End of A Reality
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/story and title by DarkMutaedBrock/La Cidiana
A/N: Speaking of which, big thanks to her, as she remains the brains of this twisted fic, giving it shape and direction. -_^ Wow. Ivy is actually given a name in the dub. Er.....we were a few letters off, but..ah.that's life. ^^;
*~*~*
What we did was wrong. Now that I realize that it may be too late. Abandon our initial purpose. I have lost everything...I think I am losing myself. I ask you one last favor, before I discard these tools of suffering forever.
Do not entangle yourself in a spider web. I hate to use this metaphor...I know it makes you uncomfortable, but the newer members are of a treacherous breed. You never trusted anyone, my friend. Do not start now.
Samuel
*~*~*
Chapter 18: Farther Down
*~*~*
The skull-splitting headache did not abate throughout the night. It remained a steady throb, worsening to a drilling presure on his temples only when Rufus was on the verge of forgetting that it was there. Then the nausea would roll in, and then he'd retch in the toilet while the phone rang and Dark Nation was barking and he had a window of two minutes to get the hell out of the bathroom and to the board room to preside at a meeting of the same squabling executives that would only increase the throbbing tenfold and he'd look into the toilet and stare at the disarrayed pieces of vomit before flushing the vile substance down. If his digestive system was going to be so cruel, it might serve as a reminder to decrease wine intake. But that was not the case: he hadn't had a drop of alcohol in his blood since he had switched to milk, to what he'd hoped was a passing fancy, for the sake of variety. Oh, yes, his diet had splendid variety: only every breed of fish native to the region plus the latest catch of fresh imports...
Including that fresh-caught salmon. Its eye still dripping with the salty sea locked with his own. He caught his mouth watering. His tongue swept over his upper lip as a fork nested between his thumb and forefinger. An unthinkable urge overwhelmed him, to discard the fork, take the fish, paw it, sniff the reflective scales, and tear it apart, the pieces of it clinging to his teeth steeped in salmon innards. How undignified...he thought disgustedly as he opened his eyes, blurred by nausea. Groggily, he threw off the heaps of linen onto the foot of the king-sized bed, cursing the cold air that trickled in from a partially open window. Realizing not even the servants would be awake at this hour, he stumbled towards the source of biting wind and with half-concealed self- consciousness at actually performing a menial task by himself, shut the window and drew the curtains. He would die before his executives saw him like this, staggering like one who had far too much to drink. Not that he had any wine for the last few DAYS, craving milk as if it were an addiction, his employees taking every chance to look at him the wrong way, which made him increasingly irate, which sharpened the craving for the drink.
Those same pangs gnawed at his gut now. He squeezed the curtain in tightened fists on which the sweat ran down. They say he never bled, shed tears...or perspire. Like an ice statue brimming with perfection at the lack of having anything to sweat over. But now, he was sweating like a hog.
He needed milk and he needed it now.
The wine glass left a white ring on the bedside table emblazoned with the company's insignia. It had been sitting there throughout the night, the horrific stench that attacked his senses registering only just at that moment. Imagine the bacteria breeding in that white ring. It was a culture fit for Hojo and his colleagues and a petri dish. But it didn't belong to them..it was HIS milk, his bacteria-infested milk, his milk that didn't sit quite right in the crystal wine glass and his milk that was screaming to be consumed. He grasped it with as much zeal as he had for the corporation itself, tilted the glass in which he was too intoxicated at the moment to see his reflection, and let the night-old milk trickle down his throat, instantly trading divine ecstasy for an unprecedented nausea that kept his hand clutched to his stomach as he practically staggered to the bathroom. And by then it had subsided to a mere wringing of that organ, allowing him to regain some of his lost dignity.
Rufus pushed the lightswitch on with one hand, the other pressed against the side of his soaking head. On top of all this, morning breath deteriorated the wringing into a slew of insufferable gymnastics that the half-digested food bubbled to the throat, and plunged back into his stomach, leaving the rear of his mouth raw from the acid spurt which left behind the most revolting taste. This is all_I need right now, he growled mentally, reaching for the gold-plated handle and pulling the medecine cabinet open. He grabbed his toothbrush from the shelf, when he happened to glance...at...his..reflection.
What in all hell?
Patches of abnormally thick hair lay all over the sides of his head and his neck. With an imperceptibly trembling hand that was likewise shod in hair, he felt under his shirt.....there should have been much less hair than there was when he felt his chest, thick with patches of entangled hair, almost like...like..animal fur. The headache increased tenfold. The milk craving and the nausea it induced shot up at incapacitating speeds. Dropping the toothbrush he ransacked the medecine cabinet, grabbing a bottle of Tylenol and an electric razor.
"With the price I paid for this import this had better work," he snarled, downing the medecine and immediately after, assaulting the hair with the razor, madly shearing all of it in unpredicted strokes that left a pile of fur at his feet. Once done, he examined himself in the mirror again, to his angry horror, beholding whiskers that grew out of his face. He touched them gingerly, half-frozen in perturbed shock, in immediate revulsion at these long fine fibers that was just a result of a vivd nightmare. He could prove it to himself: with sour irritaiton he grabbed them in a bunch and pulled, yelling at the pang of pain that subsided with the ever-increasing headache....and the ever-growing revelation... Revolted, panicked, and scared as all hell, Rufus slammed the cabinet, removing this face he saw..this face that was his own. But how?
How else?
Kicking the clumps of fur away into a corner, he flung open the door, stalking out of the bathroom with a furious scowl. That backstabbing viper would be giving him rapid answers unless ehe wanted the Turks calling at her lab with a pack of starved Houndoom. An ease returned. Why not a toxin in her glass? She had coerced him into signing that contract..why shouldn't she sign that same contract with the Devil? Whatever the means, her term of employment under Shin- Ra/Silph Inc was drawing to a close.
The very thought of her demise induced a tranqiuil wave that mitigated the migraine.
*~*~*
The hulking creature laying in the middle of the entrance hallway adorned with luxurious paintings of famous economic giants whose names became synonymous with gross wealth as well as rampant corruption, growled at the pungent scent of an intruder descending the finely varnished stairway that spiralled downward from an artificial paradise of lush carpet and draped banners bearing the crimson and gold, the emblem of an empire.
So the foe fouled its glory with its presence . A natural foe, at that, one that had been ingrained in its mind the day it was born behind glass walls hanging there for a purpose it never found out, as it was beaten in its short youth its brain capacity shrunk proportionally until they reduced it to a machine, a machine that knew how to obey and only obey its one command: kill.
The black dog rolled over on its side and heaved itself on its paws, its fangs wedged together in a vicious snarl. It crouched in attack position, its glaring eyes piercing the blackness. The moment it heard the intruder enter the room, the death machine lunged, its claws scraping the polished hardwood floor, ramming headlong into the pricey furniture as it slackened its frothing jaws, readied to deal instant death with a savage bite.
The master's voice.
"DOWN, Dark Nation," growled Rufus as viciously as the dog, that slowed down, though still snarling, letting out a low, hateful bark and eyeing his master as a dog eyes a cat. Rufus' ice-hard gaze stabbed into the dog, a grinding glare that signalled to the target that there would be physical retribution for this unwanted transgression, but, by some peculiarity, he'd sooner beat his whores than the dog. That much respect he granted it. And besides...the glare made as much impact, if not more, as the hand did. Dark Nation realized that this was his master, and it stalked into its sleeping area, the scent of cat still hanging on its quaking nose.
The brute left him doubtful. The President sniffed the air. Surely he did not smell like one of those beasts even though his eyes told him that.....He absolutely refused to admit this rubbish. Even if this was happening to him, he would force the answer out of Ivy, this incident would be over, and he could resume his life and erase this happening from the annals of his memory.
He rammed the twin doors of his private study open, his medium build in discord with the stormy tread of someone on a rampage. He groped for the lightswitch and it illumined the room and inflamed the ache to a crushing that bowled carelessly over every lobe of his brain, and he stumbled across the room, clamping his head between his palms, squeezing it like a vice which did nothing to alleviate it.
"This is what I get for giving into a threat," he growled beneath taut breath, rooting the tips of his fingers on the edge of the desk to steady himself. "The poison probably wasn't even lethal...how would she benefit by killing me?" She baited you and you fell for it...and you call yourself the mastermind of this..He ground his teeth that scratched against each other. An unnatural feeling, as if the canine was more pointed than usual...Empire. They formed into a victorious grimace that his folly erased and cast behind it. Where was your mind when you held that glass? Did you think for a minute that an outsider only remotely affiliated with the company could be trusted? If you learned anything from your jackass of a father, it was to never concede to outsiders.
After a struggle with gravity he reached the cordless phone on the corner of a glass desk and yanked it off of the cradle, fiercely punching the numbers and throwing the phone to his ear. In almost schizophrenic contrast, he regained composure swiftly, not letting a dash of refinement that had been lacking in his public life as of late escape in his groomed tone: "Ivy, there is something of dire consequence that must be discussed immediately." Nothing but the repeated ring of the phone. Either she was absent on business or she was expecting this and had pulled out before she sunk too deep. "Ivy?" His patience thinned. The dormant ice cracked. Nothing on the other line. Silence. Breathing. Hers? The dog's. Bitch. Answer. The. Phone. The normally delicate grip tightened to a vicious hold. Patience sifted through the hourglass like gravitating sand grains. On the sixth ring nothing. Seventh. Eighth. Why hadn't she answered? Patience buckled. And it finally broke. He screamed across the other line, the resulting sound bearing no semblance to the words he thought he had formed.
Rufus caught himself. He let the phone drop, and prodded his throat with his fingers, staring fixatedly in unnerved silence at the vast halls. That sound...that inhuman roar....could it be possible that that was his? The blazing ice of his eyes bore a hole through the darkness into the next room. Could it be Dark Nation? No, dogs bark, they don't roar. Nor do they hiss. Hiss...hiss...cats hiss. He looked at his reflection in the desk. It mocked him. It jeered him. It scared him. He felt the whiskers. Cats had whiskers. He ran his finger over them. Hair was on the fingers. Thick hair. Cat fur. Impossible.... The craving..milk and fish..they like milk, don't they? They like fish. The wild ones like fish. They all like fish.
Without prior warning, Rufus all of a sudden smashed a raging fist into the glass. There was a massive crash and a hiss so feline that Dark Nation with one furious bound clawed madly at the closed doors. Rufus didn't hear its frenzy, staring with horrified eyes at this result of his driven rage, and he cursed his own rashness, this loss of level-headedness for which he was legendary. He paid the price of blood. The shards sliced into his skin and the blood flowed. He jerked the flesh ribbons away, clamping his chopped fingers between the other, smearing the blood on the tufts of fur. Droplets dropped in sticky globs on the scattered shards, blotting out his reflection. It was gone. The cat-man was gone.
He rose slowly still holding the lacerated hand. Pure pain radiated from the wounds, but the migraine outlived it. It pulverized the inner caverns of his head, not even receding when he dripped a mess of blood splotches towards the bathroom past the enraged hulk that snapped at his heels. Again it was ignored. The headache was the culprit. No, it had not even the decency to let him alone just for that one moment, relentless and brutal, getting worse when something else got worse, reaching its zenith when he unsuccessfully tried to exctract the embedded pieces of glass. For the first time he wanted to succumb to a buried weakness.
Rufus Shin-Ra fell to his knees on the blood-spattered floor.
*~*~*
The square box was a curious thing.
It whispered and shouted, dazzled vision and pummelled hearing, tricked the brain into thinking there was someone else with you but in the end was just another source of cancerous radiation. The flashing pictures were strangely transfixing, like the alluring light in an insect trap, and Red peered straight ahead at the pale glow of the television, his chin resting slanted on his paws.
An ad here, a commercial there, a recap of the earlier night's news scrolled across the screen in blocky capital letters: survivor of Pewter disaster found, Kanto researcher arrested for assisting Jouto researcher's escape from Goldrenrod City Prison, Viridian survivors relocate to Cerulean..
Red's head shot up as a muffled pounding assault his flattened ears. Someone knocking...this early? His biological clock told him the sun wasn't even up yet. That could only mean...it was urgent, whatever it was. He headed out the door, diving down the stairs and landing in front of the door with a soft thud. Leaning his head over, Red pulled the door open with his jaws, a single eye falling on the battered humans.
One of them had her hand poised to knock, raised in midair, but didn't quite make it. The one next to her fell first, and she followed almost simultaneously, passing out on the doorstep. Left without explanation of why they were here and why they were covered in blood, he dragged them through the doorway by their ripped clothing and shut the door, the house silent once again.
From the bushes, Brock choked on his guilt. He knew all too well why there was blood on them. Because of him. With acrid loathing Brock stared at his hands, that had so recently been claws. Claws that were designed to kill. Claws that could have KILLED THEM. If only he STAYED human, they wouldn't be hurt like that. But they were. And he was to blame.
But he didn't...mean it. He could...show he didn't mean it, right? Tell them he didn't know what he was doing, that he was sorry.
Was that going to cut it?
If it didn't, he deserved it. All of it.
Brock crawled out of the foliage, callous to the red lines the bushes scraped across his shoulders. At this point, he was beyond pain, physical pain, anyway. Fractures in his hide, that marred his body with scars and unhealable wounds, were so much less than the agonies of a razed soul.
He moved towards the house, a door he once found friendly, a plug to stop the hollow hole that was left of his own door, a door that couldn't be told apart from the miles of ashes that cloaked his hometown.
Ashes..
The fire..
Cindy's crushed legs under the burning house..
The smoke smothered her tears..
Her body smoldered in the fire and lay with the ashes.
Tommy would rot under the tree.
Would he one day see his yellowed skull staring back at him with that unexpressive grimace that all humans show when their flesh creeps away leaving only the naked bone?
Brock barely felt himself take that shape which was becoming familiar, natural, as if he'd been a Pokémon all his life. He roughly grappled with the doorknob, his claws not gripping the way his hands would. He was good with his hands. He'd sewn and kneaded and stirred for as long as he could remember, but a different story with claws. They, like hands, were made for a purpose. Ivy..she designed this, didn't she? She made it this way on purpose.
It was so much easier to break down the door than use a doorknob.
The door fell with a clatter of wood on wood, and the demon stole inside, the scent of human blood instantly invading his nostrils. With a grunt he dove for the source, then stopped an inch away from the blood source.
"HHRGRASHHH...MREEGHHSTIE..." he growled. With all of his inhuman will he controlled himself, convincing, lying to himself that he wasn't thirsty, that he had no need of their blood. He was parched. A drop...a drop, all he needed..they would never miss it....."HHGRRARGHH??!" Brock reeled in fear, in fear of himself, of what he would do, straining, forcing himself to be repulsed by the blood, the iron-tasting globs of red blood. Maybe..he could take his own, satisfy the demon half of him. Who the hell was he kidding? He was fully a monster, not only half. Stupid...he was stupid for even thinking that. His body revenged itself and the irrepressible pangs of thirst attacked him in full force. God, what was wrong with him? He was here to help THEM, not to help himself, not to fulfill his own barbaric thirst for blood.
Fighting the animal instincts with maternal ones, he pulled himself away from the blood source, forcing himself towards the kitchen, to get them a drink. They say you died after a few days without water. They couldn't get much in the Rocket dungeons, the way they treated their prisoners. They were lucky to still be alive, going that long without water. He didn't dare get a glass, for fear of shattering it and alerting the red Pokémon, or worse, Ash's mother, and emerged from the kitchen with his scaled palms cupped and full of tap water. Stealing like a shadow among the shadows, he approached where the two unconscious humans lay, and lifted it to their mouths, the liquid pouring off of his scales down their throats. Not exactly pure, but it was water nonetheless.
Misty's vision slowly came into focus: blood-red eyes, pointed fangs in a mouth half-opened with concern, marring its purpose with the existence of the forked tongue, all on a head stripped of its hair, gently..gently holding her chin with its clawed hand. It snapped.
"Br..Brock.." she gasped hoarsely, unable to move, whether out of raw terror or raw joy. For all she knew, Brock could be waiting for them to wake up so they'd be conscious when he killed them so they could feel his pain..A tinge of distrust still lingered, and Brock sensed it, in the way she looked at him, the fear in her voice, and he shrunk from them, his claws shielding his bald head.
Ash worsened the situation.
"Get away! You're not gonna hurt Misty and me anymore!"
"Grrrrragghhhhhhhh....." A guilt-ridden growl leaked from the darkness of the house. The blazing eyes grew fainter as Brock crawled away, desperation and remorse softening the perpetual crimson flames. Misty outstretched a hand but the words were muted, not by her somewhat relieved hoarseness but by the throaty roar that penetrated all corners of the house.
Red stood in the entrance to the kitchen, jaws clamped over a roll of bandages. He was readied to attack, instinct and years of battle rendering his hostile reaction automatic. His tail lashed through the darkness, the whipping flame casting light on the face of the intruder.
Firelight..fire..it scorched Pewter... it had to kill..kill the thing that produced it. It would kill Misty..Ash...
Not if he killed it first.
Brock hurled his scaled body at the biding enemy, who dodged with a well- timed leap, swivelling to avoid the stabbing claws that plunged into the floor. Incensed, Brock came at him a death-wielding cyclone, cutting the hide of its foreleg to the bone with the shoulder spikes. A howl shredded the tranquility of early morning and stirred the dry, bloodshot eyes crusted with morning stars and hurting for more sleep...
Brock had him pinned, scenting the red blood leaking from the wound. Overwhelmed by thirst, he bent over the bubbling wound, leaning his lips to the cleansing liquid, taking a drawn-out slurp as the animal winced in pain and Ash and Misty paling at the revolting sound. The slurp. The whine of the creature, the faint pat the blood made when it dribbled off his lips and onto the floor.
Misty tried to shut out reality, wanted to blind and deafen herself to the truth, so she wouldn't see nor hear the vampire wearing the body of her friend. But in the end, he was that vampire.
Why can't you fight it, Brock? You always did the right thing in the end. You always HELPED people... Why are you hurting them, now?! Why can't you fight it?!
What if you can't? Maybe you WANT to be like this. Maybe I was wrong in trying to find you. Did I think I'd find the Brock we all knew? The Brock that gave Charmander away to Ash of all people just because he thought Ash would take care of it better? The Brock that gave Vulpix back to Suzie just because it wasn't really his? The Brock that took care of the Pokémon at Ivy's laboratory..?
Ivy. She started all this...Her and Team Rocket's boss...
...He's the monster...one of 'em..there's two...the other one's Brock-- that's Brock, right? But Brock doesn't drink blood...Brock doesn't hurt anyone...he just chases girls and stuff and...
..Drink their blood.
Holy Christ..
"SHHHRRGHHURRZRHIE..." Brock suddenly dropped the limp animal, his claws quivering with terror. What_was_he_DOING? Hastily he wiped the stray blood from his mouth with his scales, and backed away from his supper. The bright red creature, with its long hair hanging from either side of its muzzle, the way its closed eye stirred the pain in its soul and spilled it from its face...God, the hulking beast reminded him of Suzie..guiltless and shameless because she belonged to that perfect race: normal living beings. So did this thing. He had no right to profane it. No right at all.
Brock crept away from the beast, its chest falling irregularly from the lack of blood. The bandages were still on the floor. He crawled to get them and closed his eyes and held his nose while attempting to dress the unsterilized wound with one hand to prevent the smell and sight of blood from driving him to drain it dry. The bandages ended up being all over. And by then the beast had recovered enough to stand and bore a hole in the other's body. A spark of controlled bloodlust engulfed his bestial eye, and the scuffling of his claws were heard quick on the floor, the bending flame at the tip of his tail grew zigzagged through the darkness as Red pounced for the enemy's chest, consumed with the Limit Break..
When the light almost incinerated both their corneas.
*~*~*
The griffin traced infinity over Pallet, its white shadow dissolving the melded shadows heralding a premature dawn...and a new Hell.
Brock tumbled out of the flooded doorway and onto his back, his claws almost plunging into his eyeballs, the agonizing burn tempting him to make one quick swipe that would leave him sightless and free of this awful pain that was otherwise inescapable. No need to rip them out. Just one scratch and he'd forever be in darkness. He would no longer have to see..anything, anyone.....
It vanished. Brock took his claws from his eyes, everything again shrouded in the shadows of early morning when the sun hasn't yet broken the clouds. All that remained of the vicious light was a shining figure radiating the same pallid hue as the portal he came through.
The figure descended, showered in light that emanated a glorious resplendence. Unquestionable purity, as its blunt-clawed feet landed on the ground that somehow quivered in inferiority. Brock could do little but stare at first, stare at the stainless hands, free of blood, white as the light that spiralled around him in reverent obedience, the locks of hair fine as a cirrus cloud that swirled around his shoulders with the weight of a falling feather, a tranquil smile aglow with the peace of heaven, the sleeveless robe he wore that never brushed the ground, and the soft tail that blew like a reed in a a spring wind.
In its presence.....Brock felt so..low. He knew it was a Pokémon. The tail, claws...but in that Pokémon, Brock beheld his inverse reflection. And then he stared down at himself, scarred skin, bald, naked, disgraced by friend and enemy, a labrat, and....he felt roughly at his throat. Oh, yeah. Unintelligible. Until he transformed. Then other...humans..would be able to UNDERSTAND him, at least. But for now...the only words that could be heard clear were in his ever-turbulent thoughts.
By now, Ash, Misty were able to crawl out on their hands and knees, the light still triggering a million explosions in their eyes. The dog followed, one paw clamped over his remaining eye, the other letting him hobble out the doorway into the muted darkness. But the darkness was not sufficient to protect them from being sensed. It sensed them. .The inner filth. The scum that claimed authority over they who by right were the real sovereigns. A frown so brief that it was hardly visible through the darkness clashed with the serenity of his soul. For now, though, he did nothing and looked upon Brock with a smile so affable that he backed up and growled cautiously.
"Do not fear. I am one of you."
Sure enough, Brock beheld sharpened teeth. A mark of an animal. But was this truly an animal? The way it spoke clearly, intelligibly just like a human? The way it postured himself like a human? Maybe it was only half-human. But that half-human was enough to be wary of. Any minute now it would take a PokéBall and throw it...Any minute now he'd be in someone's posession, someone's property...
"This generation will see the restoration of our race," the calming voice of the man-angel flowed through the air, easing the warranted fear somewhat. "I, Angelon.....hold the secret of salvation." Brock's mouth opened partly, the bloodied teeth jutting out from jet-black gums. Salvation...he didn't even remember what the word meant..It was coming back to him, hazy, fuzzy---he searched through his brain, ran a blackened hand along his skull- -why couldn't he---? It was something..good, he knew that, but.....
His bloodied lower lip trembled and he plowed doubting claw marks through the dirt.
Am I becoming like...him?
Brock grabbed his tail and held it for a few seconds, half-expecting it to scale over and grow spikes and broaden in thickness. Angelon watched him, gradually feeding off of Brock's deplorable plight. He smiled as the vexing sun shines far too brightly in the heavy summers. There was a baiting hope in the orbs of light. Brock reached for it, with the feeble thought that there might still be something left to grab onto at the bottom of the Pit. Wait...that was it..to be saved...rescued...from the Pit....THAT was what it was---and he hung his lowered head to one side, knowing that it could never be. He gave a coarse, embittered laugh and stood to half his full height.
You're wasting your time---I'm way beyond salvation.
He batted the idea away with a claw.
Lets say I COULD be saved..what would you do, purify me? He shook his bowed head in morose hopelessness. There's no washing off this blood..He bore his tainted hands to his reversed reflection, who wore the clashing image of a frown on his lips.
"You act as if one chooses deliverance or damnation...that is far from the truth." His gaze now turned imperious, God's compelling messenger with a holy sword in one indisputable hand . "You MUST attain universal salvation---" The halo encompassed his body, and he began to melt into the whiteness, leaving Brock to combat the burning ache in his brain from the onslaught of light.
Come. The gates have opened.
The white hand beckoned through the sea of light. The burn receded to a sharp tingling, and he stumbled into the immersing whiteness, that churned in a vortex ahead of him. A portal. He felt like he was slipping out of his body and swallowed by his mind, completely unblurred by the excess chemicals, the haunting instincts, the brutal truth separated and closed off from this whole other dimension: blissful isolation.
Blissful to the one immersed in it.
"Brock.....?" Misty lurched on her hands, the heel of her palms burying into the dirt. She found him to lose him again. Maybe for good this time. Sweat coursed like cataracts down her shoulders, and she worked up the last bits of strength to half-stand, Ash a wobbling lump next to her--forget standing, he could barely crawl with his broken leg, and somehow they pushed their limits far enough to get close to the portal---inches away-- before a quaking roar froze them stiff. The chill of some dark shadow gliding over them stopped their breathing entirely, lest it be the last one they took.
The shadow landed with wings folded around its chest like a biding Golbat, a wart-covered bump positioned sentry-like on its left paw. Both of their forms shuddered involuntarily at the crash of the reptile's gigantic claws on the ground. It balked at the front of the portal, its head casted down and in the opposite direction.
I expected him to be trusting, but this is lunacy. I know this trickery...I used to use such means myself.
The eyeless hulk doubled in size as it spread its naked wings. Its cry was one of protest that had lost any hint of attempting to be respectful or formal.
Well boss, where else are we supposed to go? We're sure as hell not going to risk our necks and stay here.
An affirmative croak from the raised bump on the outstretched wing.
Yeah sir, those kids---little runts're going to catch us if we don't split.
Yes...I am...aware of that.. There were some breaks in his roar. For the infant space of a second his bestial eyes gazed straight into the terrified brown ones of the bruised boy in the dust. The most feeble of memories pushed for the surface and kept its head above water long enough for Giovanni to feel the guilt seeping into his black heart before the memory drowned and he turned painfully towards the light and didn't look back. The stranger is the lesser of two evils. Go.
The light engulfed them, and Misty and Ash were alone with the dog. Misty was unable to do anything but watch in growing despair, and Ash unable to do anything but resolve in his mind why he thought he had seen his long-dead father trapped in the revolting eyes of this monster that was once Team Rocket's boss.
But maybe he was just seeing things.
*~*~*
It was hopeless, really.
Hopeless....
Cid choked on some saliva and blood that had gotten caught in his throat with his eyes shut tightly and his hands clenched tightly into the ground ahead of him........ His teeth were clenched hard against each other as sweat crawled down his face and he breathed hard, trying with all his mind to keep the dragon from hurting him more... trying to make him give in......Damn.... it......
You can't hold on much longer....
Cid gave out a gasp as his hands dug in deeper, the claws burrowing into the ground from the tips of his fingers.....
Sure I can.... He thought back with a wry, half-sarcastic smile.
He wrenched his hands out of the ground, clutching them to each other and holding them to his chest as it was racked with hard, forced breathing. He opened his eyes halfway, staring at the ground with unmatched intensity trying to ignore the..... voices... in his head.... stupid.... voice......
It would be simpler and quicker than he had initially thought. Such minimal effort to subdue such a dangerous subject... It was almost too easy. His menacing step made little noise on the ground, the predatory stalker, always under radar. In many ways, animalistic, but what separated him, a monster, and the man on his knees below him, was that the former at least appeared human, if only a bare semblance. Whereas this dragon and the man bound to him...did not.
He levelled the tranquilizer with Cid's shoulder, as removed as before, fully aware of his plight but giving no damn about it as he took aim and prepared to sedate the target. Something at the back of his mind.... as Cid tried to lay the dragon under siege, something seemed dangerous.... a predator.... goddamn instincts, why wouldn't they leave him...... Leave him....
He jerked his head to the side, just before he heard a loud, whizzing sound next to his ear. He fell to the ground with a cringe of pain, the dirt road of Nibelheim hard and unforgiving underneath his back.
His eyes snapped open, both human except for pupils that seemed slightly more narrow than they should have been and an aqua hue at the sides that seemed to be attempting to encompass the rest of the eye....
"Son of a...." he whispered, then rolled over just as another tranquilizer hit the ground where his chest had just been. Breathing hard, he looked up at HIM, and his face suddenly transformed into a mask of pure fury as he staggered to his feet and gave a dogged lunge at his tormentor.
"I'LL KILL YOU!!!!!!"
Maybe he would have been successful at ripping Hojo to shred with the dragon's borrowed claws had Draconis Rex not decided to burden him with something else at that moment. Weakened by the sudden, uncontrolled outburst, he suddenly heard a guttural laugh in his head--then a rip, a crunch, and a sickeningly sharp pain as a pair of blue-scaled wings erupted from his back.
With a desperate cry, he crashed to the ground.
Hojo halted the volley of syringes long enough to stare this object of pathetic fraility down.
"I think not," he answered flatly. "In your weakened state I doubt you are in a position to lay a scratch on me, let alone kill. Besides....." he added, re-loading his weapon with his passive gaze still rooted to the prostrate man, if you could actually call him that anymore. "I have taken certain ......precautions," he allowed himself a calm chuckle as he took aim once more, taking note of the leather-like wings protruding painfully from Cid's back. "Draconis Rex seems to be rebelling. As you can see," he nodded to the wings, "it is as persistent as yourself. If you do not submit, it will find ways to make you." He squeezed the trigger again, another round of syringes flying out from the barrel of the dart gun. His voice took on a crueler tone, marked with the half-smile that crossed his pallid face. "But you already knew that....didn't you."
He's right, you know. Cid felt himself turning onto his back, onto those.... stupid....wings.... FUCK.
"Get them OFF," he found himself muttering aloud, gritting his teeth as he sat up, putting his clawed hands to his aching forehead.
You want control, don't you? He could hear the dragon's voice harsh and sharp in his brain. Here you have it. But as long as you don't accept me... they're yours.
"Mother fucking----DO YOU HEAR ME?!?" He yelled aloud, standing to his feet and staring at the ground as he spoke. He could make out the outlines of his bare, clawed, somewhat scaled feet.
He didn't get a response.
And for some reason, it scared the hell out of him.
Hojo raised his nose into the air, his nostrils catching the scent of an impalpable, yet tangible, scent: the smell of fear. "This runs contradictory to my asessment," he stated with slight hint of disappointment at this discovery. "I did not think this subject would be so susceptible to such a weak mental condition..it is natural for some error to be expected, but not of this magnitude. But it is trivial.."
Show fear, show vulnerability, show weakness, show that you are unfit. No doubt...the human had its flaws. In any case, he would hit him before long.
Cid looked up, his eyes containing a hint of fear. But only a hint. No, he wouldn't let himself be intimidated by THIS wacko... in fact, he should be relieved he wasn't hearing that stupid Draconack Rexwhats-it's-face anymore.... even though he knew it was probably lurking in the deep recesses of his subconscious... maybe finding more ways to trick him.... In any case, having full control of his body after so much turmoil was a welcome change, and he let out a deep breath as he looked up.
But he didn't have control over his body. He had control of some of his own... and then some of that stupid monster's. He was reminded of this as he saw the look that Hojo gave him, that condescending, emotionless stare, and those cold eyes with toneless words....
"Who the hell are you calling a subject?!" He managed to get out of the dragon's half-rebellious vocal chords. He was too drained to feel surprise when it came out as a string of growled syllables.
"You must forgive me, I am afraid I'm not versed in draconic tongue," he answered, a warped grin showing that he drew some delight from Cid's agony, from his inabilty to communicate..hahaa..destroy that, the link between the human species and the rest was severed. Beyond that were unintelligble growls, primitive, primal attempts at speaking formed by an underdeveloped nervous system..that alone justified his classification...but much less communication meant when compared to the genetic structure. There was the proof of the difference, from which all else was derived, the specific traits that barred human from other animal and other animal from human. Soon...this one would accept his assimilation and perhaps its other, more feral half. It would be more feasible to let the dragon conquer him, as he had plunged the last of his tranquilizers into Gaia, too dead to retaliate at the sharp needle embedded in its crust. Not at all concerned at it--knowing full well he couldn't resupply at the lab, he dismissed it as minor.
Wh-what the frikkin' HELL?!? Cid's eyes widened as he heard Hojo's words, freezing instantly as he realized what he had missed a moment before: his lack of discernible speech. He was shocked for a moment, but then a strange calm came over him as he began to walk forward on the dragon's unsteady feet and made his way towards the mad scientist that had started this all, and maybe who was the one who could end it...
Or at least he could end Hojo.
Old man, you are SO dead. It didn't seem to faze him, the fact that he had already spent, and wasted, his last tranquilizer. The capsules of dark liquid would most likely have no effect on the advancing subject: His only visible defense was what he had sold his body and soul to ages ago.
Quite an ample defense once one acclimated to the periods of violent retching that rejected any nourishment and spasmodic mutations that left the physical body a travesty of humanity and destroyed the host's ability to reason according to its own ethical principles.
It was preposterous to think that the subject would bring him down. Standing calmly as ever, the dart gun disappeared in his labcoat pocket and he simply stood there, scrutinizing its every, staggered, awkward move it made.
"Do you really think you are capable of killing me?" he questioned with a taunting smirk. "You'd have a better chance of reverting to a 'normal' state, which, the chances of which are little more than zero percent."
Cid grinned in response to Hojo's taunt, his half-draconic eyes almost as cold as Hojo's. Zero percent? He came uncomfortably close to the mad scientist, bringing one of his clawed hands up in the air. Oh, yeah, you're REALLY fried.
Violence seemed like the best solution to his problems at this point. He really couldn't imagine facing anybody like the way he was now, and what if that fucking dragon started spazzing out on him again? Nah, the best way to calm his nerves would be to spill some blood that seriously needed spilling.
Too bad he didn't realize this new outlet for his fury was yet another one of the dragon's "gifts."
Hojo peered up through lenses clouded with the vapor of hot dragon breath from the subject being so close in proximity. The same unchanging, unconcerned look, that would probably remain unchanged even if Cid had divided him at the scalp. He pushed on the rim of his glasses, mentally noting how rapidly this bodily assimilation was progressing. Draconis Rex was a vengeful one, it seemed... Perfectly suited for his purposes.
And perhaps that's what pissed off Cid the most, how this little hunched- back freak of nature could control so much through so little action... like he wanted to be God or something. Or at least destroy God... not that Cid was religious or anything--he'd usually fallen asleep during any church mass he'd ever been dragged to, usually by some girlfriend that dumped him a week later. In any case, he hated that jeering face. Hated it like hell.
Something came to mind then, something he'd been wanting to spit in the old man's face for a while.
"So," he managed to growl low and long. "I guess I deserve this..... just as much as Vincent...?"
For a moment Hojo could do nothing but stand there tight-lipped and smart at the blow. But when he spoke again, his voice, now a lethal calmness, betrayed a fury- impassioned ire threatening to spill over the lip of a volcano and incinerate the one who had dared to daunt him. A fury that couldn't have been his own. What Cid said had sparked some terrible reaction that lay dormant in the black depths of his twisted soul, and though Cid could acridly laugh in his head about this victory, he wasn't aware that he had evoked a terrible wrath.
"Who are you..." He began, the irritation rising to anger at an alarming rate, though the surface was undisturbed. "...to pry into these matters? They are not yours to question." It ignited. With a grabbing motion far too swift for his age he had his spidery fingers wrapped around the half-dragon's throat, his fingers lightly pressing into the scaled hide. "You are an audacious one, indeed, to liberate the skeletons in the closet..." With ONE HAND he began to choke the creature that should, by default, be much, MUCH stronger than the old bag of bones, tightening at each gag the other managed to cough out. "In doing that you question what I did to him...." Tighter. "But let me clarify this slight misunderstanding, Draconis Rex..." The Mako gaze that now filled both his eyes burned with hellish flame..the hue of his flesh began to take on a sick, sallow green as the volume of the scientist's voice shot up into a hate-overflowed scream, "What I did to that goddamned Turk was JUSTICE!!!!" He rattled the hapless dragon-man with inhuman strength and subhuman brutality. "He got to her first, yes he did....I simply took my rightful revenge...justice, THAT WAS ALL IT WAS." He hurled Cid onto the slab of hard ground, the rage receding into his detatched calmness while Cid just lay and stared, stared while the joints of the dragon's wings pushed aggravatingly in his back and the stuff Hojo had in his greasy hands seeped through him like a quick- working poison that corroded the fight in him and reduced his screaming protests to an almost infantile whimper as the toxin sucked him dry of strength. And it was in the flickering darkness the dragon's voice echoed louder than ever.
Ready or not.
Cid managed to mouth a hateful curse of loathing when the dragon finally wrested control, the dragon that had power over him, the dragon that now emerged with spread wings from the body of the crumpled human and roared with cocky defiance. Once again, the beast mastered the man. The weak, pathetic man that could only prove he was strong when he had a handload of Materia and a sharp weapon in his fist.
The scaled beast thrust himself into the wind, a massive wake of air prompting Hojo to glance up in complete satisfaction...of this creation of the Planet that made the skies cower with its presence. How could that piteous race, human, deny this power? Say it was not theirs..the pilot..what was his name? Ah...it mattered not...he should be elated, sharing the power of this wind dragon.
He held the sky in his hands, and he only found it sufficient to complain. How ungrateful. How human.
He shoult accept it before long. When forced to assimilate, one could resist for only so long...
"The weakness of the human will is a perplexing phenomenon." He followed it. If he had the correct coordinates, Draconis Rex was headed straight for a portal. Everything was falling into place. With almost negligible opposition. He clutched his frail chin between thumb and index finger. "All is proceeding with such smoothnesss that it is inevitable something will go wrong..." The blue dot suddenly vanished. Gaia and Earth were at equilibrium. His presence in Kanto would surely block any intrepid miscreant that aimed to stop him. Then again, what did he care about opposition? It was inconsequential with Draconic Rex in total control. Disregard Shin-Ra machinery that drained the host town dry of gil, a method that not only destroyed the economy but produced an inferior threat compared to this biological doomsday weapon. Ah, yes....it could very well rise to that...but to call it a weapon would exxagerate its actual purpose. It was an unwitting and unwilling tool of science. "It is probable due to the high concentration of humans that Draconic Rex will cause...substantial damage upon arrival.." Hojo muttered. "What a pity...billions of gil in property lost." He smirked. "The President will be quite furious...the very stress will bring the process closer to initiation."
*~*~*
It was time to move on. The memory was getting painful and the bodies were starting to smell of rot. Some of them got shovels and dug one giant pit, throwing the dead in when they found them, the bodies too mutilated to identify. They dug for different reasons... A few wanted to see their comrades decay as one as they had once thrived as one, while most wanted to just rid the air of the stench. But whatever the reason, they had to be buried. Impersonal burial as it was, heaps of charred, mutilated corpses that weren't cognizable as the humans they were, most not even whole, parts of corpses, a head missing there, a scream and a thud when someone found the head ruthlessly crushed under scorched plaster, and it would get thrown lightning-quick into the grave and never find the body from which it was missing.
A few of them managed to leave the wreckage before the surviving executive rounded them up and set them gravedigging. The Grunts stood on a high point overlooking the ruins. One of them had a field viewing mechanism, scanning the immediate area. The work was tedious and boresome and every other negatitivity that surrounds a mundane job, but it was better than being around those bodies.
The other one, however, wasn't so sure.
The Grunt without the device stood tensely behind him, every puff of wind or rustle of grass whipping his hand to his PokéBall, his head darting ratlike away from the most unsuspicious of corners. The first one looked at him from behind the visor without removing it from his face and muttered,
"Fate can't deal us a worser hand, ya know. It's over. They can't do nothing to us now."
"Yeah?" the other one snapped, the shadow that his cap brim normally masked fading as he upturned his broad chin and bore terrified, desperate eyes. "You tell that hellspawn when it comes 'round here. There's 'gonna be another one and it'll wipe us all out."
A third Grunt hiked somberly up the incline, the weight of his trudging boots wrecking the solemn calm and stirring both Rockets on the edge to rip their PokéBalls off their belts to a readied position. They only gradually eased into non-hostile stance when they saw the black-white-red pattern on his clothing: God, it was hard for them to even trust their own anymore.
This one's gloves was stained with blood from the bodies and stunk with the reek of decay. The gravity in his slumped shoulders and heavy gait signalled bleak news. He halted in front of them, looking this way and that, hesitant in delivering the message. He finally found the guts to look straight at them and give them the report. The look was dead serious.
"We found Wendy. She's gutted clean...it slurped all the meat outta her and left her husk.They got ten more they know..most of 'em Grunts and some higher-ups. Ya can only tell by what they're wearing, they're all so cut up."
Wasn't anything new, the other thought with a lowered head and a tightened bite on chipped molars. Quit dwelling on it 'cause it won't happen again. But in his heart he knew how vulnerable they'd become. They were the dust at the mercy of the wind.
"Like I said, fate screwed us. Screwed Team Rocket. Nothin' else they can do to us." No sign of disturance. No sign of the freak. The lasting calm was almost threatening, but in his mind he was convinced that he was right. He switched off the device and clipped it onto his belt. "It's all clear: we better head down. Might count us as dead." The Rockets nodded in assent and in a disconcerted body, vacated the promontory.
They hadn't reached halfway down the hill when they heard an explosion and a fearsome growl that grated through the outpouring smoke that ejected from the inflamed debris that rocketed out from the center like the shear waves of an earthquake, hailing them like meteorites into the hard earth. A much smaller shape blasted away from view and the quaking corpse of the HQ. The Rockets broke into a mad sprint.
They thought they had witnessed the worst.
The grave was totalled, the half-buried bodies piled up on the surface. The ruins smoldered in electrical fire and ignited gas line, coughing black smoke and spitting the chewed-up remains of the wreckage into the clouds. Gravity hurled another wave of the concrete meteorites into the ground where the bodies lay, connecting with the pitiful masses of flesh, bone, and muscle and crushing the life out of them. The three living dashed into the core of hell and overturned the bodies, laced in blood with the remnants of glass and some lacking their limbs that got strewn around the swelling collection of blood.
"So that was it, huh?" one of them spat, a tower of flame rising above him as a fire spread and roasted the mangled flesh. "Fate had it in for us just once, huh?" The tense growl in his words knifed the other in the gut. The glare he gave him, the intent behind the words was deadly. But death was rampant in this cursed place. There was no need for more. Anger was slowly replaced by despair in all three when they realized that everyone was dead. Dead and burning in hell like the cops and their victims said they would one day. As the fire's appetite grew and devoured the bodies, they let choked breath escape them: they fell on their hands and knees and cursed the gods who beat them while they were down, reduced them to nothingness..them and that lethal shadow streaking across the sky.
Draconis Rex mowed down the obstructing forest and soared into the clouds, leaving the fallen branches broken and bruised. A wind column spiralled across his reptillian body, a tornado without limits, ripping the earth into shredded chunks and hurling it away with tremendous force. He was the Jupiter winds: indomitable and eternal.
Kanto had been scratched by the demon and the lizard. It was about to be maimed by the dragon.
But deep in the death machine's head, the dormant pilot suffered in a haze of nightmares that sprawled from the complete darkness, images shooting through his weakened mind at a maddening pace, images of death and destruction that plagued him worse than the poison that seeped into his veins. It left him somewhere dark and silent, save for the shrieks coming from everywhere in thousands of pounding waves that clashed around him trapping him in an ocean of chaos that sealed him off from the surface and left him ignorant of the blood the dragon so gleefully spilt.
*~*~*
I leave you with that happy, sugary note. Stay tuned for Chapter 19. -_^
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/story and title by DarkMutaedBrock/La Cidiana
A/N: Speaking of which, big thanks to her, as she remains the brains of this twisted fic, giving it shape and direction. -_^ Wow. Ivy is actually given a name in the dub. Er.....we were a few letters off, but..ah.that's life. ^^;
*~*~*
What we did was wrong. Now that I realize that it may be too late. Abandon our initial purpose. I have lost everything...I think I am losing myself. I ask you one last favor, before I discard these tools of suffering forever.
Do not entangle yourself in a spider web. I hate to use this metaphor...I know it makes you uncomfortable, but the newer members are of a treacherous breed. You never trusted anyone, my friend. Do not start now.
Samuel
*~*~*
Chapter 18: Farther Down
*~*~*
The skull-splitting headache did not abate throughout the night. It remained a steady throb, worsening to a drilling presure on his temples only when Rufus was on the verge of forgetting that it was there. Then the nausea would roll in, and then he'd retch in the toilet while the phone rang and Dark Nation was barking and he had a window of two minutes to get the hell out of the bathroom and to the board room to preside at a meeting of the same squabling executives that would only increase the throbbing tenfold and he'd look into the toilet and stare at the disarrayed pieces of vomit before flushing the vile substance down. If his digestive system was going to be so cruel, it might serve as a reminder to decrease wine intake. But that was not the case: he hadn't had a drop of alcohol in his blood since he had switched to milk, to what he'd hoped was a passing fancy, for the sake of variety. Oh, yes, his diet had splendid variety: only every breed of fish native to the region plus the latest catch of fresh imports...
Including that fresh-caught salmon. Its eye still dripping with the salty sea locked with his own. He caught his mouth watering. His tongue swept over his upper lip as a fork nested between his thumb and forefinger. An unthinkable urge overwhelmed him, to discard the fork, take the fish, paw it, sniff the reflective scales, and tear it apart, the pieces of it clinging to his teeth steeped in salmon innards. How undignified...he thought disgustedly as he opened his eyes, blurred by nausea. Groggily, he threw off the heaps of linen onto the foot of the king-sized bed, cursing the cold air that trickled in from a partially open window. Realizing not even the servants would be awake at this hour, he stumbled towards the source of biting wind and with half-concealed self- consciousness at actually performing a menial task by himself, shut the window and drew the curtains. He would die before his executives saw him like this, staggering like one who had far too much to drink. Not that he had any wine for the last few DAYS, craving milk as if it were an addiction, his employees taking every chance to look at him the wrong way, which made him increasingly irate, which sharpened the craving for the drink.
Those same pangs gnawed at his gut now. He squeezed the curtain in tightened fists on which the sweat ran down. They say he never bled, shed tears...or perspire. Like an ice statue brimming with perfection at the lack of having anything to sweat over. But now, he was sweating like a hog.
He needed milk and he needed it now.
The wine glass left a white ring on the bedside table emblazoned with the company's insignia. It had been sitting there throughout the night, the horrific stench that attacked his senses registering only just at that moment. Imagine the bacteria breeding in that white ring. It was a culture fit for Hojo and his colleagues and a petri dish. But it didn't belong to them..it was HIS milk, his bacteria-infested milk, his milk that didn't sit quite right in the crystal wine glass and his milk that was screaming to be consumed. He grasped it with as much zeal as he had for the corporation itself, tilted the glass in which he was too intoxicated at the moment to see his reflection, and let the night-old milk trickle down his throat, instantly trading divine ecstasy for an unprecedented nausea that kept his hand clutched to his stomach as he practically staggered to the bathroom. And by then it had subsided to a mere wringing of that organ, allowing him to regain some of his lost dignity.
Rufus pushed the lightswitch on with one hand, the other pressed against the side of his soaking head. On top of all this, morning breath deteriorated the wringing into a slew of insufferable gymnastics that the half-digested food bubbled to the throat, and plunged back into his stomach, leaving the rear of his mouth raw from the acid spurt which left behind the most revolting taste. This is all_I need right now, he growled mentally, reaching for the gold-plated handle and pulling the medecine cabinet open. He grabbed his toothbrush from the shelf, when he happened to glance...at...his..reflection.
What in all hell?
Patches of abnormally thick hair lay all over the sides of his head and his neck. With an imperceptibly trembling hand that was likewise shod in hair, he felt under his shirt.....there should have been much less hair than there was when he felt his chest, thick with patches of entangled hair, almost like...like..animal fur. The headache increased tenfold. The milk craving and the nausea it induced shot up at incapacitating speeds. Dropping the toothbrush he ransacked the medecine cabinet, grabbing a bottle of Tylenol and an electric razor.
"With the price I paid for this import this had better work," he snarled, downing the medecine and immediately after, assaulting the hair with the razor, madly shearing all of it in unpredicted strokes that left a pile of fur at his feet. Once done, he examined himself in the mirror again, to his angry horror, beholding whiskers that grew out of his face. He touched them gingerly, half-frozen in perturbed shock, in immediate revulsion at these long fine fibers that was just a result of a vivd nightmare. He could prove it to himself: with sour irritaiton he grabbed them in a bunch and pulled, yelling at the pang of pain that subsided with the ever-increasing headache....and the ever-growing revelation... Revolted, panicked, and scared as all hell, Rufus slammed the cabinet, removing this face he saw..this face that was his own. But how?
How else?
Kicking the clumps of fur away into a corner, he flung open the door, stalking out of the bathroom with a furious scowl. That backstabbing viper would be giving him rapid answers unless ehe wanted the Turks calling at her lab with a pack of starved Houndoom. An ease returned. Why not a toxin in her glass? She had coerced him into signing that contract..why shouldn't she sign that same contract with the Devil? Whatever the means, her term of employment under Shin- Ra/Silph Inc was drawing to a close.
The very thought of her demise induced a tranqiuil wave that mitigated the migraine.
*~*~*
The hulking creature laying in the middle of the entrance hallway adorned with luxurious paintings of famous economic giants whose names became synonymous with gross wealth as well as rampant corruption, growled at the pungent scent of an intruder descending the finely varnished stairway that spiralled downward from an artificial paradise of lush carpet and draped banners bearing the crimson and gold, the emblem of an empire.
So the foe fouled its glory with its presence . A natural foe, at that, one that had been ingrained in its mind the day it was born behind glass walls hanging there for a purpose it never found out, as it was beaten in its short youth its brain capacity shrunk proportionally until they reduced it to a machine, a machine that knew how to obey and only obey its one command: kill.
The black dog rolled over on its side and heaved itself on its paws, its fangs wedged together in a vicious snarl. It crouched in attack position, its glaring eyes piercing the blackness. The moment it heard the intruder enter the room, the death machine lunged, its claws scraping the polished hardwood floor, ramming headlong into the pricey furniture as it slackened its frothing jaws, readied to deal instant death with a savage bite.
The master's voice.
"DOWN, Dark Nation," growled Rufus as viciously as the dog, that slowed down, though still snarling, letting out a low, hateful bark and eyeing his master as a dog eyes a cat. Rufus' ice-hard gaze stabbed into the dog, a grinding glare that signalled to the target that there would be physical retribution for this unwanted transgression, but, by some peculiarity, he'd sooner beat his whores than the dog. That much respect he granted it. And besides...the glare made as much impact, if not more, as the hand did. Dark Nation realized that this was his master, and it stalked into its sleeping area, the scent of cat still hanging on its quaking nose.
The brute left him doubtful. The President sniffed the air. Surely he did not smell like one of those beasts even though his eyes told him that.....He absolutely refused to admit this rubbish. Even if this was happening to him, he would force the answer out of Ivy, this incident would be over, and he could resume his life and erase this happening from the annals of his memory.
He rammed the twin doors of his private study open, his medium build in discord with the stormy tread of someone on a rampage. He groped for the lightswitch and it illumined the room and inflamed the ache to a crushing that bowled carelessly over every lobe of his brain, and he stumbled across the room, clamping his head between his palms, squeezing it like a vice which did nothing to alleviate it.
"This is what I get for giving into a threat," he growled beneath taut breath, rooting the tips of his fingers on the edge of the desk to steady himself. "The poison probably wasn't even lethal...how would she benefit by killing me?" She baited you and you fell for it...and you call yourself the mastermind of this..He ground his teeth that scratched against each other. An unnatural feeling, as if the canine was more pointed than usual...Empire. They formed into a victorious grimace that his folly erased and cast behind it. Where was your mind when you held that glass? Did you think for a minute that an outsider only remotely affiliated with the company could be trusted? If you learned anything from your jackass of a father, it was to never concede to outsiders.
After a struggle with gravity he reached the cordless phone on the corner of a glass desk and yanked it off of the cradle, fiercely punching the numbers and throwing the phone to his ear. In almost schizophrenic contrast, he regained composure swiftly, not letting a dash of refinement that had been lacking in his public life as of late escape in his groomed tone: "Ivy, there is something of dire consequence that must be discussed immediately." Nothing but the repeated ring of the phone. Either she was absent on business or she was expecting this and had pulled out before she sunk too deep. "Ivy?" His patience thinned. The dormant ice cracked. Nothing on the other line. Silence. Breathing. Hers? The dog's. Bitch. Answer. The. Phone. The normally delicate grip tightened to a vicious hold. Patience sifted through the hourglass like gravitating sand grains. On the sixth ring nothing. Seventh. Eighth. Why hadn't she answered? Patience buckled. And it finally broke. He screamed across the other line, the resulting sound bearing no semblance to the words he thought he had formed.
Rufus caught himself. He let the phone drop, and prodded his throat with his fingers, staring fixatedly in unnerved silence at the vast halls. That sound...that inhuman roar....could it be possible that that was his? The blazing ice of his eyes bore a hole through the darkness into the next room. Could it be Dark Nation? No, dogs bark, they don't roar. Nor do they hiss. Hiss...hiss...cats hiss. He looked at his reflection in the desk. It mocked him. It jeered him. It scared him. He felt the whiskers. Cats had whiskers. He ran his finger over them. Hair was on the fingers. Thick hair. Cat fur. Impossible.... The craving..milk and fish..they like milk, don't they? They like fish. The wild ones like fish. They all like fish.
Without prior warning, Rufus all of a sudden smashed a raging fist into the glass. There was a massive crash and a hiss so feline that Dark Nation with one furious bound clawed madly at the closed doors. Rufus didn't hear its frenzy, staring with horrified eyes at this result of his driven rage, and he cursed his own rashness, this loss of level-headedness for which he was legendary. He paid the price of blood. The shards sliced into his skin and the blood flowed. He jerked the flesh ribbons away, clamping his chopped fingers between the other, smearing the blood on the tufts of fur. Droplets dropped in sticky globs on the scattered shards, blotting out his reflection. It was gone. The cat-man was gone.
He rose slowly still holding the lacerated hand. Pure pain radiated from the wounds, but the migraine outlived it. It pulverized the inner caverns of his head, not even receding when he dripped a mess of blood splotches towards the bathroom past the enraged hulk that snapped at his heels. Again it was ignored. The headache was the culprit. No, it had not even the decency to let him alone just for that one moment, relentless and brutal, getting worse when something else got worse, reaching its zenith when he unsuccessfully tried to exctract the embedded pieces of glass. For the first time he wanted to succumb to a buried weakness.
Rufus Shin-Ra fell to his knees on the blood-spattered floor.
*~*~*
The square box was a curious thing.
It whispered and shouted, dazzled vision and pummelled hearing, tricked the brain into thinking there was someone else with you but in the end was just another source of cancerous radiation. The flashing pictures were strangely transfixing, like the alluring light in an insect trap, and Red peered straight ahead at the pale glow of the television, his chin resting slanted on his paws.
An ad here, a commercial there, a recap of the earlier night's news scrolled across the screen in blocky capital letters: survivor of Pewter disaster found, Kanto researcher arrested for assisting Jouto researcher's escape from Goldrenrod City Prison, Viridian survivors relocate to Cerulean..
Red's head shot up as a muffled pounding assault his flattened ears. Someone knocking...this early? His biological clock told him the sun wasn't even up yet. That could only mean...it was urgent, whatever it was. He headed out the door, diving down the stairs and landing in front of the door with a soft thud. Leaning his head over, Red pulled the door open with his jaws, a single eye falling on the battered humans.
One of them had her hand poised to knock, raised in midair, but didn't quite make it. The one next to her fell first, and she followed almost simultaneously, passing out on the doorstep. Left without explanation of why they were here and why they were covered in blood, he dragged them through the doorway by their ripped clothing and shut the door, the house silent once again.
From the bushes, Brock choked on his guilt. He knew all too well why there was blood on them. Because of him. With acrid loathing Brock stared at his hands, that had so recently been claws. Claws that were designed to kill. Claws that could have KILLED THEM. If only he STAYED human, they wouldn't be hurt like that. But they were. And he was to blame.
But he didn't...mean it. He could...show he didn't mean it, right? Tell them he didn't know what he was doing, that he was sorry.
Was that going to cut it?
If it didn't, he deserved it. All of it.
Brock crawled out of the foliage, callous to the red lines the bushes scraped across his shoulders. At this point, he was beyond pain, physical pain, anyway. Fractures in his hide, that marred his body with scars and unhealable wounds, were so much less than the agonies of a razed soul.
He moved towards the house, a door he once found friendly, a plug to stop the hollow hole that was left of his own door, a door that couldn't be told apart from the miles of ashes that cloaked his hometown.
Ashes..
The fire..
Cindy's crushed legs under the burning house..
The smoke smothered her tears..
Her body smoldered in the fire and lay with the ashes.
Tommy would rot under the tree.
Would he one day see his yellowed skull staring back at him with that unexpressive grimace that all humans show when their flesh creeps away leaving only the naked bone?
Brock barely felt himself take that shape which was becoming familiar, natural, as if he'd been a Pokémon all his life. He roughly grappled with the doorknob, his claws not gripping the way his hands would. He was good with his hands. He'd sewn and kneaded and stirred for as long as he could remember, but a different story with claws. They, like hands, were made for a purpose. Ivy..she designed this, didn't she? She made it this way on purpose.
It was so much easier to break down the door than use a doorknob.
The door fell with a clatter of wood on wood, and the demon stole inside, the scent of human blood instantly invading his nostrils. With a grunt he dove for the source, then stopped an inch away from the blood source.
"HHRGRASHHH...MREEGHHSTIE..." he growled. With all of his inhuman will he controlled himself, convincing, lying to himself that he wasn't thirsty, that he had no need of their blood. He was parched. A drop...a drop, all he needed..they would never miss it....."HHGRRARGHH??!" Brock reeled in fear, in fear of himself, of what he would do, straining, forcing himself to be repulsed by the blood, the iron-tasting globs of red blood. Maybe..he could take his own, satisfy the demon half of him. Who the hell was he kidding? He was fully a monster, not only half. Stupid...he was stupid for even thinking that. His body revenged itself and the irrepressible pangs of thirst attacked him in full force. God, what was wrong with him? He was here to help THEM, not to help himself, not to fulfill his own barbaric thirst for blood.
Fighting the animal instincts with maternal ones, he pulled himself away from the blood source, forcing himself towards the kitchen, to get them a drink. They say you died after a few days without water. They couldn't get much in the Rocket dungeons, the way they treated their prisoners. They were lucky to still be alive, going that long without water. He didn't dare get a glass, for fear of shattering it and alerting the red Pokémon, or worse, Ash's mother, and emerged from the kitchen with his scaled palms cupped and full of tap water. Stealing like a shadow among the shadows, he approached where the two unconscious humans lay, and lifted it to their mouths, the liquid pouring off of his scales down their throats. Not exactly pure, but it was water nonetheless.
Misty's vision slowly came into focus: blood-red eyes, pointed fangs in a mouth half-opened with concern, marring its purpose with the existence of the forked tongue, all on a head stripped of its hair, gently..gently holding her chin with its clawed hand. It snapped.
"Br..Brock.." she gasped hoarsely, unable to move, whether out of raw terror or raw joy. For all she knew, Brock could be waiting for them to wake up so they'd be conscious when he killed them so they could feel his pain..A tinge of distrust still lingered, and Brock sensed it, in the way she looked at him, the fear in her voice, and he shrunk from them, his claws shielding his bald head.
Ash worsened the situation.
"Get away! You're not gonna hurt Misty and me anymore!"
"Grrrrragghhhhhhhh....." A guilt-ridden growl leaked from the darkness of the house. The blazing eyes grew fainter as Brock crawled away, desperation and remorse softening the perpetual crimson flames. Misty outstretched a hand but the words were muted, not by her somewhat relieved hoarseness but by the throaty roar that penetrated all corners of the house.
Red stood in the entrance to the kitchen, jaws clamped over a roll of bandages. He was readied to attack, instinct and years of battle rendering his hostile reaction automatic. His tail lashed through the darkness, the whipping flame casting light on the face of the intruder.
Firelight..fire..it scorched Pewter... it had to kill..kill the thing that produced it. It would kill Misty..Ash...
Not if he killed it first.
Brock hurled his scaled body at the biding enemy, who dodged with a well- timed leap, swivelling to avoid the stabbing claws that plunged into the floor. Incensed, Brock came at him a death-wielding cyclone, cutting the hide of its foreleg to the bone with the shoulder spikes. A howl shredded the tranquility of early morning and stirred the dry, bloodshot eyes crusted with morning stars and hurting for more sleep...
Brock had him pinned, scenting the red blood leaking from the wound. Overwhelmed by thirst, he bent over the bubbling wound, leaning his lips to the cleansing liquid, taking a drawn-out slurp as the animal winced in pain and Ash and Misty paling at the revolting sound. The slurp. The whine of the creature, the faint pat the blood made when it dribbled off his lips and onto the floor.
Misty tried to shut out reality, wanted to blind and deafen herself to the truth, so she wouldn't see nor hear the vampire wearing the body of her friend. But in the end, he was that vampire.
Why can't you fight it, Brock? You always did the right thing in the end. You always HELPED people... Why are you hurting them, now?! Why can't you fight it?!
What if you can't? Maybe you WANT to be like this. Maybe I was wrong in trying to find you. Did I think I'd find the Brock we all knew? The Brock that gave Charmander away to Ash of all people just because he thought Ash would take care of it better? The Brock that gave Vulpix back to Suzie just because it wasn't really his? The Brock that took care of the Pokémon at Ivy's laboratory..?
Ivy. She started all this...Her and Team Rocket's boss...
...He's the monster...one of 'em..there's two...the other one's Brock-- that's Brock, right? But Brock doesn't drink blood...Brock doesn't hurt anyone...he just chases girls and stuff and...
..Drink their blood.
Holy Christ..
"SHHHRRGHHURRZRHIE..." Brock suddenly dropped the limp animal, his claws quivering with terror. What_was_he_DOING? Hastily he wiped the stray blood from his mouth with his scales, and backed away from his supper. The bright red creature, with its long hair hanging from either side of its muzzle, the way its closed eye stirred the pain in its soul and spilled it from its face...God, the hulking beast reminded him of Suzie..guiltless and shameless because she belonged to that perfect race: normal living beings. So did this thing. He had no right to profane it. No right at all.
Brock crept away from the beast, its chest falling irregularly from the lack of blood. The bandages were still on the floor. He crawled to get them and closed his eyes and held his nose while attempting to dress the unsterilized wound with one hand to prevent the smell and sight of blood from driving him to drain it dry. The bandages ended up being all over. And by then the beast had recovered enough to stand and bore a hole in the other's body. A spark of controlled bloodlust engulfed his bestial eye, and the scuffling of his claws were heard quick on the floor, the bending flame at the tip of his tail grew zigzagged through the darkness as Red pounced for the enemy's chest, consumed with the Limit Break..
When the light almost incinerated both their corneas.
*~*~*
The griffin traced infinity over Pallet, its white shadow dissolving the melded shadows heralding a premature dawn...and a new Hell.
Brock tumbled out of the flooded doorway and onto his back, his claws almost plunging into his eyeballs, the agonizing burn tempting him to make one quick swipe that would leave him sightless and free of this awful pain that was otherwise inescapable. No need to rip them out. Just one scratch and he'd forever be in darkness. He would no longer have to see..anything, anyone.....
It vanished. Brock took his claws from his eyes, everything again shrouded in the shadows of early morning when the sun hasn't yet broken the clouds. All that remained of the vicious light was a shining figure radiating the same pallid hue as the portal he came through.
The figure descended, showered in light that emanated a glorious resplendence. Unquestionable purity, as its blunt-clawed feet landed on the ground that somehow quivered in inferiority. Brock could do little but stare at first, stare at the stainless hands, free of blood, white as the light that spiralled around him in reverent obedience, the locks of hair fine as a cirrus cloud that swirled around his shoulders with the weight of a falling feather, a tranquil smile aglow with the peace of heaven, the sleeveless robe he wore that never brushed the ground, and the soft tail that blew like a reed in a a spring wind.
In its presence.....Brock felt so..low. He knew it was a Pokémon. The tail, claws...but in that Pokémon, Brock beheld his inverse reflection. And then he stared down at himself, scarred skin, bald, naked, disgraced by friend and enemy, a labrat, and....he felt roughly at his throat. Oh, yeah. Unintelligible. Until he transformed. Then other...humans..would be able to UNDERSTAND him, at least. But for now...the only words that could be heard clear were in his ever-turbulent thoughts.
By now, Ash, Misty were able to crawl out on their hands and knees, the light still triggering a million explosions in their eyes. The dog followed, one paw clamped over his remaining eye, the other letting him hobble out the doorway into the muted darkness. But the darkness was not sufficient to protect them from being sensed. It sensed them. .The inner filth. The scum that claimed authority over they who by right were the real sovereigns. A frown so brief that it was hardly visible through the darkness clashed with the serenity of his soul. For now, though, he did nothing and looked upon Brock with a smile so affable that he backed up and growled cautiously.
"Do not fear. I am one of you."
Sure enough, Brock beheld sharpened teeth. A mark of an animal. But was this truly an animal? The way it spoke clearly, intelligibly just like a human? The way it postured himself like a human? Maybe it was only half-human. But that half-human was enough to be wary of. Any minute now it would take a PokéBall and throw it...Any minute now he'd be in someone's posession, someone's property...
"This generation will see the restoration of our race," the calming voice of the man-angel flowed through the air, easing the warranted fear somewhat. "I, Angelon.....hold the secret of salvation." Brock's mouth opened partly, the bloodied teeth jutting out from jet-black gums. Salvation...he didn't even remember what the word meant..It was coming back to him, hazy, fuzzy---he searched through his brain, ran a blackened hand along his skull- -why couldn't he---? It was something..good, he knew that, but.....
His bloodied lower lip trembled and he plowed doubting claw marks through the dirt.
Am I becoming like...him?
Brock grabbed his tail and held it for a few seconds, half-expecting it to scale over and grow spikes and broaden in thickness. Angelon watched him, gradually feeding off of Brock's deplorable plight. He smiled as the vexing sun shines far too brightly in the heavy summers. There was a baiting hope in the orbs of light. Brock reached for it, with the feeble thought that there might still be something left to grab onto at the bottom of the Pit. Wait...that was it..to be saved...rescued...from the Pit....THAT was what it was---and he hung his lowered head to one side, knowing that it could never be. He gave a coarse, embittered laugh and stood to half his full height.
You're wasting your time---I'm way beyond salvation.
He batted the idea away with a claw.
Lets say I COULD be saved..what would you do, purify me? He shook his bowed head in morose hopelessness. There's no washing off this blood..He bore his tainted hands to his reversed reflection, who wore the clashing image of a frown on his lips.
"You act as if one chooses deliverance or damnation...that is far from the truth." His gaze now turned imperious, God's compelling messenger with a holy sword in one indisputable hand . "You MUST attain universal salvation---" The halo encompassed his body, and he began to melt into the whiteness, leaving Brock to combat the burning ache in his brain from the onslaught of light.
Come. The gates have opened.
The white hand beckoned through the sea of light. The burn receded to a sharp tingling, and he stumbled into the immersing whiteness, that churned in a vortex ahead of him. A portal. He felt like he was slipping out of his body and swallowed by his mind, completely unblurred by the excess chemicals, the haunting instincts, the brutal truth separated and closed off from this whole other dimension: blissful isolation.
Blissful to the one immersed in it.
"Brock.....?" Misty lurched on her hands, the heel of her palms burying into the dirt. She found him to lose him again. Maybe for good this time. Sweat coursed like cataracts down her shoulders, and she worked up the last bits of strength to half-stand, Ash a wobbling lump next to her--forget standing, he could barely crawl with his broken leg, and somehow they pushed their limits far enough to get close to the portal---inches away-- before a quaking roar froze them stiff. The chill of some dark shadow gliding over them stopped their breathing entirely, lest it be the last one they took.
The shadow landed with wings folded around its chest like a biding Golbat, a wart-covered bump positioned sentry-like on its left paw. Both of their forms shuddered involuntarily at the crash of the reptile's gigantic claws on the ground. It balked at the front of the portal, its head casted down and in the opposite direction.
I expected him to be trusting, but this is lunacy. I know this trickery...I used to use such means myself.
The eyeless hulk doubled in size as it spread its naked wings. Its cry was one of protest that had lost any hint of attempting to be respectful or formal.
Well boss, where else are we supposed to go? We're sure as hell not going to risk our necks and stay here.
An affirmative croak from the raised bump on the outstretched wing.
Yeah sir, those kids---little runts're going to catch us if we don't split.
Yes...I am...aware of that.. There were some breaks in his roar. For the infant space of a second his bestial eyes gazed straight into the terrified brown ones of the bruised boy in the dust. The most feeble of memories pushed for the surface and kept its head above water long enough for Giovanni to feel the guilt seeping into his black heart before the memory drowned and he turned painfully towards the light and didn't look back. The stranger is the lesser of two evils. Go.
The light engulfed them, and Misty and Ash were alone with the dog. Misty was unable to do anything but watch in growing despair, and Ash unable to do anything but resolve in his mind why he thought he had seen his long-dead father trapped in the revolting eyes of this monster that was once Team Rocket's boss.
But maybe he was just seeing things.
*~*~*
It was hopeless, really.
Hopeless....
Cid choked on some saliva and blood that had gotten caught in his throat with his eyes shut tightly and his hands clenched tightly into the ground ahead of him........ His teeth were clenched hard against each other as sweat crawled down his face and he breathed hard, trying with all his mind to keep the dragon from hurting him more... trying to make him give in......Damn.... it......
You can't hold on much longer....
Cid gave out a gasp as his hands dug in deeper, the claws burrowing into the ground from the tips of his fingers.....
Sure I can.... He thought back with a wry, half-sarcastic smile.
He wrenched his hands out of the ground, clutching them to each other and holding them to his chest as it was racked with hard, forced breathing. He opened his eyes halfway, staring at the ground with unmatched intensity trying to ignore the..... voices... in his head.... stupid.... voice......
It would be simpler and quicker than he had initially thought. Such minimal effort to subdue such a dangerous subject... It was almost too easy. His menacing step made little noise on the ground, the predatory stalker, always under radar. In many ways, animalistic, but what separated him, a monster, and the man on his knees below him, was that the former at least appeared human, if only a bare semblance. Whereas this dragon and the man bound to him...did not.
He levelled the tranquilizer with Cid's shoulder, as removed as before, fully aware of his plight but giving no damn about it as he took aim and prepared to sedate the target. Something at the back of his mind.... as Cid tried to lay the dragon under siege, something seemed dangerous.... a predator.... goddamn instincts, why wouldn't they leave him...... Leave him....
He jerked his head to the side, just before he heard a loud, whizzing sound next to his ear. He fell to the ground with a cringe of pain, the dirt road of Nibelheim hard and unforgiving underneath his back.
His eyes snapped open, both human except for pupils that seemed slightly more narrow than they should have been and an aqua hue at the sides that seemed to be attempting to encompass the rest of the eye....
"Son of a...." he whispered, then rolled over just as another tranquilizer hit the ground where his chest had just been. Breathing hard, he looked up at HIM, and his face suddenly transformed into a mask of pure fury as he staggered to his feet and gave a dogged lunge at his tormentor.
"I'LL KILL YOU!!!!!!"
Maybe he would have been successful at ripping Hojo to shred with the dragon's borrowed claws had Draconis Rex not decided to burden him with something else at that moment. Weakened by the sudden, uncontrolled outburst, he suddenly heard a guttural laugh in his head--then a rip, a crunch, and a sickeningly sharp pain as a pair of blue-scaled wings erupted from his back.
With a desperate cry, he crashed to the ground.
Hojo halted the volley of syringes long enough to stare this object of pathetic fraility down.
"I think not," he answered flatly. "In your weakened state I doubt you are in a position to lay a scratch on me, let alone kill. Besides....." he added, re-loading his weapon with his passive gaze still rooted to the prostrate man, if you could actually call him that anymore. "I have taken certain ......precautions," he allowed himself a calm chuckle as he took aim once more, taking note of the leather-like wings protruding painfully from Cid's back. "Draconis Rex seems to be rebelling. As you can see," he nodded to the wings, "it is as persistent as yourself. If you do not submit, it will find ways to make you." He squeezed the trigger again, another round of syringes flying out from the barrel of the dart gun. His voice took on a crueler tone, marked with the half-smile that crossed his pallid face. "But you already knew that....didn't you."
He's right, you know. Cid felt himself turning onto his back, onto those.... stupid....wings.... FUCK.
"Get them OFF," he found himself muttering aloud, gritting his teeth as he sat up, putting his clawed hands to his aching forehead.
You want control, don't you? He could hear the dragon's voice harsh and sharp in his brain. Here you have it. But as long as you don't accept me... they're yours.
"Mother fucking----DO YOU HEAR ME?!?" He yelled aloud, standing to his feet and staring at the ground as he spoke. He could make out the outlines of his bare, clawed, somewhat scaled feet.
He didn't get a response.
And for some reason, it scared the hell out of him.
Hojo raised his nose into the air, his nostrils catching the scent of an impalpable, yet tangible, scent: the smell of fear. "This runs contradictory to my asessment," he stated with slight hint of disappointment at this discovery. "I did not think this subject would be so susceptible to such a weak mental condition..it is natural for some error to be expected, but not of this magnitude. But it is trivial.."
Show fear, show vulnerability, show weakness, show that you are unfit. No doubt...the human had its flaws. In any case, he would hit him before long.
Cid looked up, his eyes containing a hint of fear. But only a hint. No, he wouldn't let himself be intimidated by THIS wacko... in fact, he should be relieved he wasn't hearing that stupid Draconack Rexwhats-it's-face anymore.... even though he knew it was probably lurking in the deep recesses of his subconscious... maybe finding more ways to trick him.... In any case, having full control of his body after so much turmoil was a welcome change, and he let out a deep breath as he looked up.
But he didn't have control over his body. He had control of some of his own... and then some of that stupid monster's. He was reminded of this as he saw the look that Hojo gave him, that condescending, emotionless stare, and those cold eyes with toneless words....
"Who the hell are you calling a subject?!" He managed to get out of the dragon's half-rebellious vocal chords. He was too drained to feel surprise when it came out as a string of growled syllables.
"You must forgive me, I am afraid I'm not versed in draconic tongue," he answered, a warped grin showing that he drew some delight from Cid's agony, from his inabilty to communicate..hahaa..destroy that, the link between the human species and the rest was severed. Beyond that were unintelligble growls, primitive, primal attempts at speaking formed by an underdeveloped nervous system..that alone justified his classification...but much less communication meant when compared to the genetic structure. There was the proof of the difference, from which all else was derived, the specific traits that barred human from other animal and other animal from human. Soon...this one would accept his assimilation and perhaps its other, more feral half. It would be more feasible to let the dragon conquer him, as he had plunged the last of his tranquilizers into Gaia, too dead to retaliate at the sharp needle embedded in its crust. Not at all concerned at it--knowing full well he couldn't resupply at the lab, he dismissed it as minor.
Wh-what the frikkin' HELL?!? Cid's eyes widened as he heard Hojo's words, freezing instantly as he realized what he had missed a moment before: his lack of discernible speech. He was shocked for a moment, but then a strange calm came over him as he began to walk forward on the dragon's unsteady feet and made his way towards the mad scientist that had started this all, and maybe who was the one who could end it...
Or at least he could end Hojo.
Old man, you are SO dead. It didn't seem to faze him, the fact that he had already spent, and wasted, his last tranquilizer. The capsules of dark liquid would most likely have no effect on the advancing subject: His only visible defense was what he had sold his body and soul to ages ago.
Quite an ample defense once one acclimated to the periods of violent retching that rejected any nourishment and spasmodic mutations that left the physical body a travesty of humanity and destroyed the host's ability to reason according to its own ethical principles.
It was preposterous to think that the subject would bring him down. Standing calmly as ever, the dart gun disappeared in his labcoat pocket and he simply stood there, scrutinizing its every, staggered, awkward move it made.
"Do you really think you are capable of killing me?" he questioned with a taunting smirk. "You'd have a better chance of reverting to a 'normal' state, which, the chances of which are little more than zero percent."
Cid grinned in response to Hojo's taunt, his half-draconic eyes almost as cold as Hojo's. Zero percent? He came uncomfortably close to the mad scientist, bringing one of his clawed hands up in the air. Oh, yeah, you're REALLY fried.
Violence seemed like the best solution to his problems at this point. He really couldn't imagine facing anybody like the way he was now, and what if that fucking dragon started spazzing out on him again? Nah, the best way to calm his nerves would be to spill some blood that seriously needed spilling.
Too bad he didn't realize this new outlet for his fury was yet another one of the dragon's "gifts."
Hojo peered up through lenses clouded with the vapor of hot dragon breath from the subject being so close in proximity. The same unchanging, unconcerned look, that would probably remain unchanged even if Cid had divided him at the scalp. He pushed on the rim of his glasses, mentally noting how rapidly this bodily assimilation was progressing. Draconis Rex was a vengeful one, it seemed... Perfectly suited for his purposes.
And perhaps that's what pissed off Cid the most, how this little hunched- back freak of nature could control so much through so little action... like he wanted to be God or something. Or at least destroy God... not that Cid was religious or anything--he'd usually fallen asleep during any church mass he'd ever been dragged to, usually by some girlfriend that dumped him a week later. In any case, he hated that jeering face. Hated it like hell.
Something came to mind then, something he'd been wanting to spit in the old man's face for a while.
"So," he managed to growl low and long. "I guess I deserve this..... just as much as Vincent...?"
For a moment Hojo could do nothing but stand there tight-lipped and smart at the blow. But when he spoke again, his voice, now a lethal calmness, betrayed a fury- impassioned ire threatening to spill over the lip of a volcano and incinerate the one who had dared to daunt him. A fury that couldn't have been his own. What Cid said had sparked some terrible reaction that lay dormant in the black depths of his twisted soul, and though Cid could acridly laugh in his head about this victory, he wasn't aware that he had evoked a terrible wrath.
"Who are you..." He began, the irritation rising to anger at an alarming rate, though the surface was undisturbed. "...to pry into these matters? They are not yours to question." It ignited. With a grabbing motion far too swift for his age he had his spidery fingers wrapped around the half-dragon's throat, his fingers lightly pressing into the scaled hide. "You are an audacious one, indeed, to liberate the skeletons in the closet..." With ONE HAND he began to choke the creature that should, by default, be much, MUCH stronger than the old bag of bones, tightening at each gag the other managed to cough out. "In doing that you question what I did to him...." Tighter. "But let me clarify this slight misunderstanding, Draconis Rex..." The Mako gaze that now filled both his eyes burned with hellish flame..the hue of his flesh began to take on a sick, sallow green as the volume of the scientist's voice shot up into a hate-overflowed scream, "What I did to that goddamned Turk was JUSTICE!!!!" He rattled the hapless dragon-man with inhuman strength and subhuman brutality. "He got to her first, yes he did....I simply took my rightful revenge...justice, THAT WAS ALL IT WAS." He hurled Cid onto the slab of hard ground, the rage receding into his detatched calmness while Cid just lay and stared, stared while the joints of the dragon's wings pushed aggravatingly in his back and the stuff Hojo had in his greasy hands seeped through him like a quick- working poison that corroded the fight in him and reduced his screaming protests to an almost infantile whimper as the toxin sucked him dry of strength. And it was in the flickering darkness the dragon's voice echoed louder than ever.
Ready or not.
Cid managed to mouth a hateful curse of loathing when the dragon finally wrested control, the dragon that had power over him, the dragon that now emerged with spread wings from the body of the crumpled human and roared with cocky defiance. Once again, the beast mastered the man. The weak, pathetic man that could only prove he was strong when he had a handload of Materia and a sharp weapon in his fist.
The scaled beast thrust himself into the wind, a massive wake of air prompting Hojo to glance up in complete satisfaction...of this creation of the Planet that made the skies cower with its presence. How could that piteous race, human, deny this power? Say it was not theirs..the pilot..what was his name? Ah...it mattered not...he should be elated, sharing the power of this wind dragon.
He held the sky in his hands, and he only found it sufficient to complain. How ungrateful. How human.
He shoult accept it before long. When forced to assimilate, one could resist for only so long...
"The weakness of the human will is a perplexing phenomenon." He followed it. If he had the correct coordinates, Draconis Rex was headed straight for a portal. Everything was falling into place. With almost negligible opposition. He clutched his frail chin between thumb and index finger. "All is proceeding with such smoothnesss that it is inevitable something will go wrong..." The blue dot suddenly vanished. Gaia and Earth were at equilibrium. His presence in Kanto would surely block any intrepid miscreant that aimed to stop him. Then again, what did he care about opposition? It was inconsequential with Draconic Rex in total control. Disregard Shin-Ra machinery that drained the host town dry of gil, a method that not only destroyed the economy but produced an inferior threat compared to this biological doomsday weapon. Ah, yes....it could very well rise to that...but to call it a weapon would exxagerate its actual purpose. It was an unwitting and unwilling tool of science. "It is probable due to the high concentration of humans that Draconic Rex will cause...substantial damage upon arrival.." Hojo muttered. "What a pity...billions of gil in property lost." He smirked. "The President will be quite furious...the very stress will bring the process closer to initiation."
*~*~*
It was time to move on. The memory was getting painful and the bodies were starting to smell of rot. Some of them got shovels and dug one giant pit, throwing the dead in when they found them, the bodies too mutilated to identify. They dug for different reasons... A few wanted to see their comrades decay as one as they had once thrived as one, while most wanted to just rid the air of the stench. But whatever the reason, they had to be buried. Impersonal burial as it was, heaps of charred, mutilated corpses that weren't cognizable as the humans they were, most not even whole, parts of corpses, a head missing there, a scream and a thud when someone found the head ruthlessly crushed under scorched plaster, and it would get thrown lightning-quick into the grave and never find the body from which it was missing.
A few of them managed to leave the wreckage before the surviving executive rounded them up and set them gravedigging. The Grunts stood on a high point overlooking the ruins. One of them had a field viewing mechanism, scanning the immediate area. The work was tedious and boresome and every other negatitivity that surrounds a mundane job, but it was better than being around those bodies.
The other one, however, wasn't so sure.
The Grunt without the device stood tensely behind him, every puff of wind or rustle of grass whipping his hand to his PokéBall, his head darting ratlike away from the most unsuspicious of corners. The first one looked at him from behind the visor without removing it from his face and muttered,
"Fate can't deal us a worser hand, ya know. It's over. They can't do nothing to us now."
"Yeah?" the other one snapped, the shadow that his cap brim normally masked fading as he upturned his broad chin and bore terrified, desperate eyes. "You tell that hellspawn when it comes 'round here. There's 'gonna be another one and it'll wipe us all out."
A third Grunt hiked somberly up the incline, the weight of his trudging boots wrecking the solemn calm and stirring both Rockets on the edge to rip their PokéBalls off their belts to a readied position. They only gradually eased into non-hostile stance when they saw the black-white-red pattern on his clothing: God, it was hard for them to even trust their own anymore.
This one's gloves was stained with blood from the bodies and stunk with the reek of decay. The gravity in his slumped shoulders and heavy gait signalled bleak news. He halted in front of them, looking this way and that, hesitant in delivering the message. He finally found the guts to look straight at them and give them the report. The look was dead serious.
"We found Wendy. She's gutted clean...it slurped all the meat outta her and left her husk.They got ten more they know..most of 'em Grunts and some higher-ups. Ya can only tell by what they're wearing, they're all so cut up."
Wasn't anything new, the other thought with a lowered head and a tightened bite on chipped molars. Quit dwelling on it 'cause it won't happen again. But in his heart he knew how vulnerable they'd become. They were the dust at the mercy of the wind.
"Like I said, fate screwed us. Screwed Team Rocket. Nothin' else they can do to us." No sign of disturance. No sign of the freak. The lasting calm was almost threatening, but in his mind he was convinced that he was right. He switched off the device and clipped it onto his belt. "It's all clear: we better head down. Might count us as dead." The Rockets nodded in assent and in a disconcerted body, vacated the promontory.
They hadn't reached halfway down the hill when they heard an explosion and a fearsome growl that grated through the outpouring smoke that ejected from the inflamed debris that rocketed out from the center like the shear waves of an earthquake, hailing them like meteorites into the hard earth. A much smaller shape blasted away from view and the quaking corpse of the HQ. The Rockets broke into a mad sprint.
They thought they had witnessed the worst.
The grave was totalled, the half-buried bodies piled up on the surface. The ruins smoldered in electrical fire and ignited gas line, coughing black smoke and spitting the chewed-up remains of the wreckage into the clouds. Gravity hurled another wave of the concrete meteorites into the ground where the bodies lay, connecting with the pitiful masses of flesh, bone, and muscle and crushing the life out of them. The three living dashed into the core of hell and overturned the bodies, laced in blood with the remnants of glass and some lacking their limbs that got strewn around the swelling collection of blood.
"So that was it, huh?" one of them spat, a tower of flame rising above him as a fire spread and roasted the mangled flesh. "Fate had it in for us just once, huh?" The tense growl in his words knifed the other in the gut. The glare he gave him, the intent behind the words was deadly. But death was rampant in this cursed place. There was no need for more. Anger was slowly replaced by despair in all three when they realized that everyone was dead. Dead and burning in hell like the cops and their victims said they would one day. As the fire's appetite grew and devoured the bodies, they let choked breath escape them: they fell on their hands and knees and cursed the gods who beat them while they were down, reduced them to nothingness..them and that lethal shadow streaking across the sky.
Draconis Rex mowed down the obstructing forest and soared into the clouds, leaving the fallen branches broken and bruised. A wind column spiralled across his reptillian body, a tornado without limits, ripping the earth into shredded chunks and hurling it away with tremendous force. He was the Jupiter winds: indomitable and eternal.
Kanto had been scratched by the demon and the lizard. It was about to be maimed by the dragon.
But deep in the death machine's head, the dormant pilot suffered in a haze of nightmares that sprawled from the complete darkness, images shooting through his weakened mind at a maddening pace, images of death and destruction that plagued him worse than the poison that seeped into his veins. It left him somewhere dark and silent, save for the shrieks coming from everywhere in thousands of pounding waves that clashed around him trapping him in an ocean of chaos that sealed him off from the surface and left him ignorant of the blood the dragon so gleefully spilt.
*~*~*
I leave you with that happy, sugary note. Stay tuned for Chapter 19. -_^