Chapter Nine-Fire on the Water
Kojau's paws scraped across the last boulder of the rubble pile, and she found herself standing suddenly upon scraggly, dead looking grass that surrounded the fence. The mightyena bent down to sniff it and made a little sneezing sound as she jerked her head upward again, nose wrinkled up. Whatever it was that was down there beyond the fence must have somehow leaked through to here. That would probably account for the unhealthy state of the grass here, and Kojau felt as though she was standing on tainted ground.
Shaking the morbid thought from her head, she slinked up to the fence and peered through the slats, half expecting to see some sort of horrible monster come rushing out of one of the buildings down there and…do whatever monsters did. The thought of a monster seemed oddly familiar and strangely present. She felt she understood it well, but, as usual, she couldn't have said why.
That sense of the two things down there was still present, and Kojau closed her eyes and tried to sense it better. An image of a large hunt going after a ninetales came to her mind, and she likened the two presences to it. One had the fear sense, and the other practically reeked of predator. The predator seeming one seemed to be multiple as well, though it was hard to tell why.
Kojau dimly realized that she was dawdling, and it was probably because of fear. Still she gazed through the fence, prolonging the time before the moment when she would have to go on and find a way through. She looked up at the sky, which was only now lighting up with the first tinge of dawn. She looked at the multiple deserted buildings in the valley below her, and she shivered as she gazed upon the large hole blasted in the roof of the largest and most centered building, wondering what had caused it. She eyed the darkened sea before her, and reflected that she could probably go out to it and escape into the waters if something happened. It wasn't much of a reassurance, though.
The fearful presence down there was somewhere out of her line of sight, and she felt vaguely relieved as its aura of fright calmed down somewhat, and the hunters' aura grew frustrated. She wondered why the fearful aura felt so much like her own. She had thought that she was the only one who sported that unnatural feel to her…well, her and that arcanine that had chased her before. She shuddered a bit at the thought of the arcanine, and the oddest feeling of foreboding began to grow inside of her…
Trying in vain to soothe her fears, Kojau broke out of her paralysis and moved along the fence, seeking to find a weak spot where she could get inside. She trotted along it until the backs of the abandoned houses stopped her from going further. The fence touched upon them from both sides as the valley dipped down, hemming Kojau into a small space, and she found she couldn't go any further. Belatedly, she wondered how the other two had gotten inside, and felt an odd mixture of relief and annoyance, though the relief was foremost.
"Kojau!" She started as a very familiar high pitched voice chimed in behind her, and turned her head slowly, blinking as she made out the blue rings.
Kiete peered at her as he came fully out of the alley behind her, yellow eyes hazy in his weariness. He had been running straight out for a long time now, and had dared not slow down for fear he would loose Kojau's scent. Sure, he had known basically where she was going. He could have missed a place where she had turned, though, and ended up going to this dangerous place when she hadn't even gone there at all, risking his well being for nothing.
Well, all his hopes that she wasn't heading here were pretty much squashed by now, anyway. He felt a shudder run down his spine as he looked upon the place he had been taught to fear. It looked every bit as awful as he had been told it was, and if the story behind it was true he wanted nothing to do with it at all. He determined to at least try to talk Kojau out of going there, but for now was too breathless to say a word. He simply stood there, panting and satisfied that his friend wasn't going to run off any time soon.
"Kiete." Kojau's voice was a bit blank sounding, and Kiete detected an apology in those expressive eyes of hers. It was accepted in the umbreon's mind even before she voiced it, though he did wait for her words. "I'm sorry."
"It's Ok." Kiete sat himself down, wrinkling up his nose at the scents drifting through to him. "Stinks here." He scratched a floppy seeming ear with his hind foot, though he remained on alert.
"It does." Kojau's tone was somewhat beaten sounding, and she could feel the earlier rush of excitement and adrenalin draining out her as she spoke. "Truly awful place. Wonder why it was abandoned…?"
Kiete frowned a bit to himself. "I know…sort of. Firra told me what she knew, though I think perhaps she overpowered some parts in order to get the point across." He smiled wanly, pausing a bit before he went on. "See, this used to be a big industrial laboratory place, before it was abandoned. You know…like a factory and lab combined, though it's sort of hard to understand and they did cover it up, 'cause they were doing some illegal things there." He stopped again to collect himself, and Kojau was reminded just how much better Firra was at telling a story.
"So…it was here for a while…the lab place, I mean," Kiete said vaguely. "And then things started to happen. People noticed a sour taint to the air in the city and such. Sometimes there would even be weird, air born polluted stuff that floated around and was poisonous. You know…stuff like that. And it just got worse." He looked a bit empty headed for a moment, his expression that of a youngster trying to sound good in front of an elder and not really knowing how. Kojau was patient, and he continued soon. "Of course, this was all before I was born. I'm not even sure if Firra was around at the time. I never really asked her. Anyway, people were starting to get agitated and suspicious and all that. You know how people are. The place couldn't last. And one day, a young girl and her father went there to try to see what was happening, because the girl's father was rich and in the police or something of the sort and he wanted to…I dunno, to do an investigation." He frowned. "I am not telling this well at all!"
"It's Ok," Kojau hurriedly said. She was becoming more and more fascinated with the tale by the moment, and besides, it was something to distract her from what she had to do.
"Well," Kiete went on, "they had some sort of odd substance there or something, a sort of substance that was dangerous, and they were using it on pokemon…I don't really know in what way. Like I said, it was a lab and a factory place. They were doing bad, illegal stuff to pokemon and doing bad, illegal stuff with other things. Dangerous stuff. So, anyway, the man was talking to all the laboratory people and trying to negotiate an investigation, or to get past them. And the little girl just wandered off and went up the stairs out of sight of the adults. She got way up in the restricted wing of the place…to the top floor." He motioned to the building with the top blasted off, and Kojau felt her stomach churn. "No one stopped her, because I guess everyone was down talking to her father or something. And she found all those poor experimental pokemon up there and a lot of other weird stuff. Now, she was only a small girl and didn't have much common sense, you know, and she had a kind heart. So when she saw a pokemon contained in the first cage that looked almost dead, she determined to get it out and try to help it. She managed to somehow open up the cage, and the pokemon got out. It didn't attack her or anything, and she set out to let the others out. She had nearly let all the experimental pokemon out when something happened. The pokemon all experimented on with the illegal substance seemed to start going insane, though they didn't hurt the girl. And then there was a weird pulse from a room on top that apparently contained the substance the experimental pokemon carried and everything just exploded on the top floor." Kiete shuddered again. "The people downstairs tried to get out of the building, but only the girl's father and a few other people managed to escape, for the odd substance that exploded on the top floor was also triggered on the bottom floors…" Kiete trailed off, then intoned in a whisper, "The girl was found, mostly bones…found with her arms around the neck of one of the poor experimental pokemon, trying to calm its suffering even in the face of her own demise. I don't really think humans are too good, but she…she was one of the good ones for sure." He was silent then.
Kojau looked thoughtful. She reflected that she seemed to be hearing all kinds of odd tales suddenly, and she wondered wryly if perhaps this was going to be the last one she would ever hear. If the building down there was dangerous, then…wait. "Why haven't the humans torn it all down?" She asked Kiete, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the night wind.
"They did try, once," the umbreon replied, a bit reluctantly, Kojau though. "But there was another explosion that killed the workers there when they got inside the building. The girl's father, mourning his daughter's loss, bought the place and ordered it to be kept untouched so that no one else would loose their lives unnecessarily." He gave a sort of shrug. "I know it sounds messed up, but the place isn't harming anything now that it's shut down and all. Or at least, not really harming anything." He motioned toward the ruins behind them. "The community around here had almost all left by the time the incident happened, for a factory such as this isn't the best place to live around. The rest vacated the area after the incident, and no one has lived here since. This place is thought of as dangerous, and that's why it's all fenced off and separated from the rest of the city."
Kojau found herself frowning. Something didn't seem quite right about that. "But…" She struggled to find the right way to voice her thoughts. "That just doesn't seem like humans, to leave something like this untouched. It's just not their way. They would have torn it down eventually…" She trailed off, feeling inarticulate but satisfied that she had voiced her question.
Kiete looked pensive. "I know it doesn't really seem quite right…but Kojau, people are scared of this place. Sane people, anyway. They've avoided it for a long time now, and nothing has happened to make them decide otherwise." He sighed. "And sometimes, things like this can't really be explained logically. This is a place of danger and badness, and even the earth around it is sick…which is why you can't go in there." He turned large, pleading golden eyes on Kojau. "I don't want you to get hurt…"
Kojau opened her mouth, then shut it again, finding she had nothing to say. She simply stared at Kiete for a long time, as if trying to see some answer to this whole situation in his eyes. There was nothing, though…there never seemed to be any answers, never…
Kiete made a sound in the back of his throat, breaking the thin silence that hung over them. He took a breath and began to speak once more. "Kojau…if you're so intent on going in there…at least tell me why…" His last word was a mere whisper, and he suddenly looked very young and lost in the faint light of early dawn.
"It's just that I must, Kiete." Kojau found the words coming to her naturally, hesitation oddly absent. "I don't know why, but I just know I have to go there. There's something important I must see, something I have to realize, and if I don't, I'll spend the rest of my life wondering what could have happened, what might have been." She looked deeply into the umbreon's large eyes, searching for understanding there. "It's destiny, Kiete, destiny. Some things you just have to do, not matter what the price is, no matter how much you risk you own safety. Some things are more important than those matters."
Kiete simply looked at her for the longest time. She was beginning to think despairingly that he had not understood at all when he spoke again, voice even and soft at the same time. "I think…I understand, Kojau. I don't really know how, but I do…" He let out a long, shuddering breath. "I'm not going to follow you in there…but I will try to help you find a way in."
A smile lit up Kojau's face. "Thank you," she said simply, though there was a wealth of meaning conveyed in that one word.
"Nothin' to thank me for," Kiete replied a bit embarrassedly, though there was a smile hidden in his voice. He got to his feet slowly and padded over to the fence, sniffing around it and moving toward the end of it as Kojau followed behind him.
"I can sense things," he explained, looking over his furry shoulder at her. "Things I shouldn't be able to. If there's a weakness in this fence, rest assured that I shall be able to find it." He paused a moment, then went forward a bit more quickly, stopping at the spot where the fence met the run down buildings and made it impossible to go on.
Kojau followed behind him, looking fascinated. She didn't feel the need to hurry, for the fearful presence had calmed down and the hunting presence appeared to have lost the trail.
"Hmmm…" Kiete looked up at the part of the fence that met the back of one of the abandoned houses, then reared up on his hind legs. "Uff…!" He swung himself forward, front paws hitting the back of the house. There was a hollow creaking sound, but nothing happened.
Kiete dropped back to all fours, grinning a bit and backing up. "Ohh, this is gonna be fun…" His grin widened as he raced forward and leaped, hitting the wall hard.
Kojau stared, wondering just what he was trying to do. Then, it finally hit her that the fence was attached to the wall as Kiete leaped forward again. A long crack appeared in the wall as he slammed into it this time, and there was a gleeful expression in his huge golden eyes as he backed up and grinned at Kojau.
"I like wrecking things," he explained as he came up beside her. "It's fun." He panted a moment, getting his breath back, then licked his lips and looked up at her. "It's almost over, Kojau. The wall is so weak there that I'm betting if we get it to crack that it will fall inward and take the fence with it. If you help me leap at it this time, I'm pretty sure we can make it fall."
"I don't know…" Kojau looked a bit uncertain. "It could be dangerous." She gazed at the cracked wall and fence and frowned.
"Well, it's the only way to get in from here." Kiete nudged her impatiently. "And besides, going where you're headed is probably more dangerous than knocking down a fence!" He scoffed.
Kojau drooped a bit, wishing it could all just be done with. She could still go back, she knew. She didn't really have to go in to that awful looking place before her, behind the fence. It wasn't like anyone was making her. "Fine," she said reluctantly. "We'll knock it down."
Kiete's face lit up in that delighted, destructive expression once more. "Okay!" He backed up, standing at an angle that would take him toward the part of the wall connecting to the fence. "Start running when I do…ready…GO!"
Kojau gave a small cry of effort as she and Kiete ran forward and leaped into the air side by side. Her paws were jarred and smarted as she hit the wall, hard. A cracking sound in her ears made her wince, and she realized belatedly that the surface under her feet was leaning forward and she wasn't falling. The fence gave a screeching sound as their mass combined with a large part of the wall's brought it inward. Kojau saw the inside of the house suddenly, and she had a disorienting sensation that she had somehow stepped into another world, it looked so different from the outside…
"Juuuuuump!" Kiete's yell brought Kojau sharply back to her body, and she lunged and hurtled through the air, landing a ways away from the wall and tripping forward. Dust flew up around her as she fell into the old rug on the floor, her landing cushioned nicely by it.
"Whooo…nice one!" Kiete's joking voice drifted to her ears over the quite that now reigned over the room. Kojau looked up, sneezing in the thick dust she had stirred up, wondering what had happened. Had their efforts been for nothing…?
A large section of the house's dirty wall was suspended a few feet above the ground in front of her, and the section of the fence it was attached to had bent inward along with it, just barely holding it up. While the fence hadn't ripped completely free of the wall, it still left a clear way inside the place before them.
"Well." Kojau got slowly to her paws, shaking herself off a bit. Dust drifted from her coat as if she herself had lain prone long enough to collect it. "Well." It seemed to be all she could say at the moment.
Kiete stepped forward until he stood beside her. "Kojau…be careful. And give a shout if you need any help." He motioned toward the wall and fence. "It's time you went, I suppose…unless you've made up your mind that you won't go?" His eyes didn't look too hopeful.
Kojau looked a bit guilty. "I'm sorry, Kiete. I will be all right, though. I promise." She grinned vaguely and nuzzled him lightly behind one of his ears before starting forward and toward the wall. It creaked a bit as she mounted it, but the fence held it up.
Kiete watched intently as she made her way gingerly over the sagging fence and leaped off on the other side. He made a vain attempt at a smile as she turned around to look at him.
"Even the earth feels wounded over here." Though her voice was near sounding, Kiete fancied she was already miles away. "This really is a bad place." She scuffed a paw around, shuddering, then returned her gaze to the umbreon standing on the other side of the fence. "I think I ought to head toward that building over there…the center one." She motioned with her muzzle toward the large building with the hole in the top floor. It stretched high up in the dawn, and Kiete felt a shudder run through him as he looked at it. "The buildings around it are where I'm sensing the fear-feeling."
Kiete peered at the smaller buildings clustered around the high one and nodded, feeling nervous and wishing he had the courage to go with his friend. "We…haven't really seen anything yet." He said softly, eyes dark with worry. "So it would make sense that whatever it is you're…you're sensing something?" He lay his ears back. "You didn't tell me that!"
Kojau looked apologetic. "Sorry!" She mustered up a small grin. "You might not have let me go if I told you, though!"
"Doubt I could have stopped you," Kiete grumbled. He fell silent after that for a time, and when he finally spoke once more, his words seemed to hang on the air. "Luck go with you. Be swift of paw and keen of thought and you shall come out on top." It was an ancient proverb Firra had taught him, and he hoped fervently that it would help Kojau.
The mightyena nodded to him, then turned resolutely and began to trot off down the hill and into the 'valley' where the buildings were, leaving a disturbed and worried umbreon in her wake.
Kojau wanted very badly to turn back as she descended slowly toward the grim looking place in front of her. The sour smell got stronger and stronger as she went on, and she wrinkled up her nose, finding she had to stop for a moment to get used to it. She noticed that absolutely nothing grew here, and the ground under her paws was an oddly pale shade of brown, as if bleached of its natural color.
There was a path ahead of her, a sidewalk of sorts, though the cement was cracked in places. It went down into the deteriorating factory before her and wound around to all the buildings.
Kojau felt a bit safer as she mounted the path, though she thought this was probably ridiculous. In anything, this would only make her a clearer target for any enemies.
Striving to take her mind off this train of thought, the mightyena instead tried to sense the presences again. The frightened one appeared to be hiding somewhere in one of the buildings near the largest one, and the other presence was somewhere a ways off, supposedly looking for it.
Kojau felt small as she realized that she really had no clear idea where the hunter-ish presence was. It could be anywhere, and it could come upon her all too easily. The mightyena paused as she came down into the valley and looked nervously about herself, half expecting some monster to come bearing down on her. But all was silent and calm. It seemed almost unnatural…
Kojau peered around behind herself, spotting Kiete above her near the fence. He was watching her worriedly, looking tense and nervous. He nodded to her as she looked at him, but didn't say anything.
Feeling somewhat reassured, Kojau continued on. Kiete would be able to spot anything she didn't see, and she felt sure he would warn her if he saw anything the least bit suspicious.
The buildings were still a ways away, and Kojau broke into a trot to soothe her nervous energy and get to them more quickly. She made out a fence behind them all in quick glimpses and saw the flicker of the sea beyond that fence. The sky above the great body of water was the uniform grey of dawn, and Kojau once more felt a sense of destiny across that ocean, so mysterious looking in the wan light…
Focusing on the endless water, she barely even noticed as she came up before the tallest building. Its aura was what really got her to look up at it, an odd feeling of immensity and something warning her to use caution. With a gulp, Kojau stared up at the building. She hadn't realized how truly monstrous it was until now.
It climbed up into the sky for what seemed like miles, and looked oddly ancient, deteriorating and crumbling on some parts. A few of the windows had fallen out, leaving dark caverns in its sides. And the top floor, blown opened to the sky, yawned like the cavernous mouth of some ravenous beast looking for prey.
Kojau was repelled from it and attracted to it at once. It seemed a place of great enormity somehow, and it looked mysterious, as of there was something to find up on one of its many stories. And yet…yet there was something about it that was decidedly dark, something hopeless and heavy and depressing.
At any rate, Kojau was a bit relieved that she didn't actually have to go into it. She tore her gaze from the tall building with an effort and let it rove to the many smaller buildings surrounding it. They ranged in size from sheds to houses, and she tried to sense which one the fearful presence that felt so much like herself was in. After a moment of casting about, she decided that it wasn't coming from any one of the buildings in sight and decided to go around back to look.
Being in the 'shadow' of the tall building made her fur prickle, and she stepped off the pavement and moved a little ways away as she went around back.
The buildings around back were much like the ones up front, only they were a bit taller. The back itself was more interesting than the front, if you could call the things Kojau saw there interesting. There were puddles of goopy dark colored 'stuff' around some of the buildings and off the cemented path that smelled positively rancid, and the mightyena immediately took to the sidewalk again to avoid touching any part of the earth they may have contaminated. The fence before her went along the beach a ways from the water, though the sand looked bleached, much like the dirt around there. But the oddest thing was that the aforementioned fence eventually sloped down and out into the water before it touched onto cement walls. These walls spread out into the sea in a box like shape for a long way, the fence starting up again on the other side and coming back in to shore. The cement walls were so tall that they obscured anything inside them, even out to sea. It was almost like a cage. An oceanic cage…
Kojau wondered if something was trapped there or had been trapped as she peered upward. Her eyes found that the tall building above her branched out into a platform from the top story and went out above the cage in the ocean, as if it was some sort of odd diver's platform. For some reason, it made Kojau shudder, and she turned her attention quickly away from it and back to the buildings, casting around for the fearful presence once more.
It was nearby, she found, very near indeed. In her excitement, she forgot all about the second presence and managed to pinpoint a certain building, one of the taller ones. The mightyena ran up to it, feeling an odd yearning as the scared presence that was so like herself intensified. Perhaps she could finally find answers here...
She found the door to the building unlatched, and pushed it open. She made a fatal flaw in her excitement, however; she didn't look behind herself, didn't pause to sense the second presence.
What was in that building didn't do anything to help her senses, either. There was what appeared to be another mightyena there, cowering in the corner. His fur was grimy and dirty, one leg bent at an odd angle. Patches of his fur appeared to have been burned off, and raw red places could be seen on the skin there, as if from burns only recently healed. His eyes, however, seemed to defy everything; they were bright and full of life, though they did look a bit hopeless. Kojau thought for a second that the fur had been burned away from his head in two places, but upon closer inspection she found she could see two pale spots there, like smooth white rock…
He looked up at her as she looked at him, and those bright eyes of his locked onto hers. They widened a moment later, as if in realization that she and he were alike.
They both simply gazed upon each other for what seemed an eternity, and it was as if a bond was established then and there, as if they took comfort in each others' presence somehow. It could have been compared to a human stranded on an island for a year who happened upon another of his kind. It was a feeling too deep for words, though there was a fierce hope there.
And then it was broken. Everything seemed to happen slowly due to Kojau's fired senses, and she found she could remember it all to the tiniest detail later. The mightyena before her's eyes suddenly widened in horror, and he tore his gaze away from her own, breaking the link. Kojau felt an odd sense of loss, as if she had been denied something very important to her well being.
His mouth opened, and she could see his canines, pearly and beautiful looking in the faint darkness. "Get down! Down!" His rich voice was urgent as he spoke, and it was as if he sent a vibe along the same-ness they shared, for she quite suddenly found herself laying flat out on the ground, a large shadow cast over her. And then there was blazing heat, and she thought for a moment that she was being burned up. But there was no hurt, and she realized the heat was above her as she opened her eyes and heard a cry of unbearable pain and sorrow.
Kojau saw fire before her where the other mightyena had been, and a shadow in it that gradually died with the cry and faded out altogether. She couldn't seem to comprehend what had happened, not even when she saw a pile of white ashes before her as the stream of flame winked out and was gone. All she knew was that the aura that was like hers was gone, that he was gone, and the old familiar sense of emptiness within her was back once more.
Two large orange paws on either side of her moved suddenly, and something huge stepped carefully over her and went to inspect the pile of white ashes, hot breath stirring it a bit. Kojau stared bemused at its orange and black pelt for a moment. Then it turned its head ever so slightly and she saw those familiar dead eyes, that thoughtless visage. It was the arcanine…
Kojau yelped and leaped backward, stumbling into the wall of the building and falling through into a side room as the flimsy wood crumbled, unable to support her weight. She winced as she felt herself slide a bit in some sort of goopy substance that was thick on the ground there, the sludge feeling slimy under her paws and unclean on her fur. She tried to move backward more, but her head felt uncoordinated with her body and all she did was tremble and jerk a bit, pawing in the sludge and staring at the arcanine in horror.
However, the arcanine didn't even notice her. He simply seemed to stare straight through her as he let his gaze wander the room, no flicker of emotion in those pupil-less white orbs. Kojau felt as though she was in the middle of a nightmare from which there was no escape. Here, then, was the predator. No more mysteries there, right? No real reason for her to have come here…
"You got it?" The voice was drifted in from the outside, and it took Kojau's strained mind a few seconds to realize it was human. The arcanine was looking expectantly at the door, and a few moments later a tall man walked through, brown hair neatly slicked back. He showed no fear of the arcanine as he strode past it and looked in satisfaction at the pile of ashes in the corner. "You got it." This time it was a statement. And then the man suddenly reached into the pile of ashes and pulled out two perfectly smooth white stones, undamaged by the fire. And he laughed. It was a low, rich sound, as if he was mocking the world and all around him. Sliding the stones into the pack on his back, he dusted his hands of the ashes and chuckled to himself.
Kojau was petrified. She knew she ought to move, but she could only watch dumbly as the man reached up to give the arcanine a pat on the head. It was an emotionless gesture, though, an empty gesture, much like a man would pat his prized motorcycle.
"Only one more to go." The man sounded satisfied, and Kojau silently wished that he would leave the room. However, it seemed as though this backfired as he took out a cigarette and lit it, calmly pressing it to his lips and blowing smoke into the room. The arcanine simply stood there, robot-like. "Only one more to go, and then we're through with this. Done!" The man laughed again, leaning back against one of the walls, though it didn't break.
Kojau stared at him, heart beating much faster than normal in her chest. She was aware of a faintly stinging sensation, and realized that the unhealthy goop she sat in was probably the cause. She couldn't believe the human hadn't noticed her yet, and, unable to bear the silence any longer, she made a small sound.
The man was immediately on alert, head whipping around the room. He seemed to notice the ruined wall for the first time, and his boots made no sound on the floor as he moved toward Kojau. "No way…" His voice was soft, and then he was in front of her, kneeling down, foul breath against her face.
Kojau did nothing. Her mind was curiously blank of all thoughts at the moment, and as she stared into his face she felt a tinge of what had been and what might be. She couldn't have moved if she would have wanted to.
The man's hand came forward, brown eyes glinting. His fingers made their way through the thick fur on her head, a place where her mane had become overgrown. There was a sudden flash of pain, a blinding white light that obscured her vision for a moment. She did nothing, though, and it was as if she was like the arcanine and void of all emotion.
"Well, I'll be." The man was laughing again, and he took his hand from her head, the fur falling back into place once more. "I'll be." He stepped back a bit, regarding her. "You." The simple word seemed to hang on the air, and then the man was removing an odd object from his pack, an object that looked like a gun but that had a blunt end.
"You're making this too easy for me, you know?" His tone was almost affectionate as he knelt down in front of Kojau again, bringing the thing forward and toward her. Kojau, for her part, felt an odd sort of dull happiness. Finally…she was going home…back to…back to…
The end of the thing was suddenly pressed to her head, and she began to see a faint white light that obscured her vision. There was a pleasant cracking sound in her mind, and she was aware of herself slumping forward, of the world all twisting together and coming down around her and…
There was a blinding pain suddenly as the thing was pulled from her head, and a fierce little noise. The man's cry joined with a rather shrill shout of fury, and Kojau opened her eyes to find herself laying on the ground, slumped forward, the black goo bubbling up around her muzzle and chest. She sat up quickly, nose wrinkled in disgust, and stared.
Blue rings were flashing in the dark, and fangs were set into the man's hand. He was shouting in pain and trying to tear his hand away from something black and fox like that hung on stubbornly, its yellow eyes flashing in the semi-darkness. The arcanine, for its part, stood impassively where it had been all along, looking at nothing.
"Kiete!" The fuzz cleared from Kojau's head suddenly, and she found herself back in complete control of her body, wondering belatedly what had just happened. She stared at the umbreon as the man tried to fling him into a wall. His fangs came loose and he leaped aside, golden eyes flashing as he turned them on Kojau.
"RUN!" His voice was shrill with panic and terror, and Kojau marveled at his bravery in the face of such great danger. She found herself on her paws suddenly, globs of black stuff dripping off her. Forcing down her disgust and urge to lose her meal, she tore out of the room past the man and into the dawn, screeching to a stop on the sidewalk and looking around frantically.
The sun was slowly but surely climbing into the sky, and it was most likely going to be a spectacular sunrise. But Kojau didn't have any time to marvel over this, as she heard a faint shout from inside the building. Something about attack, she thought...
The arcanine burst out of the building behind Kojau and let loose a flamethrower that she didn't know how she managed to dodge. The mightyena flung herself forward and toward the large building before her. It may have been dangerous, but there was worse danger here and now. She had seen what could happen to her…
She came to a stop near a door in the building and threw herself against it without a thought. There was a dull creaking sound, then the door came loose and fell inward, Kojau with it. She stumbled sideways, wild eyed and managing to take in all around her at a glance.
The interior of the building cast an illusion of being bigger than the exterior. The wallpaper had long since faded to grey, and the room she was in was huge. There were many rooms around her connecting to it, and a staircase wound its way upward above her, only to come to a stop. The floor it connected to was wrecked, and the top part of the staircase appeared to have been blown off, making it impossible to climb higher. There was a pipe leading upward through the ceiling near the staircase, and it gleamed faintly of old silver.
Kojau cowered away as there was a sudden blast of fire against one of the windows that was still intact behind her. It fell inward with a crash, and flames gushed into the room. Kojau slid sideways in an effort to get away from them, her paws burning and the black goop on them leaving dark colored smears across the floor.
The arcanine burst through the door in a shower of flames a few seconds later, white mane flying wildly and dead eyes searching the room. They focused immediately on Kojau, who cried out in fear and just barely managed to dodge a second fire blast that blackened the wall behind her.
She leaped away as the arcanine was regaining his breath, legs feeling heavy. Running blindly on, she didn't even notice as her paws took her up the staircase until she came to the part where it had been burned away. Barely managing to stop in time, she teetered on the edge, eyes wide in her fright.
Heavy thumps on the stairs behind her indicated that her demise was coming, and she cursed herself for coming here. Now she was going to die, and her stupidity would go down in history to be told to young eevee cubs in order to keep them away from this place she had so foolishly rushed into.
But Kiete…he had been so brave. He had risked his life for her, willingly, and had even helped her get this far. Was she going to let that all go to waste…?
The mightyena gave a desperate cry and flung herself sideways and into space as she felt the heat of intense flames at her back. She had the odd sensation of flying through the air for a moment…and then her claws sank into something yielding and hard, something that swayed dangerously under her but held. The pipe. She was hanging onto the pipe…
The arcanine stood on the stairs behind her, and she peered into its lifeless eyes in disorientation for a second, swinging with the pipe, watching in morbid fascination as it opened its mouth and…
Kojau cried out and leaped upward, clawing frantically at the pipe as she pulled herself higher, desperation fueling her movements. There was a sheering sound below her, and she looked down in time to see the bottom half of the pipe falling toward the floor, burned away from the rest of it.
The mightyena grimly clawed her way upward. There was a hole in the ceiling above her for the pipe to go through, and it was just small enough for her to hope… The pokemon made a lunge for it with her last bit of energy and squashed herself through it, popping out on the other side and into another room.
This one had long halls branching out from the sides, and the walls were a dingy white. Kojau found herself slipping from the pipe and sprawling out on the floor, practically sobbing for breath. Dizziness made her head feel cloudy, and she shuddered in fear as she heard loud noises below her. Then, there was an awfully loud thudding noise, and the sound of the arcanine's paws pounding upward and toward her filled her with dread. It must have found a way up the stairs…
A banging sound on the door leading into the room was enough to send her staggering to her paws, and she stared transfixed as the metal bent inward with the arcanine's weight. There was a momentary lull, then a gushing sound, and the door glowed red hot with heat.
Kojau turned and ran once more. She felt as though she wasn't quite there as she sprinted up the stairs leading to the next floor, and the next, not pausing long enough even to take in the rooms around her. There was only the urge to climb higher and higher to escape. Somewhere behind her, the metal door gave, and the arcanine was on her trail once more.
It was like the first night, she though. It was just like that, with her being chased by the arcanine, running for her life. Only this time, there was no freeway to save her, and no Kiete to come to her rescue, not now. He had done his part. Not she must honor his bravery and do hers: staying alive, namely.
She barely noticed as the stairs she was ascending began to turn black, and had only time to leap off into space as they stopped altogether, blasted away by some past force much as the stairs on the first floor had been. Her front paws caught on something, and she used her momentum to desperately fling herself forward, smashing down into rubble and seeing stars as her head contacted with something hard.
The early morning light beamed down on the prone mightyena, though there were no windows…or walls, for that matter. She realized dimly that she had come to the end of the line, so to speak, and was laying on the top floor.
It really wasn't so bad, she thought as she regarded the place through blurry vision. It looked ancient, with the rubble all around. The light of the morning seemed to chase shadows of fear away, and the sunrise rose over the sea in a fiery display of glory.
There was a long plank like projection going out over the sea from this place, and Kojau vaguely realized that it was probably running out over that odd cage like place she had seen earlier in the ocean. Her curiosity relentlessly aroused, the mightyena staggered to her paws, barely mustering up enough energy to rise. She was beaten, and she knew it, and the arcanine most likely knew it as well as it appeared behind her.
Kojau stared over her shoulder at it as its eyes locked on her, feeling oddly unafraid. Whatever happened, happened. It didn't really matter…all that mattered was that she made an effort, because life was worth more than just letting oneself be killed.
And so it was that found herself running again, paws drumming on the long plank, half afraid that it would give out underneath her. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she felt an odd sort of exhilaration as she came closer to the edge of the plank, eyes blazing in the morning light.
She saw what was in that sea cage below her as the arcanine mounted the plank behind her. Oddly enough, it didn't surprise her, for she had been expecting something dark, something sinister. Or perhaps it was just that she was so far gone that nothing could really get through to her anymore.
The cage in the water was filled with black, burning liquid that bubbled and reeked of something the likes of which Kojau had never smelled before. The sparkling, clear water nearby clashed horribly with it as it sloshed against the cement walls keeping it from seeping into the ocean, like two opposite sides trying to get at each other. There was an unnatural, acidic heat bubbling up from it.
Kojau's vision landed on an old, rusty cage swinging out from the plank over the black stuff below, and she smelled blood on it. Her mind screamed danger as she raced on, realizing that she would go over the edge and into the killing stuff below…and become bones, just like the bones of the poor, failed experiments she suddenly knew lurked beneath the surface of the black stuff, another piece of knowledge that was suddenly just there. She did not question it. To fall into that place was death, death by horrible heat and acidic burning...
And suddenly, there was heat behind her as well, only now it was upon her like a blanket, smothering out all sounds or sights around her. She felt her fur catch fire with the intensity of the arcanine's close range flamethrower, and her eyes watered. Was this what it was like to be burned up? Was she to meet the same fate as the poor mightyena she had seen earlier?
The early morning's light beamed down upon the two figures out on the plank. The mightyena below was encased in fire, flames roaring high on her slick black fur. She looked oddly like a demon of flame, or a demented flareon on some sort of medication. The arcanine was racing along behind her, powerful flamethrower still gushing from its mouth and hitting its prey with deadly accuracy.
It should have been over right then, but life has a way of changing things.
Kojau felt as though she was a ball of fire herself as she squinted her eyes against the heat, a sort of odd, wild exhilaration and energy filling her. She saw the arcanine's paws come down over her, as if it meant to crush her beneath its weight.
And then the plank crumbled. Kojau felt it collapsing under her, she and the arcanine's combined weight too much for it. She heard a long howl, and didn't realize it was hers until her front paws came to the edge of the crumbling plank. She could see herself and the arcanine falling toward the black death in the pen below, see the cage descend into it before them and melt slowly.
And she leaped. She felt an odd rush of sensations as she made that last desperate bound. She could feel the fur of the arcanine's chest against her spine as it fell forward with the plank. She could feel the heat of the fire along her back, and the beginnings of intense pain as it ate through her thick fur and reached the skin below. She could feel the wind as she leaped through the air, and she could hear the sound of the plank and arcanine falling below her as she made that last glorious bound.
But she felt no fear. She seemed to be flying above the sea and the death below her, like a falling angel. And the last thing she saw as she plummeted downward and toward the sea and the darkness below was the sun rising in the sky before her, its light shining down on the ocean around it and seeming to set the water ablaze…
(Yea, I know I said I wouldn't update until after this month, but I had some time. Thanks for reviewing, everyone!)