Hey folks. To make up for the last chapter's long wait and cliffhanger, I have quickly written the next chapter. Yay for Charpal! With that said, read on.
Slowly, slowly, Erin regained consciousness. She found it difficult to move, and then wondered why she was able to move in the first place. Now, where had that thought come from? Why shouldn't she be able to move? What had happened?
Her eyes snapped open. Good gods, she had been shot; that's why she shouldn't be able to move. Since her shoulder no longer felt the blinding pain it did earlier that night, she assumed that it had been a tranquilizer dart. But why? Erin's eyes darted back and forth, but all she could see was white. Maybe she had died after all. No, there was a door: a heavily armored door. That seemed too weird for heaven.
She tried to sit up and found that difficult. Was she paralyzed? No, she could still move her feet and legs fine. Were her arms paralyzed? No, that wasn't it either; they were just being restrained. Erin rolled onto her stomach and pulled her legs beneath her to, rather awkwardly, lift herself off the ground and look around from a better perspective.
Erin closed her eyes and shook her head to brush off the dizziness that came with standing up too fast, or, in her case, crouching too fast. She opened her eyes to see a straitjacket. Well, that explained the reason she wasn't able to move her arms.
Abadon and Chasm! Where were they! Granted, Erin didn't know where she was either, but that didn't stop her from worrying about them. She had thought both of them dead, but since she had also thought herself dead, and she lived, maybe they were okay as well. And what of Celeste? If the men had just taken them, then she would be all right.
'Great,' she thought. 'Two pokemon AWOL and one MIA.' And then there was her. What was going to happen to Erin? Staying there was a bad idea: that was a given.
She stood up carefully and hobbled over to the door to examine it closely. It was make of metal: the only thing in the room that wasn't white. She noticed the bolts and looked at the corners. It was electrically locked from the outside. Damn. Then she kicked it. It was thick. She kicked it harder. No, she wouldn't be able to get out that way.
Erin turned around and leaned her back against the door. What the-? A window? High on the opposite wall there was a window – or what could serve as one. Really, it was about two feet wide and six inched deep with no glass in-between. It was too high to see through, even by jumping. Unless… She looked toward her bed, the only piece of furniture in the room and also white. She walked over to it and hoped with all her might that it was mobile.
Score.
Pushing with her side and feet, Erin eventually moved her bed to where it was directly under the window. It wasn't much of a window, but that didn't matter to her. What mattered to Erin was that there was someone beyond it. She climbed up on her bed, which wasn't much more that a thin cot with sheets and a pillow, and began to jump. Ha! And her parents had told her never to jump on her bed.
It was then that the seriousness of it all finally sunk in. These people had snuck into her room at night, drugged her and her pokemon, put her in a straitjacket, and locked her in a room. What did they want with her? Were they going to experiment on her? On the pokemon? Good gods, she didn't even know why they captured her, or who did it!
"You're not a pokemon," came the voice that snapped Erin out of her frantic trance. She had finally jumped high enough on the cot to be able to see through the window.
"Hey…you're a…scyther!" She had to time her words right so the creature in the adjacent room would be able to hear her.
"That is correct," he replied. He was an older scyther, Erin noted. He had many long-healed scars and appeared weary. Both his scythed-arms were in chains, spread out on either side of him in a position where they wouldn't be able to reach the chains or each other. His clawed feet were chained to the floor as well. "And you are a human. Brilliant deduction." He said this with a smile, so Erin knew he wasn't being condescending toward her. "It was my understanding," he continued, "that this was strictly a pokemon research facility. I have not been aware of any other humans in the vicinity of this cellblock. Why are you here?"
"I…don't know," answered Erin. "They…kidnapped me…and my pokemon. Have you…seen them?"
The scyther shook his head. "No one's come to this section in the past few days except for you. You know," he said as an after though. "If you simply spoke louder, then you wouldn't have to continue jumping and you could speak in full sentences."
Erin complied, seeing the wisdom in this, as she had begun to get tired.
"What pokemon were they?" the scyther asked.
"One was a big charizard with black markings named Abadon, and the other was an umbreon with a spiteful attitude named Chasm. And there may or may not be a-" But the scyther cut her off.
"Abadon? Chasm? That must mean you're Erin!"
Erin almost choked on her spit. "How do you know my name?"
"Nerotalibithan told me about you."
"Nero? You know Nero? He left so suddenly; how is he? Where is he? Who are you?" she finally got around to asking.
"My name is Khythas. Ever since Nero's encounter with you three, he has shortened my name and called me Khyt and hasn't allowed me to call him by his full name. I am Nero's guardian," answered the scyther.
Erin remembered her last encounter with the mew child, when he flew off into the forest yelling for Khyt, though she hadn't the slightest clue what that was at the time. She smiled when she remembered their conversation about nicknames. "So it was you who he went to find in the forest. You take care of him?"
"Yes," replied Khyt. "I am his guardian," he stated once again.
Erin, her head still spinning from what had already been said, but with a million more questions, began at the beginning. "How did Nero get separated from you in the first place, and where is he now?"
The scyther's eyes darkened at this question, though Erin was unable to see this. "There was an accident," he stated vaguely, "and the young one fell in the river." He dropped his head, ashamed. "I had thought him dead, though continued to search, until he came to me in the forest. I ordered him to teleport the two of us away, for I thought he was fleeing from danger when I heard your footsteps close behind. Only later did I discover that a human, a charizard, and an umbreon had saved his life, though I doubt Nero understands the danger he was in. He is still young, and death is a foreign concept to his mind."
Erin let out a sigh. "I'm glad that it was you that was in that forest then. I was afraid that he had something bad had happened to him."
"Something has, now. I have failed him once more as a guardian, and should rightly be stripped of my title."
Erin could hear the pain in Khyt's strained voice, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. "What happened?"
Khyt hesitated before continuing. "Shortly after Nero's return, men in black uniforms came upon us in the night. It seems as though they had been tracking me for some time, most likely to obtain my young charge. I was unable to defend him."
"Why didn't you two simply teleport away again?"
The scyther didn't answer right away. "I don't know how much I should tell you," he finally said. "The circumstances surrounding Nero's existence are supposed to remain a secret from humankind to begin with, but to willingly divulge the information to anyone is strictly taboo."
"We already know that mew, or at least Nero, are still alive, and we haven't told anybody or tried to take advantage of him in any way. We're his friends, and we want to know if he's all right. I doubt that any extra information about him will make us want to poach him," Erin replied matter-of-factly.
Even though Khythas hadn't formerly met Erin or her pokemon, he could tell from Nero and his tales of them that they truly meant him no harm, and would have continued to keep their knowledge of him a secret from others. He was convinced. "Nero couldn't teleport us away at that time because I was too engaged in battling the humans to conjure a solid image in my mind for him to use as a reference. He wouldn't have been able to so for himself because Nero is blind."
"What?" asked Erin incredulously. What do you mean 'he's blind'? He could see us fine before. His eyes are blue anyway, not white, like a blind person's."
"The color of his eyes is simply an image- a hologram, if you will- in order to fool those around him. He is advanced enough in his psychic abilities to send out psychic 'tendrils' of a sorts and view the world around him as a sort of colorless wasteland. He can see others as shapes, but not as individuals. He recognizes them by their brainwaves and voice patterns. This is how he was able to 'see' you before. He is unable to maintain this and use his powers in battle at the same time, however, and so is highly vulnerable."
"Oh," was all Erin could say in response as she slumped down on her bed with her back to the wall. "That's a horrible was to live."
"Yes," Khyt replied. "But Nero doesn't seem to mind it much; it's the only thing he's ever known, and he discovered how to do so on his own. I am proud of him."
"But where are his parents and the other mew? Why don't they take care of him? How come you have to be his 'guardian'?"
The scyther make a short laugh at these questions, almost like a scoff. "This is a topic too complicated to cover in eons, let alone however short a time they decide to keep us locked up here, whoever they are." Then he cleared his throat. "Let me give you the condensed version. The really condensed version.
"Mew are rare. They were rare centuries ago, to the humans anyway, but their kind have been slowly depleting throughout the last millennia. Mew are also powerful, but they used to be even more powerful. Humans remember them how they were at their peak, when they could train with their kind and fight against each other to hone their skills. They can't do that anymore, because there aren't enough of them.
"About three or four centuries ago an organization was put in place- by who I don't know- to care for them. Since the mew were getting so sparse, this organization thought it best if certain powerful psychic pokemon were to take the newborn mew and train them separately, so that, if a human decided he or she wanted a mew, they wouldn't be able to capture them in groups, if they captured one at all. This tactic worked extremely well in the beginning, but then pokemon capable of training a mew to its full potential began getting sparse as well. The fact that mew haven't lived up to their full potential in centuries is beside the point. There are now virtually no able psychic pokemon left to rely on, so the organization branched out. When Nero was born, I was chosen to be his guardian and train him.
"So far I believed that I had done a decent job, considering the circumstances and Nero's condition. Now," and here Khythas' voice faltered, "I know that he has learned nothing from me. All he has done, he has accomplished by himself."
"No!" cried Erin. She once more began to jump on her bed to get a look at the scyther. His head was hung in complete and utter defeat. "No!" she repeated. "Just because you make a mistake doesn't mean that the world has to end! I made a mistake earlier, but I found a way to survive, and so will you. If they took Nero, then they wouldn't kill him, because he's too precious for them to harm." All of this was spoken rather loudly, because not only was it a passionate subject, but Erin had to speak so Khyt could hear her full sentences while airborne. "We'll find a way out of here and rescue Abadon, Chasm, and Celeste, as well as Nero! If you really care about him like you say you do, then you can't give up!"
The door unlocked.
Erin flipped herself around and landed firmly on the floor facing the door, which had just unlocked rather loudly, startling her. It opened up to reveal two men, these wearing white uniforms, one of them bald. Behind them, by the wall in the hallway outside her room, was another man who was wearing a suit and appeared extremely angry. No, forget that, he was livid.
"I told you not to put her in a cellblock bordering that of a pokemon's! Did I not!?!" the man in the suit screamed at the other two. "Did I not!?! I told you, 'she comes from an academy, she'll be able to talk to the pokemon', unlike you two blundering fools, who can't even seem to learn the basics of Pokemon Speech. Now it seems as if you don't understand simple English! 'I don't want her conversing with them' I said. But you can't listen!"
While he was yelling at his subordinates, they had entered Erin's room and attempted to grab her. She swiftly dodged the first and kicked him in the stomach, bowling him over, but without the use of her arms to help keep balance, the other was easily able to come around behind her and lift her off the ground. That one continued to hold on to her shoulders and the first grabbed her feet so that they could carry her out.
"Erin?" called Khyt from the adjoining room. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," she called after him as she was being carried from the cell. "Don't worry about me!" But the door had already closed, and if the scyther had made a response, then Erin was unable to hear it.
Erin struggled and kicked against the hold of her captors, using every fake-out move she could think of that didn't require the use of her arms, but they were stronger and a few hundred pounds heavier and she was unable to break free.
Eventually they brought her to another room with a long table and numerous chairs surrounding it: a conference room of sorts. Mentally Erin berated herself, for she had been so busy fighting the two men in white that she hadn't bothered to notice what path they had taken to bring here there, and she wouldn't know how to return to Khyt if she escaped. No, when she escaped. She had to keep telling herself that.
"Good evening," the suited man said, no longer upset. "Though from the look on your face, one would never know."
Her captors had sat her down in one of the chairs and this man was standing across the room from her, on the other side of the table. They were holding her in place, but she didn't have to like it. Anyone who could see Erin's facial expression at that moment would know that she was irate.
"Let me go or I'll rip out your esophagus!" she yelled at him. Yes, Erin was angry indeed.
"Now, that's no way to speak to the person who is to tell you the secrets of the universe."
'Sarcastic moron,' Erin thought. But she said, "Please, enlighten me."
"Oh, I will. But first, you must tell me what you and the scyther spoke of. All my men have been able to get out of him are idle threats."
"We didn't talk about anything except how to get out of here."
"It would not be wise to lie to me." His eyebrow twitched in anger.
"I'm not lying to you, you idiot! You asked me what we talked about and I told you. Now where are my pokemon, and why did you kidnap us!" It took all of the strength of the men in white to hold her down at this time.
The man in the suit walked calmly around the table to stand in front of Erin's chair. Then he punched her.
"I told you it would not be wise to lie to me, and I do not make false threats." He wiped off the blood on his hand on a handkerchief and returned to his former place across from Erin. There was blood running from her nose that stained the formerly white straitjacket. "But I will let it slide this once," he smirked.
"I also hear you are a decent fighter," he continued. "In time those skills will become mine as well. For now, I will give you a history lesson. What do you know about evolution stones?"
"Go to hell."
The man simply chuckled to himself, seeming pleased. "Yes, in time, you will learn to control that anger and use it to your, and thus my, advantage. But for now," and at this he took a seat at the table. "I'll skip the basics, as I'm sure you know what these stones are and what they do. That does not concern me. What I care about is what you do not know, what my scientists have discovered and perfected after years of research, what they do not teach you at that academy of yours.
The man leaned closer, looking Erin in the eye. "Let me give you an example, as I'm sure I can explain the situation better that way," he began once more. "A leaf stone enhances the abilities of grass type pokemon, some more than others. A leaf stone has no effect whatsoever on a flame type pokemon. And, when used in the right way, a leaf stone can have a devastating outcome for a water type."
His smirk widened as Erin's brow darkened. She was beginning to understand what he was getting at. "You bastard."
"Yes," he said. "Now you understand. Even the greatest pokemon can be taken down against certain odds. Your charizard, for example, proved extremely difficult." Here he paused to outright laugh, for Erin's eyes had widened and she gasped. "Well, there was no other way of containing him. You kept no pokeball to which we could return him. Here, I will show you."
He withdrew a remote control from his pocket and turned it toward the television screen on the wall at the end of the room. A few buttons were pressed and the next thing Erin knew, she was looking at the devastating sight of Abadon, standing in the middle of a large room that was so completely out of her reach. There were an infinite amount of wires hooked up to his body that seemed to be draining the very life out of him.
When Erin finally found her voice, it came out in barely a whisper. "What have you done?"
"Restrained him," the man stated without the slightest hint of compassion. "His duel-type proved a challenge for my scientists, but they eventually worked it out. A formula that was strictly formed of the water stones would not have done any good, seeing as how his 'darker half' would have compensated for that. So they added a few things here and there, and there you have it! Every attempt he makes to break free opens up the tubes on his body and sends more fluid into his veins. He keeps trying, whenever he gains strength enough again, but eventually he will learn, as will you, that resistance is undeniably futile."
As if on cue, Abadon began to struggle against his mechanical hold, and Erin could see the sickening blue liquid flow through the wiring and into the mighty Char's body, causing him to cry out in pain and frustration, only to fall to the ground. For all his work, he was no further to freedom.
Erin was now visibly crying, not ashamed of the tears streaming down her cheeks, mixing with the dried blood from her nose that turned those tears red. "Why would you do something like this? Who are you? Where am I?" By the last question, she was screaming again.
"Clam down. I will not harm you if you do as I say. My name is Charles Turner, but you will call me 'sir'. This," he said, spreading out his arms, "is my organization. I am involved in dark dealings, I'm afraid, and many people loose their lives at my expense."
"Like Team Rocket? You're trying to mimic Team Rocket? You're an idiot." The reign of Team Magma and Aqua were so short-lived that neither team had earned a full chapter in the history books.
"No," Turner replied with a growl in his words. "Not like Team Rocket. Giovanni was a fool and took on too many things at once that he could not control. I, on the other hand, know my limits. You may refer to this place simply as the Agency."
Erin was shaking with frustration. "Why are you telling me these things? You could have just kept me locked up, or moved me to a different cell away from the scyther and locked me up there, and I wouldn't be a threat to you, but you drag me in here and tell me confidential information and hit me! What you want from me!?!" The two men holding her down were having a difficult time of it.
"Because I want you to work for me."
"Like hell I will!"
"I will train you personally and your fighting skills will grow. You will be an interpreter when I require for the more difficult areas of the pokemon language, and when I tell you to, you will go on missions and kill if I require this of you."
"What makes you think that I'll do anything you say?"
Turner looked at her captors and waved a hand. "Let her free. Take off her straitjacket."
They did so, and immediately Erin leaped over the table to get at Turner. He easily backed away and dodged her attack. She came at him with a right kick and he blocked it. She attempted to punch him in the gut and he stepped aside. Any attempt Erin made to attack him, even though she was the most able fighter at her school, Turner dodged without breaking a sweat. Finally, he grabbed her arm, twisted her around, and slammed her into the wall. With her head pounding, Erin was too disoriented to block his next attack.
But his next attack never came. "The first reason you will do as I say is that I am stronger and faster than you. I can easily defeat you in any form of combat, but this will not always be so. Since I will be training you, you will eventually become just as talented as I. That is why reason number two is the most important of the reasons." He bent down to look Erin strait in the eye and spoke gravely and seriously. "Look at the screen. I hold your charizard, your umbreon, and your milotic somewhere in this facility. You do not know where, and any attempt you make to escape will only end in their pain. Do I make myself clear."
Erin hung her head in defeat, realizing his logic. "Yes."
"Yes what?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very good," Turner said with a smile. "You two," he said, pointing to the guards. "Take Ms. Erin here to her new room in the agent's quarters and let her get cleaned up and into a change of clothes. Hers are not appropriate." She was still wearing the flannel pajamas that she had been kidnapped in.
As Erin left the room with the guards, Turner withdrew a cell phone from his coat pocket and dialed a number. "Call the Gym Leader in Lilnith. Tell Claire that I am highly pleased with the new agent, and send her the usual sum she receives when giving us the whereabouts of a promising disciple." He hung up before the party on the other line could reply and walked out the door, still smiling to himself.