Pokemon Mystery Dungeon

THE DYING WORLD

Chapter Four

The silence that greeted us was even worse than the horrible display of destruction and carnage. The smell of corpses and ash was in the air, so strongly that it was almost tangible, and the ruins of all the structures were completely blackened and destroyed. All of them, razed to the ground with the sole exception of the burned out husks of a few of the stone buildings. Piech's eyes were as wide as saucers as he looked upon the scene, and for the first time I wondered if this was the true extent of the word, destruction.

The ashes and rubble continued as far as the eye could see in front of us. Even some of the gigantic steel buildings that once must have triumphed over the mountains in their height were collapsed and shattered. Everything was broken, useless, destroyed…killed. The cracked stone streets of the city were littered with corpses of both humans and Pokemon. Died blood encrusted the ground like algae, and the smell of it all was suffocating. For once, Piech was struck completely speechless as he looked upon the miles and miles of ashes.

There were even kids among the corpses.

"This is all…so wrong." I thought, unable to comprehend the amount of murder and wreckage that had taken place here. Even Piech, who was always so optimistic and brave in the face of horrors like this, was shocked to the core. He wasn't as detached as he made himself out to be with his fake enthusiasm, he felt the horrors too. This world was wrong, something had to change, but…how? I put on a farce of not caring, pushing aside the shock in my mind until time had dulled its edge some more, and focused on sensing the area in case there were monsters waiting for us in this…graveyard.

"I can't sense any Shadows, so we can pass through safely." I said, starting to walk forward and Piech suddenly jolted as if awakening from a nightmare and followed me. All the Dark Matter in the air was the aftermath of the destruction, but I knew that no Shadow would stay here for long. Any and all signs of life, were gone. This place was devoid of everything save the crumbling reminders of the massacre that had taken place here. Some areas had cracks in the stone large enough for me and Piech to walk through side by side without touching. I shuddered to think of the immense amount of power that had leveled this place. What chance did we have against such ferocity and strength, is this the beginning of the end? I thought back painfully to how Fenris gained so much power when the Dark Matter took over his mind, feeling again the sting of the cut on my chest from his blade. How can we fight such a phenomena, when our own comrades and family could turn against us and kill us in our sleep. How could we possibly hope, when it seems like all there is waiting for us is death and destruction.

How can we ever hope to win, against something like this?

"Rikko…do you think there are any…" He said, unable to choke out the word, survivors, because he already knew the answer. I said nothing, not caring to answer his question when it was so painfully obvious. Everything here was blackened and charred, nothing could have survived the fire that must have ravaged this place. We passed through the wreckage in silence, the only sound that could possibly be heard was the crunching of our own footsteps on the ash ridden ground.

"Hey Rikko…" Piech hesitantly asked, rightfully fearing a sudden strike or similar with the command to be quiet. The deathly and eerie silence was too much for me, I stopped walking through the ravine in the stone street we were in and looked at Piech with an uncaring glare.

"What?"

"Whatever happened to your family, why are you all alone. Surely you must have someone left?" He asked innocently. I looked away, pawing at the earth in the side of the ravine and breaking loose a few chunks with my claws.

"Dead." I simply answered, saying the same thing I had said about my family earlier, when Piech and I got into an argument. I still didn't believe in his silly ideals of hope, but he had something to live for. I had…nothing…except regret.

"Were you all attacked by Shadows, is that why you were injured when we met?" He said, keeping a careful tone on his voice as if to try and avoid offending me, which wasn't working in the least. Yet somehow, I felt compelled to answer, maybe I had spent too much time around the yellow rat.

"My dad was not the kind of parent you would expect. He was always demanding, pushing us, teaching…He wanted us to continue fighting the Shadows until the day we die, just like he wanted to. To him, this war is our own, and we have to fight it, not letting anything else come before that…" I said, pushing away bitter memories of my father mercilessly training me for hours on end just so that I could be another tool in this war. I…couldn't say I hated him…but…

"But that's so wrong, if you live to do nothing but fight until you are killed yourself, that makes you no better than the Shadows. At least they don't know any better, they are primal beasts just bent on destruction and murder. We are Pure, not because we have no Dark Matter controlling our thoughts, but because we have life. We live for more than that." He said and then coughed from a sudden cloud of ash before continuing.

"What makes us different is because we can do more than fight, we have more to live for, we are not primal beasts."

"Shut up Piech." I grunted, really getting annoyed by his sudden dramatic speech he was yelling about.

"Don't you get it, people who just live to fight have nothing to live for. They are pretty much Shadows already, without all the creepy powers and red eyes." He insisted, and then it got really quiet while I let the words sink in. He was right, what did I have to live for beyond gutting open Shadows day in and day out until the day one of them kills me. What can I accomplish in my life, if I just dedicate myself to fighting an endless swarm of evil? But then again…am I just supposed to spend my life on the run, forever fleeing in fear. I refuse to go down that path, I want to change the world, and the only way to do that is to fight.

"If you don't devote yourself entirely to the ways of the blade, then your edge will get rusty and dull, and not serve you when the time to defend what you hold dear comes. That is why we fight."

That was my father's guideline, his hope, his dreams. To keep fighting against the shadows. I never understood why he tried so hard, now I see it was because he did care, but couldn't live the life he wanted and be able to protect what he loved. I clenched my claws into the ground, scraping together some bits of rock under my paw. Despite everything, I just couldn't forgive father for what he was constantly putting Fenris through, that part, marred my memory of him.

I was the prodigy, the favored son. Mother and Father always gave me praise, I was the example they wanted for their son, to carry on their name. Fenris, when he was named, was expected to be even better than me, but it was not so. My brother was small, kind, compassionate. He didn't like fighting unless it was absolutely necessary, and never once stood up to father. When I look back upon it, I realize it was because he was ashamed too. What did he have to show, beyond a gentle spirit and a pure white coat of fur. He wanted to be great, and was never able to achieve on the same level as I was. But even with all this, we were inseparable as brothers. Why didn't he hate me, I sometimes thought when I did nothing but hide in the face of fathers fury. He was courageous, and having known my brother so well, it must have been impossible for him to actually hate someone. He was too kind, to everyone, even father, who saw his son as a failure.

Why did Fenris become a Shadow, it never made any sense to me. There was only reality, in which my gentle brother was now a black furred aberration that had finally surpassed me in strength. Sometimes I wished it could have been reversed, it wasn't fair. It didn't make sense, why Fenris?

A feral screech sounded in the sky somewhere far away. I turned my gaze skyward, but there was no giant black shape in the gray sky, and so I ignored the piercing call. I quickly revised my earlier statement. There could be shadows here, and with all the Dark Matter leftover in the air it would make it very difficult to find them. Still the odds of them staying in a place like this were slim to none. I resumed my pace through the wasteland of ruin, with Piech following close behind. The silence lasted only for a few moments.

"So then…what happened? Was your father away on a battle or something and get killed? What about your mother? Was she a fighter too, and did you have any siblings. Were you all attacked on day and you were the only one to make it our alive, that would explain why you look so…I don't know mean, closed off, antisocial. I mean if your family was attacked then you obviously would feel alone and hurt, but you don't need to be downright mean to people. I lost my family too, am I moping all around and acting like I hate the world-
"Piech shut up." I growled. He took a step back, and looked to be in deep thought for a moment until he suddenly said.

"Someone in your family turned into a Shadow, didn't they."

I said nothing, not knowing what I could have said that would lead him to such a conclusion. Piech accurately took my silence as an answer.

"My brother…" I said, then starting to walk again, with Piech following closely behind.

"I get it now…" he said, and I turned my head towards him, curious.

"You're upset because you were really close to your brother, and the shock of him suddenly becoming a Shadow and killing your family is so great, and yet you don't even know how to handle it. You want to hate him, to take revenge, strike him down like the shadow he is. And yet you still love him as a brother, and can't possibly commit to fighting him, even as a Shadow. Maybe that's why you were injured when we met, because you couldn't kill him, and nearly died in a fight with him." Piech said, his bright disposition and smile never fading the whole time, as if he was simply explaining the rules of a game rather than analyzing me to the core. It slightly shocked me, not because Piech was actually a lot smarter than he came across,

But because he was right. I couldn't commit myself to the ideal of revenge, even after what Fenris did to mom and dad. An image of mom's decapitated body and dad torn into multiple pieces suddenly flashed in my mind, and I desperately tried to distract myself from it. In the distance, I heard the heavy boom of thunder, and noticed for the first time it might be getting darker.

"There is a shelter here, the building still looks pretty sound, although it won't do much against the wind." Piech said, pointing towards a crumbling structure that had an intact roof, but was still missing a wall and had many large holes and cracks.

"Go head, I'm just going to take a look around." I said, fumbling for an excuse to be off on my own, and not even knowing why the hell I was making one in the first place, I didn't need to explain myself to Piech.

"Okay, bring back some food!" He enthusiastically called out to me as I started to walk away, and for some reason I smirked at his enthusiasm. He didn't appear to be as afraid of being ditched again, but it would not be wise to mess with that fear. Piech was a lot like me in this situation, alone, and conflicted. Only he was handling it differently, I'm not sure if his approach was better however.

I only saw more of the same horrible destruction, and the dark clouds overhead were starting to cover the sky like an infection. I didn't care about the rain, right now, I just felt like walking. It wasn't out of any dislike for Piech, as much as his curiousness and his rabid speech got on my nerves. I needed to find an answer.

To what I would do f I encountered Fenris again.

If I was alone, then I would have to option of either hiding and fleeing or confronting him. But with Piech involved things became more complicated. Fenris could easily kill him, as agile as swift as he was, my brother would cleave him in two with that Dark Matter attack of his. Furthermore, Piech might actually challenge Fenris, the fool seemed to have no limits of courage or common sense. If that were to happen, would I be able to kill Fenris, even to save Piech.

"Brother, can't we play today?"

I still couldn't picture him as a monster, even now.

I froze, wondering for a second if I had really heard something or if it was just wishful thinking. A soft squeal or whimper in the silence of the devastation.

I heard it again ,that pitiful squeak so silent it was barely audible. I looked around, but all that was revealed was the blackened skeleton of the city's remains. I must be imagining things, nothing could have survived the terrible fire that had destroyed everything in its path. Even the bodies were charred here, and the smell made me gag if I got too close. I turned my attention to the shattered remains of a house, digging though a bit of the debris even though I knew that I would not find anything. Straining my claws, I removed a giant wooden board that nearly collapsed on me, and the clear yet rancid smell of spoiled water assaulted my senses. Confused, I looked around, trying to find the source of the smell because it did not originate in the ruined pile of debris. Water was rare, if there was running water somewhere that would be an even greater miracle than food. At the mention of it, a pang of hunger started in my stomach. What was I doing here? We needed to get out of this asphalt wasteland-

I heard it again, more of a whimper than a squeal this time, and I saw a peculiar hole in the ground surrounded by ruined stonework that I had somehow missed the first time. It was obviously a well, I could see the broken stonework around its edges from where the destruction had ravened it too. I padded forward to the well, the rancid smell getting stronger until I peered down the edge of the pitfall.

In the small puddle of water that was left inside the well, there was a small brown fox huddled up and shivering in the semi darkness. It appeared to be still alive, that alone was a shock. I bunched my hind legs and jumped.

The rancid smell intensified the instant I jumped down, and I landed with a small splash in the shallow puddle, my claws sinking into the disgusting mush underneath. The eevee lurched upright, its eyes huge with fear when my sudden entry startled it. I could practically smell its fear as it saw me, completely petrified at the sight of me. There were gouges in the walls from scrabble marks, it had probably fallen down the well hand had been unable to jump high enough to escape.

I took a step forward, and saw for the first time the poor terrified creatures state. The eevee's legs were bone thin, and I could see all of its ribs and the bones of its spine on the fox's back. Even the eevee's fur was faded, smeared with grime and falling out in patches. I understood now why it was so scared, and yet not trying to bolt. It couldn't, even if it wanted to trapped in the well and starving. I felt a deep sense of pity for the starving eevee watching me with big eyes filled with fear. I must look akin to death itself to the little thing, and it was hopelessly trapped and weak.

I took a few steps toward the small terrified girl, and she closed her eyes in fear when I got close, making herself small but knowing it was useless to do anything. It was somewhat easy to tell she was a girl through her body shape, although she was frightfully thin. I stared at the helpless form in front of me, and made my decision.

I reached down and carefully grasped her scruff in my teeth, feeling her tense when she felt my teeth on her neck, expecting me to kill her and offering no resistance. I lifted her easily off the ground, she seemed to weigh nothing at all. The small eevee dangled limply in my grip while I bunched my legs and jumped, failing to catch the lip of stone at the entrance of the well. Re adjusting my grip on the eevee's scruff to make it easier for me, I jumped again, and this time my hind legs caught a crack in the stone for a foothold and I painstakingly pulled myself out of the well. The fresh air was a relief from the horrible air in the well. A fat raindrop hit my back, and I started making my way back to the shelter, carrying the eevee.

She remained utterly limp, never even making a peep as I carried her maybe a little too roughly. She was way too light, how long had she been trapped in the well to come to such a state. It was pitiful, she was utterly helpless. If I had arrived a day later, she would most likely be dead with how terrible her condition was. The rain picked up quickly, and the sky opened up on us as I walked. I smelled where Piech was before I saw it, somehow he had managed to find some food in this asphalt desert.

"Hey your back, did you bring some f-" he started to say, and was silenced when he saw the eevee I was carrying. Strongly he regarded me with suspicious before a look of genuine concern crossed his face and then something close to panic. My fur, and that of the small eevee's was utterly soaked now by the rain.

"Oh my, Arceous, who is that!" he exclaimed while I set her down inside the shelter. She didn't move, but looked scared with all the sudden attention, and the fact that we were both crowding her. I finally recognized the smell I had caught as Oran berries, where in the world did he find food? It didn't matter, I shot Piech a command to give her some space, and hooked an Oran berry on my claws. Piech followed my command and backed up a bit. The eevee obviously wasn't going to bolt, and was staying put right where I left her, making herself small with uncertainty and fear.

I could almost see the hunger in the kits eyes when she saw the berry, but made no move for it, still afraid. I gave her the berry, and backed off a bit to give her space. She looked at me, then the food laid out in front of her before moving slowly forward on her weak and thin legs and tearing into it. Piech was oddly being silent through the whole ordeal.

The kit had made it though half the large blue fruit before suddenly retching and puking to the side. Piech made a face, at it, but still said nothing, probably trying his best not to scare her. Figures, you can't starve to the brink of death then suddenly feast. She looked uncertainly at me, unsure of my motives.

"Just eat it." I grumbled, frustrated for no reason whatsoever. She started to tear into it again, although more slowly than before.

"Take it easy, we won't take it away from you. What's your name?" Piech said in a coaxing voice. The kit, well, I didn't know how old she was and it was really hard to tell right now, didn't say anything but stared blankly at me even though it was Piech who spoke. She made herself small when I looked at her almost like she was nervous. I looked at Piech for help, but he shrugged. The rain was really pouring down now, and I snatched some food right out from Piech's hands and ate a bit, making sure to leave a little for Piech and the eevee girl. Didn't move much from where I set her, but crawled into a corner when she had eaten her fill and curled up pitifully, watching me alone with big eyes before conking out.

Asleep, she looked even more helpless, and even a little cute despite the awful state she was in with her fur falling out and bones visible through her fur. I wasn't sure yet if she was going to live, but at least now she had a chance.

I looked at Piech, and he was lying on his back looking at the sky outside, brooding to himself. I said nothing, content to let Piech have his time to get his feelings of sorrow out, without having to shove back on a mask. I spared another glance at the little kit, before laying down to sleep myself. I don't know why I had saved her, I just did, and it felt right.

For once, nightmares about my demented brother did not torment me in my sleep. Even in the despair that I, Piech, and even the small kit was wading though, there was a deep sense of peace tonight. Is this what Piech meant by hope, even though I knew that morning would bring only more suffering and trials, that I was willing to face them. in the sense to keep living, maybe Piech was stronger than me.

Thunder roared outside, but I didn't hear it. Everything was calm, and before I knew it the sweet nothingness of sleep had come for me at last, for the first time in so long…