Eight seasons since she was captured, and three or four since she was released." She answered, returning to a sitting position, her tail swaying behind her.
The hailcoat raised a hand to scratch his beard as he looked at the ground in deep thought. "So two years ago… I suppose that makes sense, since I have only been stationed here for about a year. Still, I've been here that long, and I've never seen or heard anything about that man. It's possible that he doesn't even live here anymore…" he mused.
Diamond had a definite reaction to hearing this, her entire body jerking. Noticing this, he stared at her, to which she responded by making an effort to look like she didn't care. "…You… how can you know that? He has to still be here. Where else would the old bastard have gone?"
For the first time since she woke up, Gilliam's countenance darkened, his typically kind and understanding face taking on a very different look, as it almost seemed like the light had disappeared from his eyes. "So… let me get this straight…" He began, moving towards the bars.
The Glaceon, seeing this change, suddenly felt unsafe, as she took a step back, sensing danger in the man's eyes.
He slammed his hands on the bars hard, almost making the entire cell quake, and making her jump back and squeak. "You..." he began shakily, "…unleashed not one, not two, but THREE avalanches down onto this WHOLE town because of the wicked deeds of ONE man… AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IF HE GOT CAUGHT UP IN IT!?" The ranger positively roared.
Retreating into the corner of her cell, the ice type began breathing very quickly, unable to explain the fear she felt as he looked at her like that. Normally she'd never fear a human, but something about that look, his tone of voice… it made her feel like Arceus himself was about to pass judgment down upon her. "I… I…! You… you humans are all the same though! Our mother told us about you! You catch innocent pokemon and force them to do your dirty work! You're all bad people! ALL OF YOU!" She screamed back, squinting her eyes shut as tears began to form.
The Ranger stood in grim silence for a moment as the tension in the room thickened further, his hands on the bars and head held close, eyes wide and unblinking as he simply glared at her with that same expression of righteous anger.
After a very long time passed with him standing there like that, he turned around, throwing his desk chair to the side, which caused Melody to flinch, as she jumped off his desk and scampered to the other side of the room, quivering.
Typing a few things into the computer, he turned to look at Diamond as he pressed a final button. With a mechanical clack, the machine that had blocked her ice beam stopped issuing it's buzzing as it was powered down, and with a loud whizzing noise, the cell bars automatically slid open.
Diamond's eyes grew to the size of plates, as she sat there, her mouth hanging open as she tried to process what had just happened. Though she was a pokemon and he a human, she felt an illogical fear that he was preparing to come into the cell and beat her into a bloody pulp. Stranger still, something in the back of her mind told her she… deserved it.
The ranger, however, put the trench coat he had taken off and draped over the chair back on, before turning around, and began walking up the stair case, gesturing for her to come forth by pointing at the ground. "Out. NOW." He commanded. "You're coming with me this instant."
The ice type did not know what to do. Something told her she shouldn't try to escape. Every fiber of her being questioned what it was he was doing, what it was he was going to do. "Wh-… What are you doing! WHAT, you want to FIGHT ME outside, huh!?" She barked, making her best attempt not to sound like a frightened beast backed into a corner.
Gilliam's look darkened even more. "Don't be stupid. I'm not going to ask you again, get out, and follow me right now. I'm going to be waiting outside. Melody will show you the way." He said, ascending the stair case further.
Diamond growled, her fur standing on end as she was ordered around like some kind of weakling. "Stupid!? You're the one who's stupid! What makes you think I'd go anywhere with you?!"
Looking at her with that same dangerous expression one last time, the ranger's visage almost in and of itself warned her that she'd regret not doing as he'd asked. "I know you will." Was all he stated, before fully leaving the room.
After a long moment, the Glaceon stepped out of her prison, stomping the ground furiously. The fear she'd felt had dissipated when the ranger had stepped out of the area, and now she was just angry. Angry and confused. "The NERVE of that… that freakishly strong human! Ordering me around like I'm some kind of pet he's already captured and enslaved! He said himself that I still had my free will, did he lie?! No, I still am myself, I know I am, I…" She trailed, as a soft brown paw set itself against her face.
Melody looked at her with large, wavering eyes. The touch of her sibling calming her down immediately, Diamond sat down, returning the look, trying to read her expression as her own eyes softened. "Melody…"
The Eevee closed her eyes, and shook her head in a very solemn manner, as if trying to tell her she needed to stop pitching such a fit. And just like that, the boiling rage of the Glaceon calmed. The storm had subsided with just a gentle touch and gesture.
Seeing that she had calmed, the Eevee again took her paw, and pointed in the direction the ranger had left, as if beckoning her to do as he said. Without waiting for a response, the mute pokemon walked calmly toward the staircase, turning her head to see if her kin was following.
"…M…Melody… are… are you sure?" She asked, truly wondering at this point if she had been misunderstanding the tiny pokemon's desires this entire time.
The Eevee simply nodded, her expression not changing, and surprisingly calm for one as jumpy and shy as her, before hopping up the stairs.
With a whirlwind of emotions all struggling within her troubled soul for dominance, the ice type quivered, before following her sibling, trusting her implicitly.
*End Chapter 3*
