Holy crap! I actually UPDATED! And a story that ISN'T HLH!

Yeah... sorry for the lack of updates, on this story especially. For some reason I have NO IDEA where I'm going with this anymore... hell, I even feel that this chapter's been sort of... thrown together if you will... so sorry if it isn't up to my usual standards.

This was an idea I was playing around with. I got the idea from Foxyjosh's story Climbing the Corprate Ladder so I figure I should give credit where credit is due.

Anyway, enough talk. Take it away, Sally!

Labor Camps

(Sally's POV)

"GET UP, YOU WORTHLESS FREAKS!" Rojas shouted as he literally dragged my tail out of my cot, kicking my muzzle in the process. "On your feet, now!" The fatass hissed in a low, hateful tone. Rojas woke the other three in a similar fashion, only difference was they weren't kicked in the face nor were they dragged out of bed. "No talking, eyes forward and if I even SEE one of you make any sudden movements…" He drew his handgun to make a point. Hmm… Rojas seems to be even more stressed out and pissed off than usual, I wonder why?

Rojas commanded me to walk out first and follow Takeshi and ordered the rest of my group to follow. Oliver tightly hugged my furry tail, scared out his mind because of Roja's foul mood. Damn cat nearly caused me to trip! After the Glameow was Violet, who timidly followed use out of room, dragging her feet and tail. One of the guards groaned and hit the poor Espeon in her head with the butt of his gun before pulling out of the room. Blake growled and glared at the human who dared harm his girlfriend, only to get punched in the muzzle by Takeshi. "Did you hear? No talking, freak! That includes growling!" He laughed.

"Shut up, Takeshi!" Rojas ordered turning to face another grunt. "I'm needed elsewhere… take them to the transport and be quick about it." The fatass grumbled as he stormed off.

"Well… you heard him, men… There creatures are being sent to the labor camps. We're going to escort them… any questions?"

Takeshi quickly raised his hand, much to the lead grunts displeasure.

"Yes, Sasaki?" He sighed.

"What are labor camps?" The boy stupidly asked.

The lead grunt groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose while the others started laughing hysterically. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that…" The lead turned to us. "You four are not to make any sounds, keep your eyes forward and no sudden movements… understood? You'll be working in the labor camps today to speed up production." He hissed as signaled his team to place collars around our necks.

Man I hate these things… you can obviously guess the collars they place on our necks are more than just for show. They're rather complicated devices that inhibit our abilities and leave us completely powerless and virtually harmless. How do these things work? How am I supposed to know? I'm just a slave.

Once the collars were securely fastened on our necks, the guards moved us towards the elevators that would take us to the garages. Along the way, I couldn't help but notice that the hallway was a bloody mess! The halls were littered with shattered glass, broken electronics, loose papers and the floor and walls were covered in blood. There was also an alarming number of dead grunts being hauled away, makes me wonder how I missed the scent of blood in air. What the hell happened here?

By some random chance, I happened to have heard two my escorts chat about cause of this chaos as we boarded an elevator. "…So it a lone kid and his Pokémon that this did?" A grunt asked in shock as we began our decent.

"Not this time… It's nothing like what happened years ago." His friend replied. "From what I heard, one of the Atmos spies tried to assassinate Doctor Miles but failed when the Doc triggered the alarm. When the response team arrived, they found the doctor seriously injured and the spy was nowhere to be found. Moments later, another spy was found in this very hall with the Leafeon girl we were keeping isolated from the rest of the morphs."

"Another spy? I thought there was only one!"

"Enough!" The lead grunt quickly silenced the two of them. "You two are not to speak anymore of this! Understood?" The grunts quickly nodded and remained silent until we arrived at our floor. My party was escorted out of the elevator and forced into the back of armored truck.

The truck we loaded into was an old flatbed truck with dirty trap over it, used as a troop transport by the Shinnoh military fifty years ago. It was a miracle the damn thing could even start, let alone move. We sat in the back alongside a few armed guards meant to keep our mouths muzzled and to make sure we wouldn't try to jump ship and escape… Don't know they even bother… it's not like we'd have anywhere else to go. Once we were ready to go, they opened the garage doors and the transport truck slowly left the Galactic base, leaving unhealthy smog in its wake.

Not too long after we left base, Blake broke the silence by whispering to Violet, asking the psychic if she was alright. The truck's engine was rather loud and the grunts were too busy talking amongst themselves to notice their conversation.

"No, I'm not alright." Violet started to cry as she whipped away her tears. "Just look at what they did to me! What they did to us!" She cried.

I quickly covered the psychic's muzzle and looked back at the escorts to make sure they didn't notice. Sure enough, the dumbasses were more interested in their own little conversation then what we were up to. "Keep it down, Princess." I hissed. "Do you want the guards to hear you?"

I removed my paw so she could answer me but she refused to look me in the eye. "…No… but then again, what more can they do to me?" She asked me. "They've already taken my life away from me… turned me into this… this freak! What more can they do?"

I couldn't help but chuckle at the Espeon's words. "I take it you're new here?" I asked. "Hate to break it to you, but there are worse things they can-and will-do you…"

Violet gasped while Blake snarled at me. "Enough! You're just trying to scare us!" He shouted.

Again, I turned to the guards, half expecting them to hear us and force us to be quiet, and again they seemed to have ignored us. What dumbasses…

I sighed as I turned to face the enraged Umbreon morph. "Believe me, I'm not. I'm just saying you could be worse off…" I sighed. "…Have you guys ever heard of labor camps." I asked shuddering at the thought of our destination.

Neither one of them answered, giving me a blank look, giving me my answer.

"Heh, of course you haven't." I chuckled. "Well, it doesn't take much brain power to figure out what happens in a labor camp. But for those of you who haven't already guessed, Galactic use us as tools to mine for precious gems and metals. The first thing that would come to mind would be-"

"Evolution stones." Violet whispered interrupting me.

"Well… stones are an added bonus. After all they are rather rare and valuable, especially among trainers and Galactic's all about making easy money. However, as I said before the stones are seen as icing on cake for Galactic." I explained. "What we're really mining for are the element plates."

"You mean Arceus' mythic plates? They're just that! A myth!" Blake shouted… I'm surprised the guards haven't heard us yet… seriously, we're not even whispering anymore.

"Oh they're real alright. They're real, rare, sturdy and used to make most of the crap that suppresses our powers." I pointed my claws at the collar around his neck "What would normally enhance our powers is being used to disable them; leaving us as valuable as newborn cubs." I chucked a bit at the irony. It's kinda sad actually.

"So… we're basically just living tools? Equipment meant to used until we're no longer useful then thrown away?" Violet meekly asked, shocked at what I just told her.

"Well… yes and no… Galactic does think of us as tools to be used for own gain… but we're used for a completely different purpose." I sighed. I can't believe I'm going to give another lettuce. Seriously, what are those guards doing? Now I actually want them to catch me and taze me into unconsciousness. "Galactic classifies morphs into two separate categories: Workers and soldiers. Doesn't take much brain power to figure out what we are. Soldiers do just what you'd expect them to do… we fight, we kill, we die. Doesn't get any more black and white then that."

"Workers, however, have a number of different roles. And while I've never actually seen any worker morphs I have heard of the kind of manual labor Galactic forces them to do. They do everything from digging holes to building bases to powering generators and I've even heard of a group fire-types being forced to cook for the admins."

"Wow! That sounds cool!" Oliver shouted, obviously entertained at the thought of a Vulpix baking him a cake.

"HEY!" A one of the guards yelled at us, finally noticing us. "No talking! If I hear another peep out of you, I'm shooting you. Understood?" The grey cat nervously nodded, tightly hugging me again. When did I become this kid's teddy bear?

It didn't take long for us to arrive at our destination. Once the truck stopped, the two grunts by the rear of the truck stepped out first while the other two forced us out one by one, I was the last one out. Once I was off of the truck I stood there, mesmerized by the size of the quarry. The quarry was huge! It had to been the size of a small city; and must have been nearly a hundred and fifty feet below sea-level.

The area wasn't fenced off, maybe that was because of the dozen machine-gun towers watching over everything. Those towers looked to have contained four or five grunts; all armed with machine guns and sniper rifles. I'd say the scariest part was the fact that they all had Ghost-type Pokémon floating over their heads, mostly used to try and distract/stun a morph that decided to cross Galactic.

We were escorted to the gates of the quarry where the grunts had a checkpoint set up. These grunts were as 'friendly' as our escorts… one of them slapped my tail as I walked by and grinned at me in a perverted fashion. Believe it or not, this isn't the first time something like this has happened to me. If it wasn't for the collar around my neck or all of the armed guards watching over me, I would've gladly sliced him in two.

It was there that the lead grunt of our group met up with a well dressed executive, most likely the one who ordered us here. "It's about time you showed up." He growled at the lead grunt. "What the hell took you so long?"

"We would've been here sooner, but we had a bit of a mishap back at HQ." The lead grunt responded. "Now may I ask-"

"There is no time for questions!" The executive shouted. He pointed towards an elevator and motioned for us to enter it. "Just load your morphs onto the elevator so they can be lowered into the pit… and hurry! We don't have time to waste."

Upon instruction, we were herded onto the elevator while the humans followed the executive towards the quarries control room. Before leaving us, the lead grunt felt it necessary to remind us that we're Galactic property, and if we refused to work properly we would be disposed of and replaced in the blink of an eye. After the lecture, we were told that there was a group of human grunts down below that would give us our orders and that we were to follow their orders to letter or risk being shot. Once the asshole was done wasting our time the elevator began our slow descent into the pit.

I still don't this was my best work... but I am proud of the way this chapter turned out...

Again, I hope I didn't disappoint too much with this chapter. If you have any suggestions please PM me them and thanks for reading.

As Always: Love it, Hate it, Just Review it.
Gunner out.