Disclaimer to beat all the disclaimers evah. I don't own Pokemon. Honestly, I'm sure there are plenty of people who are happy for that.
Her scream was loud enough to shatter glass, but the man holding her didn't seem to falter from it. Her kicking didn't phase him, her struggles didn't make him utter a single grunt. She only stilled when she felt metal make contact with her temple, cold and heartless. "Move or make a sound and you die, girl," the man behind her hissed. Another man, clad in black with a blood-red R upon his chest walked forward and placed a cloth against her head, tying it tightly behind her head. She squeaked. He tied her hands behind her back soon after and she whimpered softly, scared of the metal still pressed to her temple, scared that it would harm her. Suddenly, the floor left her and she was held by her waist until she was thrown, unceremoniously, into a the back seat of a car. She whimpered as metal scraped metal and the car started with a short complaint from the engine.
"Stealing nine-year-olds," a man in the front scoffed idly. It scared the young girl in the back seat that he knew anything about her, no less her age. She pressed her face into the leather seat, sobbing against it. Her only comfort.
At that very moment, the child's mother was so close to breaking through his secret she could almost smell his anxiety like the sleeping Arcanine on her office floor, despite the fact the in-consideration gym leader for Viridian City was currently a few thousand kilometers from where she sat. The thirty year old man, Giovanni Sakaki, had bottled his past up tighter than a nuclear bomb, showing nothing but good: a graduation from high school with top scores, a double-major university degree via scholarship in finance and business/management, more charitable event showings than most of the other gym leaders in Kanto, combined, including pouring over twenty-five million Pokeyen into orphanages and Pokemon Centers across the region; not even his tax reports had anything odd in them, they matched up exactly to his business, Sakaki Corporation's, reports. He was so clean, the thirty-three year old woman had taken it upon herself to look into his history and had been one of the only officers in the International Police's Department of Leaders to deny him access to the Viridian City gym keys. Her superiours were getting awfully sick of waiting for her report to come in and her unwavering suspicion to die down; the small gym had been without a leader for months and antsy challengers were beginning to send in angry letters that they had to sift through.
But the truth was, she was ever so close. It had only been a few days, but a business transaction fell through between Sakaki and the owner of a popular chain of Pokemon Markets in the region for somewhat unknown regions. The woman had jumped on the opportunity, she had seized it. Unlike all other businessmen who had dealt with Sakaki, this man had nothing but bitterness in his tongue. The two had agreed the thirty-year old entrepreneur was too clean and too sharp. During that interaction, it was told that one of Sakaki's ingredients in a Pokemon medicine was illegal, although he had renamed it to make it sound cleaner than it was. The man had slipped up and for once, she wasn't going to let him weasel his way out. Apparently, the Pokemart CEO wasn't quite willing to let him, either. It was one lead, but it was enough to get her foot in the door and press for a search warrant of Sakaki Corporation. The building itself would likely be clean, but what Sakaki didn't have to know was the search wouldn't be for the ingredient in his medicine but for more leads to what he was really doing under his clean facade. She knew if they could just get into that one building, a whole web of lies would untwist.
She looked over his files again on the laptop in her lap. He got away with so much, she felt, due to his charming looks. He was most definitely attractive, his smile revealed no hidden darkness. He was never seen without a three-piece suit, though she felt that was more out of arrogance. She flipped over to a document, beginning to peck away at the keys on her keyboard to request a search warrant on him. Maybe I'll be able to go home early today, she smiled, typing quicker.
A black box popped up on her screen, obscuring her text and reading, in crimson letters, 'SHOULDN'T YOU BE AT HOME WITH YOUR DAUGHTER?' She grimaced, clicking the 'X' in the corner to make it go away. It made her heart skip a beat, but it was harmless. A prank played on her by a coworker, nothing more. She kept typing. It was only ten seconds later when hundreds of the pop-ups spammed her screen, accompanied with emblazoned red R's. 'SHOULDN'T YOU BE AT HOME WITH YOUR DAUGHTER? SHOULDN'T YOU BE AT HOME WITH YOUR DAUGHTER? SHOULDN'T YOU BE AT HOME WITH YOUR DAUGHTER? SHOULDN'T YOU BE AT HOME WITH YOUR DAUGHTER?' She stood up, sending the laptop crashing to the floor, cracking the screen. The sleeping Arcanine looked up immediately from the loud thud. She ran out of the room with the canine close at her heels.
Another loud scream as she was thrown into a cold, stone floor. Her surroundings had gone from cigarette smoke from her kidnappers to clean, fresh air and then to a horrible smell she could only identify as disease and her Meowth's litter box. She didn't even have time to wretch at the horrible smell before a hand grabbed her by her tied wrist and pulled her up forcefully. The ropes were untied and the blindfold removed, and she recoiled from fear from the man's face being mere centimeters away from hers, his grin twisted and his eyes dark. She looked past him and gasped, her eyes widening as she saw she was in what looked like a prison. Metal bars went from floor to ceiling, too close together for even a cat to slip through. Without thinking she screeched, "where am I? Who are you?" The man laughed at the same tone of a screeching violin.
"You're in Rocket base, sweetie," he said, reaching out and touching her cheek. She gritted her teeth and jumped back. He responded by backhanding her with enough force to send her careening into the wall head-first. She screamed in agony. "If you're going to play like that, Odette," she cringed at his knowledge, "then I'll make sure you're fed to some Golbats. If you're nice, you'll get sold instead." He watched her curl up and shake in fear and he grinned. "Now, now, Odette," he hissed icily, "you're going to be kept here for quite a bit, due to some circumstances. You're never going to see your mommy again," she broke into loud sobs, "but don't worry. Hopefully," he walked to the door, "you'll get sold to a nice man. I doubt it." Another horrible laugh and she watched him slam the cell door shut and lock her away.
Odette pulled herself up, holding her bleeding cheek in her hand. The room was dark and dank, a place unlike anything she had seen or heard about except in horrible tales. What did I do..? she asked herself before pounding on the cell door and screaming, "what did I do?!" There was no answer. The man had disappeared without a trace. "What is... sold?" she asked quietly, choking on her own question. Could humans even be sold? She didn't even know Pokemon could be sold. She had heard some people would offer items of high value for special Pokemon, but never did she think even Pokemon could be sold.
She didn't see the man for days afterwards. Odette was weak with hunger and dehydration when he finally returned much later. He brought her some water, mentioning something about her dying would lose Team Rocket "a decent little fortune". He had stayed even after she finished the jug of water off, right outside her cell, watching her like an animal. She shivered, looking at him with fear in her eyes as he looked at her with the boredom of a zookeeper looking at a sleeping sloth.
"I... I..." she stuttered before falling silent, tears pricking at her eyes. "Wh-what did I do? What did I do to deserve... this?" She looked around as tears streamed down her face. She had spent much of the past few days remembering the moments before she had walked into her apartment flat, into the grip of a man she didn't recognise. She had walked home from school like usual with a friend. They had parted ways with anxiety about a test the next day, both promising the other they would study hard for it and compare notes the next day. Did her friend wonder where she had been? Did her teachers notice her absence was unusual for her? Was her mother working to find her? She had cried and beaten her fist into bruises, pounding against the cell doors as she shouted hundreds of questions to no one. But now, she was finding herself unable to ask questions to the creepy man with the twisted grin.
He laughed at her and she recoiled against the wall, trapped in a corner. "You didn't do anything. Blame your mommy, Odette. Your mommy did this to you." Her eyes widened and she shook her head, hair flying around her face. "Oh, but she did," he promised, tapping his foot impatiently.
"N-no, she didn't!" Odette cried, but it was unsure, full of uncertainty. Her worldview had shattered. Bad things didn't happen to kids, she had told herself her entire life, though she knew from her mother that wasn't true at all. "She couldn't..." still uncertain. The violin-screech laughter echoed through the cell and she covered her ears.
"Believe what you want, kiddo. We're gonna fetch a high price for you," he purred, tapping the cells. "A little girl like you, with your pretty little orange hair, you'll go for a good price, people like girls like you." She shivered. His words felt like ice to her spine.
"...You can't sell a person," she murmured, only to be met with the ear-piercing howl of laughter from him. "You can't do that! Slavery doesn't exist!" Another cackle. She swallowed.
"Oh, slavery exists, child."
"N-no... I... I can't be sold, my mom's gonna find you if you put me for sale!" she barked, balling her fists. "See? You can't!" The older man laughed at her and she looked at the floor, broken. "What will they do to me if... if... if you get away with it?" she whispered softly.
Suddenly, the man looked more interested, licking his lips and opening the cell. She pressed herself against the corner harder, shivering violently. "Let me show you, then." She shook her head. "Oh, no, you can't back out now, you asked, Odette."
He grabbed her, pulling her up against the wall, his eyes looking over her body that she tried to cover up in shame. She screamed as he wrenched her school uniform away, tearing it off her violently. Scrambling to move, she turned, but was only met with hard hands that pushed her face into the wall and shoved her body upwards. A rip in her lip from her teeth filled her mouth with blood and she could only just see the blood on the wall, smeared from the scrapes on her forehead.
What the Rocket did next made her feel like she was going to be torn in two. Tears erupted from her eyes and her scream turned to silence. She saw only white and heard only blood in her ears. For the next few moments she swore she was being sawed in half; she grabbed at the stone wall covered in grime, scraping it in a feeble attempt to escape. Her nails cracked, broke and bled. As soon as she had been pushed up the wall she was dropped. With weak knees she fell to the floor, curling up and sobbing, shaking violently. She grabbed her head, digging fragments of nails into her scalp as she screamed. Screamed at what he'd done to her, screamed at herself for ever asking the question.
The man threw her uniform at her and closed her cell with a loud clash of metal on metal. "That is what your future is," he said, chuckling. "Maybe you'll get a nice man who will spend more time with you. Wouldn't that be nice?" She responded with sobs and he walked away. There was nothing in her mind except blood-covered walls and broken nails.
She saw the man everyday after that. It was always an unceremonious visit. He would stare at her with a bored look, Odette being in the darker corner of her cell while she would glare at him with blinding hatred, although something had changed about his demeanor, but she wasn't sure what it was. He would open the door and throw her food in at her feet, then he would leave without a word exchanged between them; she had learned that asking questions led to bad things, things she never wanted to experience again. But between his visits, she would limp laps around the cell, still bruised from his assault, pondering her fate. Odette knew one thing: she would have to change her position. She knew escape was impossible; she had tried. Instead she began to think of how to convince the creepy man to do something. Anything. And she knew she only had so much time. The thought of asking her enemy to help clawed at her mind, but he was the only one who she ever saw. She had wondered if he ever got sick and would ever need a substitute to check in with her. She doubted it.
The other half of her time, she spent having nightmares and waking up in a fetal position, shaking violently and digging at her scalp until it bled. She would cry and scream and beg the air to tell her what she had done and if she was about to die and why couldn't she breathe? And just as soon as she would scream the question she would fall unconscious for a while until her body had enough air. She never knew how long she blacked out like that. Sometimes she would have food in her cell, and the thought of being unconscious while the creepy Rocket was there scared her into another fit.
He returned once more, and she kicked her consumables to the side, looking at him desperately. "Wh-what is Team Rocket like?" she asked quietly, shivering for what may come from any questions. She had only just got the courage pulled up to ask. He looked at her and cackled.
"What, you think you can join? You're going to be getting us money, kiddo." And he left before she could argue. She limped around her cell once more, deep in thought. She had to convince him to free her, and she knew the only way would be to get them more money than she would be 'sold' for. She cringed at the thought, tearing up. Could mommy get them more money than selling me..? No, they won't even bother with that. Her eyebrows knitted. Maybe I can promise to... to somehow get them more money as a member than selling me... yeah! And then... and then I'll tear them down from the inside out! She laughed a broken laugh. I'll pretend I'm one of them and I'll rob people and get lotsa money, then I'll tear 'em down! She smiled for the first time since being locked up, as insincere as it was with gritted teeth, finally grabbing the food he had brought her. "I'll become a little spy for mommy..." she took a bite of her rice ball and chewed. "It'll have to work."
Odette's mother hadn't returned to her post to argue her point about Sakaki since her daughter's disappearance. She was desperately trying to find her daughter, her appearance in discord since the day she had gotten those horrible pop-ups on her laptop. She had begun to work day in and day out, but there were no leads for her daughter, even less than what Sakaki had led to. Her flat had turned into a crime scene, she was sleeping in hotels and yet, not a single finger print was left from the kidnappers. Odette had vanished into thin air, and the International Police had signed the papers over to Sakaki for the Viridian City Gym despite the woman trying desperately to convince them Sakaki had to have done something to her daughter. But without a single trace of evidence to lead to Sakaki in the entire flat, she had to concede and the department had told her to stop being delusional: coincidences happened, the police and their family were targeted by crime syndicates all the time, it was an untold criteria you had to deal with upon sign-up. Another department was on the case of Odette's disappearance and they weren't too invested in it after no evidence of a kidnapping even existed. Posters had gone up of a child with rust-coloured eyes and hair all over Kanto, but not a single person called the report hotline with actual leads. It was hopeless before it started.
People began to start rumours in the large city of Saffron that the reason Odette had disappeared was because her mother was never home and she was almost old enough to go on a Pokemon journey, and without someone to ask, the child had taken into her own hands to begin the journey. The rumour made the mother seethe in anger, but there was nothing she could do about it. You couldn't arrest people for rumours, after all.
A/N: Wooo, I am pretty happy with this. It's gruesome, but I swear I tried to keep the rape-scene as 'non-graphic' as possible, because graphic rape against nine-year-olds isn't freaking cool, yo. But it had to happen. Without it, the story and her decisions literally couldn't happen. I'm sorry if that put you off at all, readers. But I hope those who did get put off by it will at least stop and critique me to how I could write it to be more realistic to her personality after a traumatic event like that.