((Bmania))

Segue again! (sorry...)

Hatch Carter crouched in the darkened crux of a T-intersection, deep in the sewers beneath Littleroot Town. The siege had fallen the previous night. He was the last to survive. A lone human in a sea of malicious plush monsters. Hatch Carter, armed with a shotgun full of buckshot and a grimace full of rage. They would pay for what they had done to his family...his friends...

He had been stationed on a standard guard duty. They had all heard the rumours of pokemon experiments conducted in the depths of the laboratories. Object displacement, astral projection, temporal studies...some of the men said they were experimenting on Abras, trying to unlock the secrets of teleportation. Hatch could've cared less. As long as the paycheck cashed, the big-wigs could do whatever they had to do.

Now he cared. Now, he suspected, a lot of people had begun to care. Too little too late.

It began in the Research Centre. Swarms of Abra teleporting into the place. Screams and blood everywhere. And then the Haunters, dark swirling miasmas of energy that would streak through the walls and possess human victims. And the possessed would turn on their allies.

Amidst the screams and chaos, the head of the department, Professor Birch, had reeled at Hatch, grabbing his collar and crying out in the horrified voice of a man insane: "Monsters are real! I know ... I ... I made their cage!"

And then the Haunters swept through, and in an instant Birch's face was twisted into a visage so grim and dark that Hatch knew he would be forced to kill him within a minute.

An hour later he had clawed his way out of that base, and hid in the relative safety of the sewers. They could still find him here, but at least he wasn't swamped. And there was always his trusty boomstick to dissuade them.

A hiss, like a dozen snakes with reverb effects, echoed through the tunnel. And then a spined silhouette appeared in the dark haze of a distant junction. A hideous, anthropomorphic reptile rounded the corner. It snorted, then began to lope toward Hatch, gaining speed, a rocket in a drain-pipe, all four clawed limbs skittering at the concrete walls. Hatch cried out in surprise and cocked his double-barrel. The monster leaped, claws extended...

"Get your paws off me, damn dirty Abra!"

A sound of thunder. The report echoed endlessly in the tunnel. Blood and flesh rained upon Hatch's shoulders. The shot-gun fell limp to his side. So tired. But he had to go on...

Had to kill 'em all... (TM)