A/N:
I want to clarify this once again. The views of the characters in this story are not necessarily my own.
Thank you once again to Orthros for proof reading this chapter. It's really a huge help and ensures that the more inferior work does not make it through.
If you like this story, please consider checking out my Explorers of Sky fic, Into Darkness.
"…" - Spoken dialogue
Italics - Michael's thoughts
'Italics' - Telepathic dialogue
/\/\/\ - Lemon Scene
"When you dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change. The devil changes you."
-Amanda Hocking
Ch. 28 - The Arrangement
Michael slowly picked himself off the ground the following morning, feeling pain lance throughout his entire body. Sometime during the attack he had lost consciousness, and yet not a single scratch actually remained on his body. The only way someone would even know that something of the sort had happened last night was by the blood spread across the room. He was sore all over with nothing to show for it.
Once again he was reminded of the sheer strength that pokémon possessed. While he was strong enough to give Layla a real fight, there was a massive difference between a four foot tall lucario with sweet intentions and a sceptile that was his height - one that likely wished had the permission to kill him. Michael eventually managed to stand up, albeit gradually, and walked over towards the sink. He went about washing the dried-up blood off of his face. If he was able to bust out of here, then he might even try to go out of his way to kill her. That is, if he could even manage such a task. After last night, he wasn't so confident.
Breakfast was eventually delivered to the room, but nothing else - no call to escort him anywhere. Not that he was complaining about that of course. He sat down and began to eat, thinking of how everyone must be back at base. He had taken careful note of Stone's forces on the map of Kanto, and just as the insurgent had said, it would only be a matter of time. The terrorists had been pushed out of Viridian, which made passage into Johto more difficult, but they'd taken Pewter - the closer of the two cities to the CIC headquarters and Johto's Army's… or what was left of that, anyways. Currently the whole base was undergoing reconstruction, so no soldiers were stationed there, making an attack at that location unlikely.
And what of the girls? Since there were currently only insurgents occupying Pewter, there was absolutely no closure as to what had happened to him. Of course in the lack of this closure, it was easy to assume the worst. Everyone probably had already. How he wished that he could send some sort of message to tell them he was okay. At least, for the time being. He wished that he hadn't been so distant from them these past few days, and that he'd been softer and more respectful towards them. He hadn't meant to be so tense around them, or around anyone else for that matter, but the memories of Zeke were still fresh in his mind. And now it was probably going to be a mistake that he would never get to undo.
Michael hadn't been given any method to tell time, but it had to be at least an hour after that before the door was opened. Looked like it was time to go once again. He didn't know how much longer they would go at this little game - him being led around like this and shown the facility, or having to listen to Stone's ramblings about greater goods and whatnot. Whatever the terrorist leader wanted with Michael, it couldn't be good. And sooner or later he would find out.
Today he was led somewhere else; rather than take him to Douglas' office, they met with the man outside. In front of them were hundreds of enemies out and about, doing drills and the like. One unit in particular was doing a pushup routine in which they would hold a certain position until the instructor said to continue. Michael personally remembered that one when he was in training. Douglas gave him a slight nod, acknowledging his presence before looking back towards the men. "Thank you. You may leave us now," he said to the guards. They did as they were told, and Michael was once again alone with his two least favorite people in the world. "Tell me," he started, "when you look at these people, what do you see?"
Michael sighed inwardly. "Why ask a question you already know the answer to? They're terrorists, just like you."
"Maybe. Not the answer I was going for, though - we'll try to rephrase that. What do you think I see in them?" Michael glanced towards the militants for a moment, watching as the determined enemies proved their stamina and their endurance. Many of them had tattoos - some of them were covered in them. All of them looked like rough people, which wasn't exactly surprising.
"A bunch of thugs. Maybe they had nothing else going for them and resorted to a life of crime. Some of society's lowest." Douglas smiled, then motioned for him to follow as he headed back to one of the main buildings.
"Now you're getting somewhere. Actually… you are a hundred percent right." Hearing those words actually came across as surprising to Michael. But before he could give it any major thought, Douglas continued speaking. "See, there are two major groups of people that work for me. I like to call them the grunts and the thinkers. Don't let any of them hear me say that, though," he said with a chuckle. "Anyways, as you can tell, there is a lot of work that we have to do. I've set up shop in most of the regions, and these jobs require a lot of people. People are the most important resource, you see. I can have all the guns in the world - all the money - but without people, nothing will get done. I simply can't do it all myself. No one can. And with the military, the police, homeland security - all of them on my back - I am in constant need of people.
"But again, there are two types of people here. You have generally run into the grunts. See, I can bust a man outta prison, or pay that crack-addict's or that car jacker's bail far easier than I can convince formerly law-abiding citizens to start working with me. And really, the types of jobs that each group gets truly reflects their value within this whole mission. Those grunts you see out there? I doubt most of them will make it two years. Not gonna shed any tears over some worthless prison rats. They absorb the bullets so that the thinkers don't have to; they sell the drugs, the weapons, the people - they get caught or killed, and they either go back to the shithole that I dug them out of, or they get put in the ground where they belong. Either way, it's all fine by me. We got what we needed out of them."
"So then the thinkers are the ones that run things," Michael said.
"Yes, the thinkers are the ones who truly understand why we do what we do - the ones that help me call the shots. They actually give a fuck about what we're doing here; they're not here to just make some cash like those grunts. And most of them aren't exactly the fighting type anyways. Don't get me wrong, some of them are - take Vlad for example. He was with me from the very beginning. Fled Hoenn with me and taught me how to fight well. But the vast majority are the white-collar workers in there - the scientists, the engineers, the economists and all sorts of strategists. That'd be a damn waste to have guys like that getting shot at. No, I need them on the ideological and logistical fronts." Of course, that made sense - that was merely the concept of specialization. Stone certainly hadn't been the first to utilize that idea.
"So then Ethan was one of those." At the mention of Michael's father's name, Douglas's expression visibly dropped.
"Yeah, and a damn good one too. But aside from that, he was a true friend and a true patriot. He knew what needed to be done and was never afraid to do it. Whether business was going smoothly or not, Ethan always had my back and never gave up on our goal. Just like me, he knew that all this would one day have a net positive effect on the world. That never stopped the nightmares from coming - never washes away the guilt - but it was always something we could look forward to together, the day when people like us would never have to do stuff like this again. The day when the hard-working man would be free from the degeneracy of the left." He looked at Michael for a moment and shook his head. "Funny, he always talked about how proud he was of you. Sometimes he'd call just to talk about how well you were doing in school and whatnot. And then you go and you put a bullet in him."
"He pulled a gun on me…"
"After you threatened to take him in. That shows you what kind of a man he truly was. As much as he loved you, Ethan chose to side with what he believed in, even in the very face of death. Even when it was you who delivered it to him. Always was like that - even knew that it might come to something like that one day. Shit, you have no idea how terrified he was when you joined the military. He had absolutely convinced himself that you'd wind up dead in some mission against us. Turns out he was worrying about the wrong person's life.
"I'm not gonna lie to you - that shit still pisses me off. He and I built all of this, and now he'll never get to see our goal carried out to completion. And yet… despite what you've done, I'm willing to give you the opportunity to make that shit up." Michael silently pondered those words as they continued walking.
Douglas had eventually led him to their destination - the cafeteria of the facility. There was relatively little activity in the massive room, likely due to the current time. A large digital clock was positioned over the main doorway, showing the time to be nearing eleven. "We're gonna go ahead and grab lunch now. I don't ever like being in here when stuff really starts up," Douglas said. The three of them went through the empty buffet line, then picked a table near the corner of the room. Michael ate slowly, hoping that the meal would be mostly in silence. Of course, it was anything but.
"I have to say, though, I'm sure that the realization was hard for you."
"What?"
"Finding out that your father worked with me. All this time, you had signed up to kill traffickers and the like. I'm sure that you never would have imagined it would lead you back to your own house. No, I can't truly be mad at you for the matter - you didn't know what it was that we were doing here. All you knew was that he dealt with some nasty people, and it was your mission to put an end to stuff like that. It was never part of the mission to think for yourself - it never is. Doesn't matter how smart you are; it's the people above that are responsible for the actions of the soldiers.
"But now it's time for you to really start thinking for yourself. I know you've got it in you, too - never met a dumbass that was the valedictorian of their university. Yeah, your father always loved to brag on that one," he said with a laugh. "I want you to ask yourself this: which side truly has the best in mind for society? I can completely agree with you that traffickers and drug dealers need to be eliminated - they have no problem absolutely destroying other people for their own benefit.'
"Well that seems a tad bit hypocritical…"
"Yeah, but you know my reasons. It's a necessary evil, and one that will never again be needed after we finish our mission. No, we'll make damn well sure that it doesn't happen again. I imagine someone's gonna think twice about cooking up drugs to sell on the street, especially when the crime for that is a bullet to the head. Not one person will be willing to sell another's head when they could risk having their own removed. Once we gain control of real militaries and PMCs, then that will be it. We're first going to be purging our own ranks. For all those that dealt in the drug markets, there will be one chance to leave that shit behind for good. Of course, the guys that actually did any trafficking better start running. They are the enemy and will be hunted down as such.
"So as you can see, the members of my group that are actually worth a shit really do have the best interests of society in mind, regardless of what it might look like for the time being. This is all just a means to an end. I mean, is it better for us to have to engage in a little bit of nasty business now and be able to ultimately wipe out similar activity for the rest of time, or should we sit by and allow for the degenerates of society to run it into the ground? Wouldn't you say it's better to plan for the long term? The net positive is not something you can ignore - not when these markets get shut down completely. By selling one person now, my organization will prevent a hundred from being sold in the future. You can't deny that such a trade-off is worth it."
"It's not your call to make decisions like that," Michael countered.
"Ah, so we're playing this game again," Douglas said. "Look, we can both pretend for a second that people are naturally good and that they won't do shit like this to each other, but we'd just be deceiving ourselves. The majority of these countries I'm dealing in are either stupid or immoral. But we're changing the entire atmosphere." He stood up, getting ready to take up his empty tray. "They need to be led away from the future that the left has in mind, and we're going to do just that."
. . . . .
Days passed in a relatively similar manner - Douglas would either stop by or have Michael delivered to him, to which he'd lead the Reaper around for the day, trying to convince him of his ideals or showing him how exactly his organization operated. Michael was getting more than a little tired of the whole thing. Over a week had passed and they'd kept at the same useless game. Stone was still trying to make some sort of an appeal to Michael without even letting him in on what exactly it was that he wanted from him.
Truth be told, Douglas was incredibly hard to really understand. He was so sure of his mission, so wrapped up in what it was that he was trying to accomplish, that he had blinded himself to what he was actually doing. He truly felt that this was best, and knew that eventually it would lead to his own downfall. But yet that didn't seem to have an effect on him whatsoever.
That wasn't what scared Michael the most though. The more he looked around, the harder a potential escape was looking. There seemed to be no way out of the facility other than through the main entrance, which had more than a few men guarding it. The Reaper didn't want to accept the fact that he would likely never see his loved ones again - not while Douglas was still here and in control. The only thing Michael could do was either bide his time, accept his fate, or… No, he thought, why the hell would I even think something like that? But… it wouldn't exactly hurt to ask, would it? Of course he wouldn't cooperate with such a man, but there was no harm in trying to find out exactly what Stone wanted him to do.
He thought it over for a day or two, and eventually arrived at the conclusion that he might as well ask. One morning - a Sunday if Michael was keeping track of the days correctly - Douglas personally came into his room, leaving the door slightly open behind him. He had bags under his eyes, and was obviously tired from his slower pace. Raptor stood beside him, watching over him carefully to make sure he was okay.
"'Morning," Douglas said with a yawn. "I apologize for my appearance today. Last night was a long one. Your asshole country decided to blockade the waterways around Kanto, so I had to try and figure out something. Now I gotta deal with that and all those troops near the capitol…"
"Huh, sad."
"Yeah… But it's all good. Minor change of plans, that's all. All I gotta do is nuke the city and I'll still topple the region." Michael shook his head, making sure he heard that correctly.
"Wait… you have nukes?" Douglas nodded.
"A few of them, but enough to get the job done. That shit was hard to build, too. You have no idea the kind of resources went into getting those." He looked over at Raptor and smiled. "But soon it will pay off. You don't have anything to worry about - the CIC is not a worthwhile target for a forty-one megaton hydrogen bomb. They'll certainly hear the noise though," he said with a laugh.
"Arceus… you've lost your mind… you're going to start a global war…"
"Wrong. It will be another year or so before I have enough maneuverability to pull it off. I've got politicians in high places in all countries - ready to be done with this bullshit. Once we strike it will be lights out for Kanto's government, and then it's time to really get to work. This isn't about just that region - never was. We're purging the disease from this whole planet. And by giving them something to fear - a leveled city or two will do - I'll be sparing dozens of other regions from the same fate. With higher-ups in their government backing me, and with an arsenal like what I've got, how many of them do you think will be willing to fight me? I guarantee you the cowardly left won't raise a finger to stop me - they're all too much of pussies for that kind of shit."
"But the right will, and you know it," Michael answered him.
"Yeah, that's a concern of mine, and it's something we're facing now. Hell, that's why you're here in the first place. The right wing generally does have a sense of justice about stuff like this. But… there are so few members of the true right wing. Sinnoh and Johto are my concerns for the time being, but of course I'll need to focus on the other regions as well.
"No, I think they will realize this revolution before us, and even be willing to participate in this fight. I'm almost to the point where I don't have to sell people or pokémon any more, after all. And the groups that I had that did such a thing? Almost none of them are traceable to me. You've caught some higher ups, tortured them, and gotten some pretty fake-ass confessions most of the time. Of course, Razor decided to be a prick and sell out your father. But most of the information you've been fed has only contributed to you and your friends killing off people that I would probably have had killed anyways. You all may know, but other than that, the trafficking market for the most part is untraceable to me. It could be anyone for all the left knows. All that matters is that the right wing will see the revolution unraveling before them. I think I'll get more support than you know from them - even from your own friends, perhaps. People are sick and tired of being treated like shit by the radical left. It's time to return the favor." Michael only hoped that somehow, Douglas could be finished off before any of that could happen.
"How do I factor into any of this?" Michael asked after a moment of silence.
"You're not gonna like to hear this, but it's the truth. I am looking right now at a mirror image of Ethan. You are his son, and you sound exactly like him. He wasn't so sure about our objective to begin with either, but he came on board and he got shit done. The man was passionate about his ideals and didn't stand down for shit - that's what I've seen in you so far. Hell, you were even willing to kill your own father over your ideals. And he was willing to do the same thing to you. The two of you have far more in common than you could ever begin to realize. I think he would be proud."
"No," Michael answered, "my father died with hatred for me. All his feelings for me switched off the moment I told him one thing he didn't like."
"Well that's news to me. Of course, I wasn't there, so I wouldn't know. But whatever you said to him, I'm sure the anger must have been conditional. You did, after all, end up ruining his chance of seeing the mission get carried out."
"How sad. Couldn't witness his dream of ideological genocide within all the regions."
"But you are your father's son. I think that you will be able to have some of the appeal to target groups as he did. I guarantee that you won't be able to manage money worth a shit - not like he did. I'm going to need someone else for that. But if I can get a renowned war hero to start appealing to Johto's right wing… and one group in particular is just itching for a fight."
"You don't mean…"
"Oh yes. They would help me. After all, they're willing to lynch and kill these very same people," Douglas replied. "I know they'd have it in them to come on board. And that would make this whole fight a done deal - if the Assembly was causing trouble within Johto's boundaries. See all this time I've never really conducted a lot of business in your home region. There's been no need to. But I'm concerned that Johto and Sinnoh, being as close as they are, might be able to stop this operation. I'm holding them back for now, but it's consuming more resources than you could imagine. If Johto was occupied within its own boundaries, though, I doubt that they'd be as willing to interfere in foreign affairs…"
"So you want me to try and sink my country into a civil war so that you can take over a region?"
"Several regions, but yes. And don't think for one second that Johto is gonna take a serious hit. Your country is nothing like this population of cowards that we're subduing - Johto is truly a land of strength and of perseverance. They will rebuild whatever damages occur, and I will most certainly be pitching in." Michael simply looked at him, and despite the situation, actually managed to smile.
"Ah, well good luck with that. Even if I wanted to cooperate with you, they'd just as soon kill me too."
"That's interesting," Douglas said. "So I take it you've been screwing pokémon?" He hated to hear it put that way… "Didn't expect such a thing, but hell, to each their own. I don't personally give a shit about that matter in particular. Anyways, here's a thought - why the hell would they have to know? You wouldn't need to tell them shit about your personal life, especially if it was something like that. All that matters is that a war hero could kick off their militaristic spirit, and before long they'll be ready to join the cause."
"They'd find out, and they'd pull that same shit that they've been doing to all those others. They'd try to kill me and my pokémon. Not a chance in hell I'd go near them. But they seem like a good fit for what your people do - targeting and murdering innocent people, all while labeling it as the greater good."
"Well let's actually make this relatable," Douglas said. "Do you support the death penalty for murderers?"
"Yeah, without a doubt. The punishment fits the crime. Take a life and yours should be taken."
"Great. I'm glad you feel that way. Now what do you think about abortion?"
"I think that it's murder, and that—." Michael stopped speaking, knowing that he'd just backed himself into a corner. Son of a bitch…
"Do I even need to continue?" Douglas asked. "This is what we do. We make them reap what they sow. And don't think for one second that I'm willing to let the Assembly by with what they are doing. All will pay the price for their actions. But the left has managed to convince people that they shouldn't have to deal with consequences - they shouldn't have to be responsible, mature adults. A bunch of self entitled children is all they are. Well if that's how they want to act, then someone has to man up and be the parent." He slowly got to his feet, apparently content enough with the course of the conversation to end it. Raptor silently joined him by the door. "I'll give you some time to think it all over. Can't expect anyone to make a decision of that scale on such a short notice."
Pretty soon, Michael was left alone in his cell, with only his thoughts to accompany him. He hadn't been expecting anything like that - to have to actually put his own views under inspection due to the words of a terrorist. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that there was ideological inconsistency in what he believed. Though his methods were abominable, maybe not all of Douglas' ideals were incorrect…
What the hell is wrong with me, Michael thought in annoyance. I can't seriously be letting some mentally deranged murderer get to me… Now he knew that there was no chance in hell that he'd decide to go along with Stone's plan, but he couldn't deny that this insane person had somehow managed to make Michael reevaluate his own views. I need to sleep on it, he eventually concluded. Not like he'd been left with anything else to do here anyways…
. . . . .
For hours upon hours, nobody came by, with the exceptions of the guards that dropped off his meals. The Reaper sat down, eating while he thought about how his girls were doing back at the base. Everyone probably assumed he was dead by now. Alaina was even unlikely able to establish any sort of communication with him like she had back when he'd first met her - for all he knew, this base could be located on the opposite side of the world. And legendary or not, she still had her limitations.
Cutting the meat was rather difficult with the plastic cutlery he had been given, They'd given him a t-bone steak of all entrees, to which he had eventually just resorted to eating it without the use of utensils. But as he had finished the meal, he had come to realize something. Left on the plastic plate was now a bone. They had been careful not to give him any sort of metal, but they hadn't thought this one through. Michael picked it up and ran his fingers along the edge, finding the tip to be easily sharp enough to do what he needed. He went over to the sink and began to wash off the remnants of meat before closing a fist around it. The long part extended three inches from between his middle and ring finger. Alright… This will do. But if he wanted to make it out alive, he would have to gather some information first - mainly their location. Not to mention he would have to pull everything off just perfectly. Even then it was highly unlikely that things would go in his favor, but he would be damned if he wouldn't try.
Footsteps could be heard approaching the door, among them being the familiar scraping of metal: an armored tail being dragged across the floor. Michael quickly ran over to his bed and hid the bone under the pillow, only to make it with a few seconds to spare. Raptor flung the door open and entered. "You again…"
"Yes, me again," she said slamming the door behind her. It wasn't long before she started to remove her armor just as she had a week prior. As much as he wanted to stick his makeshift shank into her neck, he would still have to deal with the guards outside, and approaching them from a distance with nothing but a sharp bone would be suicidal. Best to wait for when he would be right beside one or two of them.
"Why do you even wear that around here?" Michael asked as she slipped off her wrist piece.
"I'm here to put you in your place, not answer your questions."
"It just seems stupid, wearing a heavy set of armor like that only to have to take it off here. But then again, if you were even remotely smart, then you wouldn't be on his side." She actually managed a low laugh.
"Just for that, I'm going to stay here twice as long." Finally she managed to remove the last piece of her suit - the helmet. "Douglas isn't expecting me back for awhile anyways. I got the time to kill." She slammed the helmet down onto the table before starting towards him. Michael had learned from their last fight that he was stronger than her - and that made sense. He had probably sixty or seventy pounds over her. But her speed was something he couldn't keep up with at all, and it was generally enough to knock him down within a few minutes. But he refused to not at least fight back.
She leaped towards him and struck him in the face before he could react. Michael's world went blank for a moment as he tried to pick himself off of the floor before he would suffer another blow like that. Raptor wasted no time, delivering a swift kick to his stomach and causing him to clutch his abdomen in pain. "Shit, did you get weaker since our last fight?" she taunted. "You're almost taking the fun out of this. Almost."
At this rate, he was going to go out quicker than he had last time - if he couldn't find a way to slow her down, then he'd be out within another minute or so. But if he could find some way to hinder her speed… He managed to get back onto his feet, quickly ducking under another head-level strike before running towards his bed. Michael had almost made it before the sceptile had swung her tail around and swept his legs. "How in the hell are you a Reaper? Is this all that humans are capable of?" He grabbed the bedpost and picked himself up.
"I'll show you something bitch," he muttered. As expected, she charged him once again, but this time he had planned for it. The Reaper quickly grabbed the bedsheets and flung them towards her, causing them to open up mid-air as he followed it up with a harsh strike to where her face was. The second she stumbled back he swung the fabric around her backside and back around again, effectively entangling her within as he took her to the ground. She squirmed around wildly as he punched her over and over again, intending to end her life with each strike.
A loud rip sounded as she shredded the sheets with her right hand. A quick slash upward, and he immediately gripped the left side of his face. Three deep claw marks going up from his cheek and to his forehead, his eye barely being between two of them. Not a second had passed before she kicked him off and violently ripped the sheets off of herself. She was bleeding from a mouth twisted with feral hatred. The beast closed the distance between the two of them and punched him with all of her might. Michael's ear began ringing as he tried to get off of his back. But not this time.
Raptor sunk her claws into his shoulders, pinning him to the ground. "I'm going to make you fucking pay for that," she growled as she yanked out her claws. He was powerless to stop her as she pounded him repeatedly. But in her carnal rage, one slash had gone too far - something she had not accounted for. Her heavy breathing came to a halt as her eyes went wide. Michael instinctively clutched his bleeding throat. "Oh fuck… Oh fuck…" He didn't know how deep this was, nor how far it had gone to the side. If it had hit either the jugular or the carotid, then he wouldn't be waking up this time. As his consciousness began to fade away, he could see the sceptile quickly grabbing her things and pounding on the door, sprinting out as soon as it opened.
Shit, he thought as everything went black.
A/N:
Let me know in the review section what you all thought about this chapter.
