I LIVE! School is finally out (and has been for two weeks now) and I finally got off my lazy ass to update. I had the chapter written ages ago, I was just too lazy to do anything.

Chapter six – Strings

District 1 was in chaos. There were already military within the slums. Already the bodies were being thrown out onto the streets. Disposing of the evidence of their sins, the military burnt them and the smell of burning flesh was overwhelming.

Worst affected were the children of the slums. The orphans, the beggars. The ones with no parents to look after them. Some had more luck than others and lived in a house set up by Ari's Children but today that small bit of luck meant nothing. They were all going to be killed and left to burn. And who would care? The surface-dwellers? They never cared. They could stay up in their clean, fancy, sunlit dwellings and never think about the suffering that was right beneath their feet.

A small girl, a member of Ari's Children who had earlier been spreading the news was running for her life. Her name was Ané and she was in Burst with a Pachirisu. Behind her she could hear the other orphans screaming in fear and pain. All of them were hungry and tired. They shouldn't be running. They should be-

"Ané! Get out of here!" one of the older orphans yelled. "You know what they'll do to you!"

Oh she knew. They'd done it to the rest of her family.

"What about you guys?" she screamed back. "They'll kill us all!"

"And they'll dissect you!" somebody else yelled. "Get out of here. Take the tunnel diversion!"

She ran forwards slamming electricity into a blonde Talon she passed. Ané allowed herself a slight grin; the woman had been a water type. Her small victory was short lived as she felt something slam into her back. She launched more electricity behind her and just ran.

As more people were being killed, some people cooperated. Ané wanted to hate them, she truly did but they were trying to save themselves and their families. She couldn't fault them that. Witnessing even more of Flare's monstrosity first-hand, she understood why that ex-WARRIOR she'd spoken to after the destruction of Reactor 1 had left.

A silent prayer was sent to the Legendaries, specifically Xerneas, Victini, and Jirachi, that they'd save her or at least make it quick.

How the fuck were they supposed to get to Ari's Tunnel? They were in District 3, the only District without a linking tunnel. Kellyn and his group were screwed. The massacre had begun and they were trapped in District 3. Clemont and Tierno had already been killed, trying to protect a little girl. She'd gotten away and Kellyn prayed that his friends' sacrifice hadn't been in vain. He knew that she was Clemont's sister.

Viola and Diantha had split off to guide a group of orphans to safety so it was just Kellyn, Barry, Lucas, Grant, and Bianca, who had been separated from Olympia. They had decided to try and get out of District 3 and reunite with the others in Ari's Tunnel but had been blocked off by Flare. Now they were attempting to get to the Badlands and make a move from there.

Of course, that would have been so much easier without frigging murderers on the streets.

"Does anyone know where they're mainly focussed?" Kellyn asked.

"They're everywhere!" Lucas replied. "We'll just have to break through!"

Kellyn swore. Just their luck. He signalled to the others to follow him. What Pokémon they had were all out and everyone was in Burst. Military were pooling into the slums faster. ZZ Flyers signified the arrival of Talon units. Kellyn even heard two young gang members speak of the Witches arriving. He bit back a curse at that; Malva Rouge and her unit were infamous, being some of the cruellest among the military.

A small military patrol came around the corner. Grant ran forwards, punching the air as he summoned rocks that slammed into them. Barry fired off a Pin Missile at them, killing them. Bianca stopped dead and looked as if she was about to be sick.

"We can't just kill them!" she protested.

"They'd kill us if we let them!" Barry yelled back.

"We can't sink to their level!" Bianca yelled. "It's always killing! It never ends! We kill them, they'll try and kill us! I want it to end!"

She was practically screaming now. Kellyn sighed and walked over to her.

"There is a difference between killing in self-defence or to keep you and the people you care about alive and killing for the sake of it," he explained. "This massacre, Flare had no reason to do it and-"

"They're doing it because of us!" Bianca interrupted. "It's our fault! We're the reason they're doing it! Because of us blowing up the reactors! If we hadn't… THEN NOBODY WOULD HAVE TO DIE!"

"You're wrong!" Kellyn snapped. "If we hadn't done it another rebel group would have. There'd still be a massacre. Flare are evil. Why do you think we're fighting?"

Bianca still looked distressed but seemed to be somewhat placated. Kellyn gestured for the group to keep moving. Grant put an arm around Bianca. Today wasn't going to be easy for any of them. Now was not the time to debate ethics but instead keep moving and survive. If Flare soldiers came, they needed to kill them. Hesitation would mean death.

Today, not even the reassuring voice of her Musharna could comfort Bianca. It wasn't that she understood Kellyn's point; she understood perfectly. She didn't want to kill, that was all. Bianca couldn't deal with that kind of blood on her hands.

Lucas and Barry did not know what to say to her. In some ways they sympathised with Bianca as all of them had been forced out of their home regions by Flare. They'd gone to Kalos and found VICTINI. But Barry and Lucas had both seen far too much suffering at the hands of Flare, suffered too much themselves. Killing as many of the bastards would be a pleasure. At this moment in time, when Flare was trying to destroy a city's worth of people, her aversion to killing was hard to understand.

"Hey! You're some of the rebels Red Eyes told us about!" somebody yelled.

Four Talons, all in Burst, stepped off ZZ Flyers: an Aggron, an Arbok, a Rapidash, and a Gengar. Their names were Paul, Koga, Flint, and Morty, respectively. The VICTINI team stood still and ready themselves into fighting stances.

"Is this what you wanted then?" Paul asked, gesturing behind him. "It's fine by us, but what about you? Did you want everyone to burn and die?"

"This isn't on us," Kellyn said through gritted teeth.

"Is it not?" Koga snorted. "You blew up the reactors. That's why the higher ups gave us these orders."

"You'd have done it anyway!" Lucas yelled before Kellyn could. "It's what you do! Nice, Valor Shore, Lacunosa, all of them! You killed all the people there!"

The Talons looked ready to argue back or stop wasting time and fight.

"Don't argue with them," another voice cut through before they could. "They want to make us the monsters and maybe we are. Doesn't matter though. We have our orders and the rebels must die."

Red Eyes stepped off a ZZ Flyer and stood in front of the other Talons. Kellyn was more than ready for a rematch but Grant stepped forwards and launched rocks again at the Talon leader. Kellyn instead settled for Morty, deciding to play on his type advantage. The remaining combatants were locked in a three on three where targets kept shifting and attacks were being flung everywhere. Bianca's Serperior, Barry's Empoleon, and Lucas' Luxray wove in and out, blasting attacks when appropriate and stopping any other military from getting close.

Grant took advantage of his Rock moves to keep Red Eyes at bay. He recognised the Talon. This fight was personal.

He used Ancient Power, summoning forth rocks covered in the mysterious energy of the earth. He launched them at Red Eyes by kicking his leg. Red Eyes tried to dodge as many as he could, still getting scraped by some. He ran forwards and punched Grant in the stomach with a Fighting move. Grant responded in kind by kicking him in the face and launching a Rock Throw. Landing on the ground, Red Eyes launched a barrage of Embers at Grant. The damage wasn't as bad as it could have been, the defence of Rock negating the weakness of Ice.

As Grant was fighting, Kellyn was locked in combat with Morty. The hard part of fighting a Ghost type, was their annoying ability to sometimes become immaterial and therefore, hard to hit. If Kellyn attempted to freeze him in place with an Ice attack, Morty would just walk through it as if he was wading through (liquid) water. So instead, Kellyn was using attacks like Night Pulse and just general Dark energy launching in order to land hits. It wasn't his normal tactic but it would work for now. Morty attempted to respond with his own attacks but Kellyn launching attack after attack. A younger Talon, Morty found himself matched.

The three vs. three was evenly matched. Lucas was trying to focus mainly on Paul, Barry was using his sword to hit whoever he could while avoiding Flint (his Empoleon helped him out there), and Bianca was mainly hitting Koga but was letting out some impressive psy-attacks. Ethics of telepathy be damned, she reached into their heads and read their secrets.

She wanted to puke. She wanted to cry and scream. They had let those people burn. They did not care at all for human lives. They had murdered children. Bianca, the gentlest member of VICTINI, was seized by a desire to make them suffer and die. Letting out a scream, she launched a full on assault on their minds. Ethics be damned.

Talons were trained to resist psychic attacks on their minds and they were trained well. However, they weren't prepared for the fury of Bianca. They weren't prepared for how she assaulted their minds. Instead of directly trying to burst in, she attack them with emotions. Fear. Grief. Loss. Everything Flare had done to her and others. They were not prepared.

As their opponents were struggling in pain, Lucas and Barry launched attacks. Striking them with nunchuck and sword. Paul and Flint staggered backwards while Koga attempted to stand his ground. His mind had been the worst to look through. Bianca used her abilities as a Musharna gijinka to trap him in a nightmare, a painful nightmare.

"Murderer!" she screamed.

His mind couldn't take it. The pain. She drove him to insanity in the space of a second and when he couldn't take any more, his mind shut down and Koga collapsed to the ground, dead. Bianca realised what she had done and screamed.

Barry shot Lucas a look. His friend nodded at him. Spreading his insect-like wings, Barry flew over and lifted Bianca up. They signalled at the Pokémon. Lucas used Smokescreen to cover their tracks. Luxray and Empoleon grabbed Kellyn and Grant and they ran. They ran away to the wall, trying to find the tunnel that would take them out of the city and away from the massacre.

Blue Eyes sighed. She was more of a covert operations unit. Killing people was not really her thing. She had done it before, her sword had killed. But her rule of thumb was when on missions she only took the lives that she had to and no more. This whole massacre felt like a waste to her.

So why in the name of Giratina the Damned did the Witches have to be assigned to the same area as her? She watched as Malva in her Talonflame Burst took the lives of the slum dwellers without restraint. Blue Eyes actually felt sick as she watched the Witches demand information from a group of orphans. When they had nothing to tell them, they killed them in a slow and painful fashion.

Not for the first time in her life did Blue Eyes wish she had never joined the Talons. She truly envied Silver and Aaron. Why couldn't Red Eyes have assigned her to Project Aster? She was a more senior officer and would have been a more appropriate choice to find them.

That girl who had hit her with the electricity earlier, Blue Eyes couldn't help but pray that she survived the night and escaped. It wasn't fair on her or any other child down here. Adults, she could kill. There was often justification for that. They were criminals, it was her job to kill them. Children? They were often forced into committing crimes because of poverty, adults, desperation. Killing a child was what Blue Eyes hated.

Why the fuck had she agreed to join the Talons?

Another body landed in front of them. April jumped slightly. Kate gasped. Calem kept them moving.

The Flare contact, the one related to Joy. They were high up enough to know about this before it happened. That was good. Despite the large number of people that had already been killed, they could still save some. Enough people had been told to get to Ari's Children. On estimate, they could save about a third of the population, maybe even more.

It was a harsh reminder of why he had left the WARRIOR program, that and Nascour. Flare were killing too many people. How many massacres had happened at their order? This, Nice, Lacunosa, Valor Shore, the survivors of Vaniville. Too many. Calem knew it was too many. Another body. Another military personnel that he ran his sword through.

Ari's Tunnel was close. He could get Kate and April out of there, take them to the safe place in Laverre. VICTINI would be more than happy to help out a Draconid and her mother, especially if it was keeping them away from Flare Of course, that depended on whether they were all still alive or not. His communicator was down; Calem had no idea of whether his teammates were still alive but he was banking on them being alive. They were all more than capable and were probably some of the first in the Tunnel.

"Calem?" Kate said quietly. "We should take the alleys in the east of District 5 to get to the tunnel."

"Why?" Calem asked.

"He told me to," Kate replied, gesturing at an injured Mr. Mime. "He said there's a load of Flare up ahead. He got separated from his trainer."

Calem nodded. It was still a strange experience, witnessing Kate speak with any Pokémon, but it was currently useful. The old legends seemed to be true as various Pokémon seemed to look at Kate in almost worship. Draconids were seen as sacred to Pokémon, that was how the legends went. Why would they lie to her?

April knew the alleys better than him so he let her lead. He was ready at any point to leap in front and fight. April had no Burst Heart and Kate was absolutely terrified. She could do something that would put them all at risk. Izaak was still flying above them and sending warning via Kate should someone military come. He also had his Glaceon, Aisha, running alongside them. April's Mismagius was also floating around, ready to give enemies hell.

A gash on his leg caused Calem to slow down slightly. Kate noticed and grabbed him.

"I'm fine. We need to keep running," he insisted.

"It will get worse. Ten or so seconds now is better than whole minutes later. Besides, Izaak and Aisha are keeping guard and Mismagius will help them," Kate said. "Hold still."

Green energy swirled around his leg again and dissipated. Leg healed, Calem got the group to start moving again. Kate's powers amazed him. All the more reason to keep her away from Flare. They'd do horrible things to her. The things he'd already seen them do.

Another group of military approached. Forewarned, Kate launched leaves at them and Calem ran forwards to knock them down with Night Slash. They continued running. A scream of 'Please! I've never seen anyone from the rebels!' was heard. They continued running.

"Calem, the group that warned everybody? VICTINI? That's your group isn't it?" Kate asked. She was in Sky Forme again, floating besides him.

"Yeah," Calem nodded.

"Why are you fighting with them? Why did you leave WARRIOR?"

How many people had asked him that question? Barlow, Kellyn, Serena, Looker, all of them. How many times had he recited his answer? To be fair on Kate, she didn't know. She was just curious and Calem couldn't fault her that.

"They betrayed me. They did stuff to us, the WARRIORs, without our consent. And they killed my friends," he replied.

Kate looked as if she was going to ask for more but thought better of it. If he wanted her to know more, he would have told her. It wasn't fair on him to make him relive painful memories. People had done that to her. It was at that moment in time when Kate realised that she had found a kindred spirit, somebody who had experienced some of the same torture she had. There weren't many people she could say that about.

The alleys broke way to larger streets. More familiar with this area, Calem took the lead again and tried to find the entrance to Ari's Tunnel. Hidden away in the basements of several small coffee houses and warehouses, the small tunnels allowed access to the larger one that ran underneath the city. Clumps of people were dotted around these areas, taking care to make it look as if they'd already been dragged out of their homes, trying to sneak away when the soldiers weren't looking. A familiar set of figures caught Calem's eye.

"I've seen some of the others from my group," he whispered to Kate and April. "You should come with us. We can get you out the city to a safe place in Laverre. You would still be in hiding but at least it would be aboveground."

"I'd like that. Mama? What do you think?" Kate asked, looking at her mother for confirmation.

"Perhaps that would be nice," April replied. "I haven't truly seen the sky in so long…"

Pleased at their answers, Calem led them slowly to where he'd seen the others. Serena noticed him and lit up. Before she could run over, Calem signalled for her to stay where she was. They hadn't come this far for their cover to be blown by overexcitement. Looking somewhat embarrassed, Serena instead whispered over to the others. Almost straightaway Calem felt the familiar touch of Looker's mind, checking who he was.

"I survived. Izaak carried me to safety," he thought, projecting it to Looker.

"What about your injuries? You still fell through the plate," was the reply.

"I made a new friend with some interesting abilities," Calem said.

They stood next to the VICTINI members. Hidden by the group of people in front, Serena quickly hugged Calem. Surprising her and himself, he returned the hug. He'd missed his friend. They were trapped under the plate as a massacre took place and he needed the comfort a friend could provide.

"So who's the friend that helped you?" Barlow asked, Looker having filled him in.

"This is Kate and April Hitomi," Calem introduced. "Kate healed me."

"I'm a Draconid," Kate explained, sighing slightly. Lady Xerneas had told her to trust them.

The others stared wide-eyed. Looker scanned her mind quickly to check for any signs of lying but found none. He nodded at the others, signalling that she told the truth.

"I thought they'd died out," he commented.

"Not all. Many married outside the tribes but there were always some who didn't. I think I'm the last full one left though," Kate told them. "Mama-"

"I adopted Kate," April cut in.

"And hid her from us very well," a dry voice added.

Still recovering from injuries, still in the fight, Red Eyes stepped off a ZZ Flyer. Despite none of the VICTINI members present had met him in person (save Calem from his WARRIOR days), they still recognised who he was. He stood there with a smirk on his face, eyes fixed intently on Kate.

"Project Aster, you have eluded us for far too long. I'm afraid I have to take you with me now," Red Eyes said in mock sadness.

"Giratina damn me but I'm not letting you take her," Calem growled.

"Mr Whatever, you might be ex-WARRIOR but I'm not afraid of you," Red Eyes drawled. "Project Aster, you have a choice. This remote in my hand-" he waved it for emphasis "-if I point it at a person then it sends a signal that targets them. A HU-1K Manectric in Mega will then be triggered to launch an attack at them from the roof. If you come with us, I won't use it and we'll just say that District 5 has been cleaned up. You're the priority here. If you refuse to come then…"

He pointed it at Calem. The lightning came instantly. He howled and collapsed onto the ground as he was assaulted by the burning electricity. Kate looked on in horror.

"STOP IT!" she screamed.

Red Eyes stopped the signal and the Manectric on the roof stopped the attack.

"That will happen to every single person here," Red Eyes said coldly. "Your choice Project. Your WARRIOR friend? Even he's vulnerable. The Infi probably made it feel worse."

Calem was crouched down, breathing heavily as spots danced before his eyes. Serena had crouched down beside him, checking he was okay and making sure he was breathing.

"I'll go."

"NO! KATE DON'T!" April screamed.

She tried to run to her daughter. A Talon stood before her, blocking the way. April tried to push past but they held her there. The VICTINI members looked on in horror as Kate walked towards Red Eyes.

"Good choice Project," he smirked. He quickly inserted a needle into her neck and sedated her. Kate collapsed. Another Talon picked her up and loaded her onto the chopper that had arrived. "Alright District 5! We're giving you a 30 minute respite while we deliver Project Aster. Talon units will be kept at the borders of the district to stop anyone else entering. You have my word on this. Escape to wherever it is everybody is escaping to. If there's anybody else here when we return, they die, simple as."

April screeched in despair as the Talons left, taking her daughter with them. Recovered from the ordeal with the Manectric, Calem stood up and swore.

"Fucking piece of Tauros-shit," he spat.

"So what do we do now?" Joy asked.

"They're gonna hurt that girl," Barlow said. He locked eyes with Calem. "And I don't want to have that knowledge and not do something about it. We're going to get Kate."

Ané's plot importance ceases here and will not return for a very long time.

All named Pokémon are references. I realise I have more than likely spelt Izaak's name wrong, but so did the wiki. Aisha is from the same source. Anyone want to hazard a guess?

Also Flare may have started to outdo Shinra. They probably already did with the Draconid genocide (since Shinra didn't actually kill all the Cetra. Maybe, two or three?)