Time dragged on inside the ball for Gold.
And on.
And on.
And on.
There was no way to tell how much time had passed, no watches, no clocks, nothing but darkness. She tried to struggle, but found it impossible, lacking a physical form.
No... I can't move... I can't escape...
She panicked - a lot of good it did her. After a while of mindless screaming and ranting, trying to attack something, anything, but completely unable to... she managed to calm down. She burnt herself out.
After that she resolved to plotting.
It was really the only thing she could do. Countless scenes spun through her head. Of what she'd like to do to that Charizard. Attacking him. Blasting him. Not stopping until there wasn't a single scrap of evidence that he'd ever existed on this earth.
Thoughts like this began to build her confidence. The moment she was let out of this ball, she'd get him. Flatten him. She was far more powerful than he would ever be...
But time dragged on. She could still vaguely hear what was going on outside the ball; nothing particularly interesting. She'd begun to doze off when the time she'd been waiting for arrived.
Light broke into her consciousness as she felt her body resume its shape. She almost collapsed as she suddenly had to support herself again, after floating formless for so long...
As the blinding light faded, she saw a large but blurry red and blue figure ahead of her, standing not two feet from her. The Charizard! She snarled, and lashed out with a wing.
It was a perfect blow, it would've knocked the morph in the jaw, taking him out easily. If he hadn't spoken up.
"STOP... right there." He said firmly. Her vision cleared further. Her mind cried out in shock.
Her wing hung, inches from his head. She was frozen in mid-motion. She willed her wing further, to hit him. It didn't move an inch.
"Faster reactions than I expected." He said approvingly. "Go over there and stand by the wall."
NO! Why would I... Her mental complaint petered out as she lowered her wing and walked over to the wall. Oh god...
She turned to face him, and he tossed another ball. The red light revealed Aria's form, though fully healed, without the terrible burns she'd had when Laura had last seen her. Laura was forced to watch as her friend walked over to stand next to her.
Three more balls were tossed, and Maura, Zelda and Sammy walked over to stand next to them.
Holly couldn't believe it. Total control. She couldn't move a muscle. Couldn't twitch a feather. She just stood there calmly while the Charizard, towering over her and the rest of them, wandered along the line, smirking at them one by one.
"Five." He said simply. "Five out of ten."
He paused, his lizardine face nearly touching hers. One quick movement, and she could've ripped half his snout off with her beak. Move ten centimetres. Even that was beyond her.
"And a psychic, too... a whole new set of possibilities."
A slave. Completely and utterly. Every physical movement controlled by the word of this freak. She ran through her mind the scene Aria had so briefly explained to her - Maura had attacked her, tricked her. Would she be forced to do that? Attack her friends? Trick her friends into joining this madman's cause?
Oh, you bet you will.
She would've jumped, as the voice sounded in her head, if she had been able to move. The Charizard gave a snorting laugh, and moved on.
In her head too!
"Well, there'll be some training going on here, I can tell you that." He grinned. "But I guess that can wait. I'm hungry. So you can just stand there like good little pokemon and wait."
He stalked out of their sight. Holly tried to turn, to see the door he was leaving by, but the muscles in both eye and neck refused to respond.
Oh man, that's half of us... She heard a voice say, a very familiar one.
Aria?
Holly? Can you hear me?
Yeah, loud and clear.
So can I.
Me too!
Uh... I can hear you too. Sammy finished up.
Well, this is an unexpected bonus. Holly tried to look at her friends, but her eyes stubbornly remained focused straight ahead.
You can use your psychic powers still? Maura suggested.
Uh... Let's see... She concentrated on telekinetically moving a small piece of wood in her sight. It didn't budge.
Oh well, at least we can talk to each other.
Maura, I'm so sorry... Zelda burst out.
I understand. Maura replied sadly. He made me attack Aria. Sorry about that, girl.
Artic was silent. Gold got a feeling of growing guilt from Firebird, and was about to say something when Aria jumped in.
Do you think we can contact the others?
Nobody got a chance to answer, as the Charizard chose that moment to walk back in. As they watched, he closed his rather large jaws over an extremely thick piece of meat in a sandwich.
"Hmm..." He swallowed. "Training begins now, I think. This area should be strong enough to take it."
What sort of training would he have in mind? Wondered Holly. He laughed.
"Easy. One on one battles. Maura against me. Zelda against... hmm, she's powerful against all of you. Zelda against Holly. Aria and Sammy."
Holly started. He knows our names?
You bet I do. I'm in your mind, psychic. I know everything you know.
Despair sunk in as she watched herself move up to a corner of the room to face the Zapdos morph. She heard the voice behind her.
"All out battle. Begin!"
Maura was in the best position, able to take out her rage on the evil creature that enslaved them. But even as she did, a plan formed in her mind. She knew the Charizard would stop her before she did any lasting damage.
Contacting the others.
She let out a scream, psychically, towards the others, still free... Hoping against hope that the mental call would reach them. If you can hear me, this is what you have to do... One of you go out in the open, present a target. The rest hide. Lure him out. Attack anything that comes near them.
She paused for a second, then continued. Even me.

~-~-~-~

Two days.
Two days since the battle of the bands.
Two days since they'd first discovered pokeballs could be used on morphs.
Two days since they'd met the Charizard anthro that controlled their every move.
Two days of mental, physical and emotional torture.
Two days.
Two days!
That phrase repeated itself over and over in the minds of the various capturees. For two days they'd been forced to attack each other, beat their own best friends senseless, to grow stronger, to beat their other friends senseless, to add to their 'master''s stock.
He would work them until they fainted, and then return them to their pokeballs... and when they came out again they were ready to begin again. They'd only got one break so far, when he'd gone to have a sleep, and he'd let them stay out. They'd used that time to talk.
But now they were all battling fiercely again, this time in a five-way free-for-all. The Charizard had specified that no attacks were to be thrown his way, and if by chance one did, anyone close enough was to block it or warn him. They'd done this several times, and were very annoyed.
He wasn't even looking at them, but staring out the window. So easy. With these five he could probably take over anywhere he wanted, so long as the others couldn't interfere... but the lure of having all ten was too great.
Something caught his attention. Something was glittering brightly in the afternoon sun, and he had a very good feeling he knew what it was.
"You lot! Stop the fighting and come over here." He called. They all did so, disentangling themselves from their battle to walk over to him.
"You have sharper eyesight than me. Who or what is that up there?"
Maura answered him. "That's Silver."
"Hmm... flying alone in the middle of the sky. That's a little dangerous, isn't it? Why would she be doing that?"
"I told her to." Maura said flatly. "I suggested they use her as a target so they could attack you when you came out to capture her."
"Is that so..." He mused, knowing full well the despair that being forced to voice their plan would've caused to the Firebird. "Well, I think I could come up with a way to counter that..."
He thought about plans. It probably would've worked, too... he mused. Wait a minute... how did she tell them to do that? ...Oh well. I'll find out after I do some... recruiting...

~-~-~-~

Silver screeched as she saw a red dot getting larger, coming up to meet her. She was disappointed when she saw it was not the Charizard, as they'd hoped, but Maura.
Firebird zoomed up, screaming a birdlike battlecry, but Laura gracefully avoided it. She started a powerful Hydro Pump... but it died in her throat as she looked at her friend's face. No... she couldn't attack Maura, however changed she may be...
Maura had no such scruples, and blew a flamethrower at the Lugia morph. She managed to dodge most of it, but it still singed one wing. She remembered the message she'd got, the previous night...
"My plan is this - One of you go out in the open while the rest hide. attack anything that comes near the person who is out in the open... Even Me."
Even me...
Even me...
"I'm sorry, Maura..." She whispered, as her possessed friend came in for another swoop. Just when it seemed the bird was about to hit, the attack was unleashed...

~-~-~-~

The ground troops watched the aerial battle of the birds, hidden in various places below, ready to move in at any time. But they'd organized this earlier, and they knew that it was Maura, not the Charizard, she was fighting.
They'd agreed that, should she spot him, she'd fire a Fire blast in his direction. She could handle Maura. They had to wait for the big guy to show himself...
Draco looked on, from the window of an abandoned, half-destroyed house. He couldn't do much from here, although some of his attacks might reach, he would probably hit Silver too.
He thought about that. Just a couple of days ago, the two groups had been at each other's throats... now they were co-operating against a common enemy... It was amazing how things had changed.
He started when he felt a large hand close around the end of his tail, pulling him around and forcefully slamming him into a wall.
He was slightly stunned, but his light, snakelike body meant that he hadn't taken too much damage. He looked around, to see their attacker - along with Gold, staring down at him.
"It probably would've worked, if I didn't have a spy on the inside... and I didn't have Holly's psychic abilities to find out where you were." He said, grinning. Draco remembered that this plan had been Maura's idea...
He snarled, and started charging a powerful Dragon Rage... even if it didn't stop this guy, it would slow him down... and the other guys would see it, for sure...
He tried not to think about the implications of using such an immensely wide-scale attack in such a confined area, with him still in it...
But he never got the chance. Before he could unleash the attack, a third figure walked in, Aria, Artic, Articuno... Draco gasped in shock and pain as she attacked, and his serpentine body was coated in ice, the one element that could possibly hurt a dragon...
The tall, confident Charizard grinned at the look of pain on the face of the morph, and threw the pokeball, bringing his total up to six...
Looking through the window, he saw the fierce battle between the two birds, not being able to make much of it though. He called the two birds.
"You've got better sight than me... how are they going up there?"
"Maura is losing. Silver is crying, but she's not holding back. Maura's going to drop any second now." Silver explained. He cursed, and held Maura's pokeball towards the two fighters.
The beam flashed out... too late. Maura fell like a stone, her friend diving after her, catching her in mid flight. He cursed again. He'd lost one of them...
But she was still under his control... and through Gold's psychic powers, he could still transmit his orders to her. He returned the two birds with him, and hightailed it out of there...

~-~-~-~

It was the next day, although still early enough in the morning to be night, and Aria was quietly sneaking along the back alleys of the city. Even as she did, she screamed in her mind.
Captured... Captured... CAPTURED!
She'd hurt Draco. Tried to trick Gold, with the intention of getting her captured...
No. Not her. The Charizard.
Her mind flared as she beat imaginary wings in fury. Again and again, imaged played, over and over in her head. Her destroying him. Killing him. Finally being rid of him.
She had never taken a life.
The images disgusted her.
And yet, at the same time, they appealed to her. She wanted to kill this person. This monster.
AAARRRGGGHHH!! She screamed in her mind, frustrated beyond belief. This wasn't fair! This was impossible!
She was closing in on her destination, ordered to attack Silver by the nightmare that held her captive. The house was in sight. She flew up, feeling her face twist into a malicious grin, feeling the beginnings of an Icebeam form in her throat.
She spotted her target in the window. So easy. Damn you, Silver, why did you have to make it so easy?
Even as the icy energy was released, she let out a desperate plea to her friend. DUCK!
Silver flattened herself as the attack shattered the window and froze the wall behind her. Artic let out a silent mental cry of victory, but her body wasn't done with its attack just yet.
The target saw the second Icebeam coming, and dodged it easily. Get out of the house, you're a sitting duck! Aria advised, hoping it was getting through.
Whether it was or not, she got the idea and dove through a window facing away from Aria. The Articuno screeched and flapped up, higher and higher, to try to get a view of its prey.
Artic felt her wings begin to beat faster, but she wasn't actually going anywhere. She soon realized what she was being forced to do.
Get up, Laura, it's a Blizzard! Get above me!
The blue-white streak shot up, just before the icy energy hit. Artic mentally punched the air in victory and yelled further advice to her friend.
Now! Your most powerful attack... Take me out...
Silver's eyes widened at this plea, but she soon saw the sense in it. She began to charge it...
And cried out in pain as something drew a set of bloody lines across her back.
She craned her head up to see Maura, staring back down at her, blood and feathers sticking to the talons. But if Maura was attacking her, then...
She looked down to see the Charizard, grinning right back. He nodded his head to the side, where Chadran, Zelda and Sammy were battling Richie and Eric, who had been guarding the Moltres morph. Five on three. And Josh wasn't here.
They were in trouble.

~-~-~-~

Maura gasped in horror as her Flamethrower hit home on her friend.
It was her.
Her fault.
She'd betrayed her friends.
It had been her plan. She should've known her 'master' would've found out.
Her fault. Her fault.
Her body shrieked, and lashed out with both wings. Gold faltered.
No... please... not again.
Yes, that's it... attack her. Don't stop now. Finish her.
No... I don't think I will.
Attack! She can't take much more. Finish it! Now!
No... why would I want to do that? She's my friend!
Attack her! NOW! DO IT!
NO! I'm NOT going to! Let... me... GO!
Something snapped.
She could move. She could control herself. It almost came as a shock.
But it only took her about five seconds to get used to controlling her own body again, before rage consumed her. It burned inside her like her feathers burned on the outside. Her body flared with fire. Silver looked scared for a moment, before Maura swung around and dived.
I'm stronger than that big bully. Why on earth should I obey him?
He was right in her sight as he watched Sammy, Zelda and Chadran fight, his back turned to her. She concentrated on him. She was focused on him. He was the only thing that existed right now.
And if she had her way, he wouldn't be existing for long.