Happy undampening day to the two of you that will read this- had this one conceptualized for a long ass time, but was too lazy, and too busy with the RP, fire emblem stories, and, ya know, the actual end of the world to work on it, until I had undampening day as an excuse.

For real though, the RP is kinda sick - look up IMW, I have posts there longer than some of my chapters. Heck, longer than most of my chapters.

You ever stop to think about the fact that there's an old man in Orre who is a retired pokemon champion, whose main pokemon are pikachu, has met celebi, and has a grandaughter that A) has red hair and B) is aura sensitive, in a setting that has futuristic technology? Mix this in with the idea that the first Ore game came out under Shudo-san, who originally planned a to make a pokewars style ending to the tv show, that there's no wild pokemon...makes you think, don't it?

Scar shifted as soon as we exited the bathroom, bringing us to a halt with a raised fist, leaving us to wait with muffled breaths as Scar leaned against the wall, remaining still for several tense moments of silence.

It was Rui that broke the silence. "They all went downstairs."

"They have." Scar agreed, peeling himself from the wall, before instructing us, "Quickly, but quietly."

Scar walked tersely back the way we came, swinging himself around each corner with his axe at the ready, only to find empty space. Robert followed, carrying Rui on his back while I brought up the rear, scanning the hallway with mild barely contained trepidation as our footsteps quietly echoed through the hallways, intermittently pulling on the yellow substance that glued my arm to the purple stone I held in a series of half-hearted attempts to free my hand.

A scant two minutes passed before we found a familiar door, hacked apart from the center, leaving only a jagged, narrow strip of wood close to the hinges intact, and the opposite end split in two on the floor. Scar entered the room with his usual caution, rounding the corner into the door, before quickly marching inside, chips of wood crunching under his boots as he stepped over the monster he had killed earlier, bereft of a head and arm. Suddenly Scar paused, raising a hand behind him for us to stay outside, and as he moved to the side quietly, we saw why, eyes greeted by a dozen of the pods, sticking and slurping on a large pile of bodies towards the back of the room.

The stench of iron and sight of the warped bodies made my stomach lurch for a moment, but I swallowed quietly, bringing my nausea to bear.

'You've seen worse, been in worse. Did you forget that?'

Memories of a city not a hundred miles away, filled with frozen dead and ravenous corphish came to mind, after being long suppressed. I shook my head and steeled myself, moving back to action.

Robert quickly moved to the side of the doorframe, out of sight as I did the same on the opposite side, peaking my head out to watch as Scar began crawling behind a table towards an opposite corner of the room, grabbing our bags and then standing, walking slowly back towards the door as he kept his head turned in the direction of the distracted pods.

Screeeech!

Scar paused for a moment, looking down at the floor and making note of what he kicked- the animatronic I had knocked from the desk earlier in my scramble to get away from the pods. Scar stared at the animatronic for a long moment, hands tightening around the handle of his axe.

'He's not going to…is he?'

Several red eyes broke from the darkness, watching Scar intently, snapping him back to reality. The giant Orrean pulled his axe and held it between him and the swarm, showing off the blue blood that adorned its head as if it could repel them. Scar stepped carefully over the remains of the electronic and made his way to the door as the eyes that had taken note drifted away, either uninterested or not finding the prospect of a challenge appetizing while their fellows stuffed their faces on human bodies. Scar shuffled through the threshold of the room, feet quietly pushing aside wooden chips and bits of chitin as he exited.

Scar handed off the bags to me as he eyed the mess of the room, and Robert peaked, seeing the pile of bodies in the corner, anger clear on his face, but he was interrupted from any foolish thoughts as I tapped him on the shoulder, pointing at Scar, who had already begun moving down the hall.

There was a simple reality we had to content with still; the monsters had followed the humans downstairs as they fled to the exit. The same exit we would have to use-each door leading to the rooms that were on the exterior wall were locked- judging by the nameplates along the outside, personal offices most likely. Cutting through the doors would like take time and make noise, and we'd have to contend with the two-story drop in the dark thereafter. Trying to break into the rooms with windows on the first floor would most likely bring everything on the floor down on us before we could break through.

The trip down the stairs did not fill me with hope, the smell of iron gave way to a mobrid sight- three dead scientists, long dead, one with a deep stab wound, and a crooked neck at the base of the stairs, the other two's heads lobbed off, with large bites on the top of their necks- a morbidly curious part of me wondered if some other sort of monster had bitten down on their heads and then tossed them away, or the bladed ones had bitten down on the top of their necks after decapitating them, as if to suck the bodily fluids from them.

The stairwell ended and Scar slowly opened the door, eerily silent save for the sound of clacking echoing through the halls. Scar peeked out, and then entered the hall fully, the rest following behind with trepidation. I looked left, I looked right-

'So far so good. Maybe they all got out and they chased them outside. That would be ideal. I'd feel better about our chances if that were the case.'

Forty feet, and nothing. A left turn- we were a quarter of the way to the exit.

Thirty feet more and another left turn- Scar threw out his arm for us to stop, and a chill ran down my spine as I heard clacking racing towards us, growing in volume with every step. We all threw ourselves up against wall, crouching low, hoping it would pass-

The brown blur raced past, continuing down the intersection without a second glance.

None of us dared to release the breaths we held as we dipped around the corner, and continued off again, in the direction the creature had fled from.

Another minute more our soft footsteps echoed loudly in the quiet hallway, the clattering of claws on tile never sounding far away, but we finally reached another corner. Scar moved ahead and approached it, slinking along the wall and neck stretching out to peak around it, and immediately shooting back. Scar's hand was already shooting the universally recognized signal.

Back up. Back up.

'What…what made those things start running?'

KABU-KABUTOPS

The cry came from behind us, nearly causing me to jump in the air, before spinning to see-

'Three of them. I need to start having these realizations BEFORE we catch ourselves between a rock and a hard place.'

Scar hesitated no longer, shooting past the corner at a sprint, leaving us to shake ourselves from our panic and follow, and so we turned and ran around the corner, and I got to say what gave him pause-

One figure stood in the center of the hall, completely still- brown jacket badly torn, jeans sticky with pieces of brown carapace, stained from the tip of his brown hair to his worn boots with varying shades of blue and red.

Around him-

'Here we go again…'

- Broken bodies littered his stretch of hallway, both of the brown carapaced creatures and humans alike, bits and pieces of either blasted apart across the floor, or pinned to the red and blue painted walls by large spikes.

My moved across the walls and ceiling, immediately drawn to the four vents, crammed with bodies, long blue bindings wrapped about them, trying to drag the ill-fitting bodies into the smaller holes, slowly rearranging them into more-fitting shapes with through means of brute force, each tug rewarded with a crunch and a creak as the bodies were crammed into a shape more acceptable to the holes they were passing through.

And then the man raised a single hand, with a universally recognized warning;

STOP

Scar froze midstep, I froze only a moment later, and then so too did Robert, as did the blue bindings from the vents.

CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK

KAAAABUUUUUU!

The brown monsters continued to arrive in numbers, from both directions now, three from behind, two from ahead. I swallowed nervously and held my breath, hands clenching into fists, hoping that Scar was right to follow the instruction-

HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

BANG-BA-BANG!

Three cracks rang out through the hallway, like gunshots, and the two monsters ahead of us flew against the walls, pinned by massive spikes, and they began to fall apart. My head twisted back behind us, to be greeted by another sight- the blue tendrils erupted from the vents, twisting around the three creatures behind, lifting them and dragging them closer, as they frantically struggled to cut themselves free with their long scythe arms, but for every blue binding they cut away, two more took their place, drowning them in a sea of angrily twisting tendrils, cruelly rearranging their bodies with violent wrenching that joined pained shrieking with sickening cracks and slurps.

Robert and I watched a moment, frozen in shock-

"MOVE!"

The intruding thought drew me from my fascinated horror, making me immediately aware of the sound of frantic human footsteps, racing away.

'Shit!'

I twisted back to the way we came from, seeing Scar and the Unovan from before racing away at a frantic sprint, and my internal swearing quickly became external as I pushed my legs to their limit, racing afterwards, and again, the albino-haired soldier fell in step behind me, slowly pushing ahead of me with his longer legs, even encumbered by Rui, thought at least he wasn't off balance by the sticky purple stone-

A cry rang out ahead, and suddenly the Unovan- David, flew into the air, striking the ceiling, dragged towards an awaiting vent-

The large Unovan boy thrashed, eerily silent save for several labored grunts as he dug out his large knife again, thrusting into the blue tendrils, eliciting a pained squeal, but otherwise faired no better than the brown creatures behind us, and was against slammed into the ceiling, his arm snapping back at an awkward angle-

And then Scar arrived, not even so much as breaking stride as he passed and twisted in place, head craned back to look up at the vent, then arms rose, the gun in his hands aimed upwards to the duct-

'Oh no…'

BANG-BANG, BANG-BANG

I had no time to brace myself against the sound of the gunfire, the cracking in the air bouncing off the walls and shaking my bones with each time it passed, the sound so complete and all encompassing it flooded my ears, leaving nothing but ringing in its wake-

And the memories-

"Freeze! Hands in the air, now!"

Against all good sense, I froze, hands tossed in the air, tears forming in my eyes,

'Please don't, please-'

"We need to talk."

'About what? We can talk, I'll talk, just-'

"So here's what we're going to do."

'What, just tell me what. I'll do it, I'll do it, I swear-'

Something tugged at my arm, and then traveled, so something rested heavily on my chest-

BANG!

And I was sent across the floor on my back, arms outstretched, air driven from my lungs, leaving me gasping for air as my hearing returned to me, a flurry of voices, in and outside my head passing through my awareness to be coherent-

"Go, move you're a-"

"Crescent, Crescent! Ca-"

"Don't ju-"

"You're okay, you're fi-"

"You're doing it wro-"

"Don't waste it, mo-"

"What even-"

"You need to-"

A hand rested on my shoulder, and a brief sense of calm washed over me, the ringing in my ears subsided, my breathing steadied itself-

"CRESCENT!"

And in a moment, my senses returned to me, my vision sharpened, my mind focused, finding myself dragged from under my arms by a frustrated looking Robert, Rui beside me-

I shrugged quickly trying to free myself, "I'm fi-"

"Get up!"

I quickly jumped to my feet, eyes shooting back up to the ceiling as I saw what caused Boo concern- a pair of yellow eyes peeking from the opening, my eyes shot down to my chest, where the purple stone had repositioned itself-

I jumped up, quickly sidestepping to be in front of Rui-

BA-BA-BA-BA-BANG

The four impacts collided squarely on the stone on my chest, failing to penetrate, and instead falling to the ground, but sent m flying back into the other two, sending us flying against the ground in a mess of tangled limbs.

"Ya hafta get up morons!"

Two hands moved among us, quickly disentangling us from one another and yanking us to our feet. Another pair hands moved forwards, and I saw the familiar rifle of Scar's, the Akim, and flinched-

"CRESCENT!"

Again, I flinched briefly, but my vision sharpened and I grew yet more focused-

BANG-BANG

The noise was still unbearable, but no visions accosted me, and I was still aware of the smell of gunpowder in the air, and the violent shaking of the duct, to know when we were being pulled away, and to catch my feet under me after the Unovan that had righted us threw Rui over his shoulder and we were again at a sprint- now so near to the door-

'30 meters. 20 meters. 15 meters, 10 meters.'

Again, my hearing returned, and again, I didn't like what I heard- a crashing in the duct above, trembling with every loud outburst, a shrill, wet shriek echoing within as it object somehow raced ahead of us, and turned the corner, towards the exit, and my relief turned to horror-

'5 meters!'

The Unovan holding Rui rounded the corner first- David, I recalled in that instant- and an instant too late, when he charged into the danger, evidently oblivious to the new danger-

Rui shrieked as she was tossed back, and two more bangs rang out in the hall, and David returned, jumping back and deftly sidestepping the first spike, which imbedded itself deep into the wall behind him, only for the second to strike him in the arm, yanking him back into the wall and pinning him to the wall. He did not scream, only struggled with the spike-

And Scar came to the rescue, sliding ahead of us and coming to rest on the ground in the intersection, prone and rifle to bear on the entrance, again deafening us with the sound of gunfire as she fired precisely for a moment there was a pause, and then Scar quickly rolled sideways away as more spikes filled the wall behind him, and he fired again-

We arrived at the intersection Robert scrambling to grab Rui while I rushed to David, still struggling with his spike, and I got my first full look at the terror of the vents-

It nearly came up to my hip- how it'd been able to terrorize us from within there was a mystery, an amorphous, blue body made from writhing blue tentacles lay low to the ground in the center two large, hungry yellow eyes lay above a circular mouth with four teeth, sticking out of a massive yellow spiked shell shaped like a helix-

From it's mouth again it fired at Scar, who again deftly rolled out of the way, coming up on one knee and returning two more gunshots in turn, which failed to so much as scratch its shell-

And then its eyes turned on David,

Again, I moved to take the shot, and as I had come to expect, the blue stone seemed to magically shift, yellow tendrils wrapping about my body to pull itself lower onto my abdomen, where the shots landed, again threw me back into him and winded me, but left me otherwise unscathed.

Robert had already moved on with Rui, and Scar shifted around the corner, firing return shots to attempt to grab its attention as my ears rang. I looked up the Unovan, who said something I could not make out, his eyes, underlined by deep bags betrayed no panic, and yet…

I moved to the spike pinning his arm to the wall, and struggled to wrap my fingers around it, trying to help him pull it from the wall-

David's eyes shifted to me, as did his hand, and the larger man threw me clear with ease, again mouthing something. I jumped up and swore, but if he heard me he gave no indication, and instead, his hand moved back to the spike-

And pounded it deeper into his pinned arm.

I froze as he did so again, and again, driving its thicker haft deeper into his arm, his face held in a static scowl-

"MOVE!"

I stiffened, and jumped back around the corner to where Scar was taking cover, just as a spike flew past where I had been standing an instant before, imbedding itself in the wall near David as he continued his masochistic ritual- Scar's neck seemed to turn to me briefly, as I joined him, but then turned back to watch the Unovan boy pound against the spike-

David's eyes rose, and his scowl turned quickly to a frown, and he stepped forwards, the spike- driven most of the way through his arm, remaining in the wall, passing through the entirety of his arm with a violent burst of blood, before he dived away, joining us-

And then Scar was off, and before I could say anything, David was as well, and I was again left to follow, and could only wonder-

'How do we get out now?'

David had pulled ahead of us quite a bit, and we had been content to follow- when he brought us back up to the second floor, we said nothing to the contrary, given the choice between the brown monsters and the blue ones, I'd choose…

'Neither, actually, but he might know what he's doing, he's been here longer. He seemed familiar to this place, maybe he was a janitor? He kind of looks like a janitor.'

The young man had said nothing, his steps quieting significantly as we slowed again, the sound of the brown creature's scampering never far. He himself gripped the gaping hole in his arm, now shaking as blood dripped beneath his fingers. Other than scrapes and bruises, nobody else was injured, a blessing, all things considered.

David made his way to the corner of the building bringing us to a stop right outside of one of the doors, shakily reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a key ring, placing it into the door, attempting to turn it, but to no avail. He moved to the next key in the chain-

"KABUTOPS!"

"So that's what its called. They're coming, by the way."

'Shit, you don't say.'

"Fuck you."

Scar chose now to speak, voice flat.

"Rui, be hiding in the corner. Robert watch Rui and Crescent- take that side." Scar hefted his gun and thrusted it into his chest. "Crescent, unlock it." I dashed to the door, taking the keys frantically and hurriedly worked my way down the long keychain.

"David, can you be fighting still?"

The Unovan boy said nothing, merely looking to his arm, prying his fingers off the gaping wound as he allowed it to bleed freely, and nodded. Scar stared a moment, and then reached into his bag and fished out a length of gauze that he wrapped around his arm tightly. "Do you need anything else to fight?"

David shook his head, face shifting into something mean, and for some reason Rui flinched. Scar nodded, pulling out his axe and cracking his back, "Be watching the other side."

And they arrived, three on Scar's side, two on David's, as I made my way quickly through the keys-

David made the first noise he had since he'd started fighting, unleashing a wild roar and sprinting down the hall at a breakneck speed, causing the first of the creature's to flinch long enough for the blood-stained Unovan to get under it, scooping up the smaller creature and pinning it against his body, picking it up and ignoring its attempts to awkwardly stab into his back as he continued charging- crashing into the second, who could not find a way to strike through its brethren, who was scooped up as well, and into the third that came around the corner, and slamming the pile of writhing limbs into the wall at the end of the short hallway, roaring again as he dove in to brawl with them-

"Holy fuck, what are the feeding kids in Unova these days?"

Scar was a bit more relaxed, allowing the first to arrive, sidestepping the first blow, then stepping into the second, slamming his head against the smaller creature's, and then bringing his axe up in an uppercut that burrowed deep into its chin, leaving it screaming in pain. Scar stared a moment, using the axe sticking into its face to force it at a distance, before shifting, slamming the axe into the wall, splitting its head open, before moving to the next-

Two more keys, and no luck. I grunted in frustration-

"Try the one…four, no, five keys- wait, duck!"

Distracted by my fiddling with the keys, I was not prepared to dodge, and found myself flying upwards to the ceiling, towards a duct-

I kicked and flailed and screamed, clawing at the bind, to no avail, and brought my teeth down on them in desperation in an attempt to free myself as the bindings tightened against me, a pain far worse than that I'd felt in the sewers of Goldenrod mere weeks ago, my body contorting against itself-

BANG BANG BANG

I fell to the ground, dazed, my ears again ringing, finding myself looking up at a wincing Robert, his own eyes closed in discomfort as his smoking gun chased the blood-stained tentacles further back into the vents. I scrambled across the floor, finding the keys again, and grasped them with shaking hands rising again-

And finding myself tackled to the ground, I screamed against the ringing in my ears, squirming and punching against the force, pausing only when I recognized a flash of orange hair-

The door I was standing in front of trembled, and then was blown off its hinges by a brown blur. Several more shots were fired, and Scar quickly returned, scooping up Rui and dragging her inside the room, as David returned, knife in hand, again painted in a fresh coat of red and blue, and dragged me in as well, racing ahead of the others, throwing aside the desk between him and the window in the corner, and swung open the window-

"Dere's a pool at the bottom. The Kabuto at da bottom are animatronics. Go for it."

I looked down at the pool in question, and the breath in my chest hitched, the distance between me and the water seeming to stretch on forever, the flesh where my knife had once scraped my side burning and I tensed-

"I… can't jump down. Heights are…"

"The hell do you mean? Grow a pair and Ju-"

The screaming in my head was interupted by one of David's hands on my shoulder, a look in his eyes approaching understanding, "Don't worry, ya don't have to jump, dere's another way down."

"…Really?"

The crass Unovan smiled reassuringly, squeezing my shoulder reassuringly, "Promise."

I stared at him a moment longer, before at the door- Robert's, "GO ALREADY!"

David's look carried a moment longer, morphing into something less reassuring, his grip hardening into something less comforting-

I didn't have enough time to dart away before his other arm grabbed ahold of me, and only had time to scream as we both hurtled out the window, the water reaching up to meet us-

I emerged from the water gasping for air, dragging myself over the edge of the pool that was indeed there- a portable kiddie kind, perhaps four feet deep, my tailbone ached from the impact at the bottom, but I was alive-

"You deserved it."

I looked up at the full moon, my eyes taking a moment to adapt the darkness, and David drew up next to me, layer after layer of blood washing off him as he dragged his way out.

Two thuds sounded out as Scar's bags hit the ground on the other side od the small pool, and another as the man overshot the pool and rolled on his side ten more feet to disperse the force of his fall, before quickly standing up and unwrapping himself from a shocked looking Rui. Two more thuds were heard as Robert's rucksack and Scar's rifle hit the ground next, and I heard a scream behind me, growing closer until it culminated in a splash, and Scar against spoke:

"Move."

We rushed to our respective bags, and wet and cold ran into the forest in the night, stopping neither for the burning in our legs or the emptiness in our lungs, save the animatronic Scar spared a moment to decapitate. We ran and ran and ran, until it felt like the building behind us had merely been a nightmare.

...ugh, not gonna lie. That theory earlier is messing with my head- thankfully, there's an antidote- alcoholism. It also happens I intend to summon the great, the magnificent ME: already have the pentagram of coffee grounds and gunpowder drawn on the floor, now I just need my good buddy Jack Daniels...keep your heads up tonight, and depending on how long it takes, and how school is tomorrow...there might just be a surprise for ya.