Whispers in the Dark: Our Machinations
Some conversations between the Shadow Triad and Colress shortly after Ghetsis' death.
Timeline: Immediately after the last chapter of Black 2 (but before the epilogue)
Setting: Unova
Notes: So I had a few ideas that I wanted to write, but none of them really had a plot, it was more just "hey I want these characters to talk about X thing," so that's what "Whispers in the Dark" oneshots are gonna be. No real plot, just two characters rambling at each other. This particular one is a little gritty and maybe a tad existential, because it's from the perspective of Ghetsis and later, one of the Shadow Triad.
Characters: Ghetsis, Shadow Triad, Colress, Rosa
Prerequisite Reading: Black, Black 2
It was bitterly, bitterly cold there on the ground for that miserly man. He couldn't speak, he couldn't move, and it took all of his effort to merely breathe against the frigid air that felt as if it were stabbing his lungs with every inhale. There was a terrible gurgling noise with every struggling breath, for blood sat in his mouth, and he couldn't cough strong enough to spit it out. He was dimly aware that it had likely come from his seizure, as he had bitten through part of his tongue, which that pain radiated up and down his spine more so than the general discomfort from being on the ground, but it certainly would have been easier to deal with if he were not in such a situation.
He was staring at the base of a tree, whose roots were large and thick, and curled around him. The Shadow Triad—two of them, the third was not with them for whatever reason—had dumped him there at the foot of that tree. They were nearby; he could still hear them occasionally shifting and speaking curt words to one another, but they paid him no heed. Indeed, for hours, Ghetsis laid there and stared at the knotted roots, fighting desperately to keep breathing and occasionally jolting with the intent of standing up, but finding no part of his broken body would respond to him. Not only did he have the misfortune of having been laid on his partially paralyzed right side, but it felt as if none of his muscles would move at all. His left arm was as limp as limp could be over him, and his head felt heavy and foggy.
"What is wrong with him?" he heard one of the Shadow Triad question after an untold amount of time. It was the loudest one, the one with the clear, smooth voice.
"I do not know," the other curtly replied. "The Hero of Truths did not actually hurt him. So, I do not know what is wrong with him."
I'm dying, you idiots, Ghetsis wanted to spit back at them. In that desperate moment, he would have willingly gone to any doctor in all of Unova, despite the years he had spent suspiciously avoiding them all like the plague. He had never trusted doctors for paranoid fear of what they could potentially do to him while he was under their care. Typically, he had turned to Colress whenever he was in dire need of medical attention. Although he didn't trust Colress to do particularly invasive procedures, he had done a passable job in the past… Yet, when the Shadow Triad had swooped in and teleported him out of that Arceus-forsaken cavern and away from that damned Hilbert Whitacre and his Reshiram, when they had taken him to Colress, he and his pet, Rosa, had all but screwed their noses up at him, and then Colress had ordered the Shadow Triad to "do something with him."
Do something with him.
Not only did that thought plague him, but the frightening realization that had come minutes before he had fallen, seizing on the biting, icy floor, did, too. Hilbert and his Reshiram had been toying with Kyurem before he had been whisked away. Hil had fully intended to blow through Kyurem given enough time and kill him. Although he had fallen just short of murdering Ghetsis there, Hil had succeeded in felling Kyurem, and Ghetsis didn't need it spelled out for him to know that he had failed. Again.
All he had ever been after in life was to be on top, to never be at the mercy of another human ever again, and even when he had clawed his way to the top with a legendary pokémon, sacrificing his humanity, his family, his blood, his sanity, he had been felled by another human. He suddenly concluded that there was simply nowhere on that Earth one could have gone to escape being under the influence of someone else. No matter what, one could not control all of their surroundings or what others did. The illusion he had been chasing his entire life was just that: an illusion. He didn't even have anything to show for it. Unova had been damaged by Team Plasma's attacks, but it would heal, and in his rage, he had severely injured N. For all he knew, N had bled out on his way to a hospital, so he didn't even have a heritage to show for all he had labored over. Despite how long he and Colress had known one another, despite everything they had been through, Colress had taken one look at his dying uncle and told the Shadow Triad to simply "do something with him."
"He is dying," the smoothly-spoken Triad member mused. "That much is obvious. His vitals are significantly decreased. But why?"
"I do not know," the other responded, much the same as before. "He does not appear any more injured than before. His limbs are still partially paralyzed. Though, I thought I saw him bleeding from his mouth… Even so…"
"He is not broken like our brother was," the first interjected. "I do not…"
"Perhaps we can ask Dr. Colress later," the second cut his brother off. There was a long pause between the two of them. "What do you think Lord Ghetsis wished to accomplish with Kyurem?"
"I do not know," the first muttered in a deadpan. They sounded so coldly robotic. It made Ghetsis wish his muscles would cooperate and let him shiver… He was freezing… His fingertips, lips, and toes burned with the sheer bite of the cold. "I do know that in the past he wished to be in control of Unova. Yet, I do not understand how Kyurem would have granted him this, and I believe he said that he wanted to freeze Unova solid. I do not understand how that would have granted him ownership of it. What would there be left to own?"
I… I don't know. Ghetsis tried to swallow but nothing happened. I don't know what I wanted to do after Kyurem froze Unova… I just… I just…
"Do you think, then, that he wished to merely inflict pain?"
"That seems to be the case. He was increasingly cruel following his return, after we broke him from prison. Do you remember what he did to Anthea and Concordia just a few months after that?"
"Indeed. He let his new Hydreigon free on them in a closed off room and it mauled them before it was called off. Then, he abandoned them near Nimbasa City, along Route Four."
Ghetsis struggled to recall the event they were discussing, and that alarmed him. His mind was fading fast… But he did remember. He had been furious with the world following his first defeat, back when he was arrested, and upon his return, he had captured another Deino and raised it. With Colress' assistance, he developed a machine that would keep the pokémon under control, much in the same way he had programmed the Shadow Triad to be loyal to him. With such technology, Ghetsis had been allowed to freely train the pokémon as cruelly as he wanted, and oh, how he ensured it was cruel. Why had he done that? he wondered. At the time, he had convinced himself that such a draconic, fearsome pokémon would be more effective running off of sheer hatred, but… Well, that didn't answer the question of why he had gotten another Hydreigon to begin with, did it? He had captured another Deino and raised it due to the pain of having his previous one, the same pokémon he had had day in and out, wrenched from him. He had beaten it again and again, made it hate him, because that made it feel normal. His first Hydreigon hated him. More than that, he didn't want pokémon to like him. He didn't want any of them to give him their sympathy. He couldn't handle it. They were pawns to his plans and nothing more. He couldn't allow himself to feel their kindness.
It was the same reason he had avoided N so much during his formative years. Not only was abandoning him to the forests an excuse for him to hone his ability to speak to pokémon, but it was so that he couldn't get attached. Everyone else in the world was just a creature waiting to stab him in the back if given the appropriate tools, after all; he couldn't allow himself to grow so strongly attached to N and have moments of weakness for the sake of loving his son. Yet, for a brief moment of clarity, he wondered… Was that because that was how humans were, or was that what he had convinced himself so many years ago, after having his family and town turn their aggression on him for his ability to understand the emotions pokémon felt?
Of course, it was gone as a searing bolt of pain ran through his chest and down his left arm, making him gasp and croak for air he couldn't seem to get…
"If he intended to inflict pain with Kyurem, do you think he succeeded?"
"He did inflict pain. He hurt Lord N," the huskier-voiced of the two Shadow Triad growled. If Ghetsis wasn't too focus on his primal fight for survival against his failing body, he might have found that surprising. The Shadow Triad did not generally speak with emotional inflection.
"Yet, the pain is not permanent. I believe Lord N will be alright," his brother pointed out. "Kyurem was defeated. Unova will not be frozen."
"Then perhaps he failed," the quieter one huffed with a note of finality.
"Does that mean we failed? We were supposed to help him, were we not? What does that mean of our brother?"
"It means nothing. Why do you question something such as this?"
"I do not know."
"We do not control Lord Ghetsis. We served him to the best of our ability. Lord Ghetsis was the one who failed."
All at once, Ghetsis gave up his fight for survival, and allowed the icy pine forest's floor to siphon away his body heat, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
"He is gone," Quiet abruptly remarked, jerking his head to stare at Ghetsis' body. "I do not sense a heartbeat of any sort. A pulse."
"Then there is nothing else we can do for him, is there?" Loud asked bluntly.
"No," Quiet answered, feeling a twinge of something he wouldn't have known what to call, but it was, in fact, annoyance. Loud had a way of asking such irritating questions.
"Our brother did not have a pulse, either. Do you think there is nothing we can do for him, then?"
"Our brother and Lord Ghetsis are not the same," Quiet replied. He looked up at Loud as the other stood up and stared at Ghetsis. Although they had all privately adopted the names Lord N had given them so many years ago, they never referred to one another by them. N had asked them, back when he had first administered the titles, not to say them in the presence of others. "Dr. Colress had fixed us many times in the past from bad injuries and the like. Maybe there is more to him that can be repaired than to Lord Ghetsis."
"I just do not understand," Loud sighed at last.
"Then let us ask Dr. Colress."
With that, they teleported to the P2 Laboratory, deep within its recesses and to a large room. Upon seeing them, Rosa yelped and backpedaled, cutting her eyes to narrow daggers after them, while Colress jolted and then tilted his head at them. "Is Ghetsis gone?" Colress musingly asked without skipping a beat.
"Lord Ghetsis is dead," Loud affirmed.
Quiet looked just beyond Colress and saw that, behind a thick, wall of glass, Genesect lay inactive on its knees. The mostly-synthetic pokémon had been a private project of Colress'. He didn't know what to think as he looked at it. It was not yet alive in any capacity, yet it was there, ready to be… made alive. Was that how Colress treated them and fixed them? Somewhere in the back of his mind, he did know that he and his brothers were human, but they couldn't have been human in the same capacity that Colress or even Ghetsis were. Machinery and synthetic materials laced his body as well as his brother's. Humans were made of flesh and bone, and couldn't be repaired like they could, and they felt something called 'pain,' which was a concept mostly foreign to Quiet. He could feel brief flashes of pain to alert him that something was wrong, but after that, it would ebb. Humans seemed to feel pain until whatever issue they were experiencing was resolved…
"What do they want?" Rosa huffed as she glared at them, slinking closer to Colress.
"Can you fix our brother?" Loud blurted before Quiet could say anything. "He has no pulse. But is still mostly in one piece. Can you fix him?"
Colress winced at the question, and sharply turned back to the control panel in front of him, as well as to Genesect behind the glass. "No… He's dead. There is no fixing that…" His voice was tense and wavered slightly.
"But he is different from Lord Ghetsis," Loud pressed, a little more urgently. Quiet looked down at the floor and blinked. He didn't know what he was feeling, but he didn't like the idea of them suddenly being a duo rather than a triad. So much of their effectiveness revolved around the idea of them being three strong… "Our brother is made from mechanical parts. There is flesh, yes, but he is not the same as a human. He is not the same as Ghetsis."
"I don't believe this," Rosa mumbled under her breath.
Giving them a look that was torn between shocked and apologetic, Colress shook his head at Loud, then at Quiet. "I… know that you three are partially built with mechanics and the like… but it all rides off your biological processes. You sleep to recharge certain devices in you, you eat to replenish calorie stores which teleportations use significant amounts of… And although I have a lot controlling how your brains function, they are still required for you to think, move… all of that."
"You are going to make Genesect move and think," Quiet softly interrupted as a thought passed through his mind. "Why can you not make our brother do that?"
Almost choking, Colress uncomfortably spat, "Because it would not be the same! He is dead! Can't you understand that?" Shuffling his feet and clutching top of the control panel ahead of him, he hung his head, then shook it. "Of course, you don't… I knew that… I'm sorry. I should not have yelled like that."
"Are you seriously consoling them?" Rosa incredulously hissed. "It's not like they sound that torn up about it… They're just asking questions because they don't understand… Arceus, they're creeping me out. Can you send them away?"
"Miss Rosa…" Colress sighed. "They still have emotion even if most of it is beyond their comprehension, and I did create them, and… I did not mean for that to happen to their brother… I will study data from his action and processes scanners to see if I can pinpoint where the error was made that allowed him to get into that position, because there should have been something in place to keep him from being injured so badly, but I am sorry that I was not able to fix it before something like that happened…"
Impatiently, Rosa nodded her head at Genesect. "So, what… what is that thing, again? What are you wanting to do with it?"
"Oh, Genesect…" Colress blinked as he looked up. He paused and then glanced over his shoulder. "You two," he said to them, "Can you… I don't mind what you do for a while. But I would like to be alone with Miss Rosa for some time. I'll call you back whenever I require you."
Turning to Loud, Quiet tilted his head and stated, "I would like to check on Lord N."
"The humans will not like us in the hospital."
"We can turn invisible."
"We can still be felt."
"We will ensure we are not felt."
"Oh, my Arceus, just leave!" Rosa snapped at them at last. A shiver seemed to run up her spine, and she shook her head. "Creepy bastards…"
Paying her no mind, Quiet and Loud both went invisible, and then teleported to Lord N's signature. He was in a hospital bed, surrounded by various doctors and so forth. They patiently waited, carefully keeping out of anyone's way, and keeping from bumping into anything, cloaked in invisibility, until N was finally alone. The dimness of the room and the skies outside suggested that it was late into the night by that point.
While Loud watched from a distance, Quiet picked his way near to the hospital bed, where N was draped beneath a blue blanket. A bandage, flecked red with blood, was wrapped around his head and over his left eye, but he was alive. He very much did have a pulse and although he was asleep, he was alive. Seeing him asleep there was such an odd feeling… Quiet didn't have the words to describe it, but it reminded him of a time long ago…
When Ghetsis had first abandoned Lord N to the Giant Chasm, it had been Quiet he had sent to do it, and Quiet who had been carefully lectured on what to do if Lord N was in any sort of dangerous situation. It had been a long night of synthesizing the various parameters, but at last, he had been given the infant and teleported to the predetermined location near a Zoroark den. He also had a Darumaka in a Poké Ball, whom he was supposed to use to warm Lord N up if it became too dreadfully cold. Until the nearby family of Zoroark had taken N in, it had been Quiet's job to take care of him, and he had spent months out there, tirelessly paying him attention except for the few minutes each day he had to return to the castle for maintenance at Anthea and Concordia's hand (which, Anthea spent most of the first month in tears whenever he visited… he hadn't understood that, but he had known it was N's abandonment that had caused it, and that it was uncomfortable to look at her during her fits).
There had been many nights like this, where Quiet had holed away in a hollowed-out tree or vacant cavern with a sleepy, tired N, the Darumaka there to keep them both warm, as they slept through the night. Quiet did not understand the feelings that were drummed up by that time, but they were returning as he overlooked N in the hospital bed. Although he hadn't forgotten the need to be quiet and to stay unnoticed, he just… wanted to hear something he had recorded a long time ago… From speakers built into his throat, he replayed the short clip, much to Loud's obvious dismay in the way his brother perked up and locked his eyes on the door.
First, in the recording, there was the sound of a crying infant—Lord N. Secondly, one could hear someone—Quiet—shushing it, and then asking, "Why do you cry? Do you want the Darumaka closer? …Young humans are difficult to understand." Yet, within seconds—during which, Quiet had, indeed, pulled N's Darumaka closer to him and the pokémon had allowed the infant to cuddle it—N fell silent and as far as Quiet remembered, he had fallen asleep moments after. Lastly, in the recording, one could hear Quiet saying, "Goodnight," in a deadpan.
Loud glared at him once the recording finished. He didn't dare speak, still strictly following his own instructions to remain silent and unseen, but Quiet could tell he wanted to ask him why he had done that. Truthfully, Quiet didn't entirely know why he had done it, either.
In the hospital bed, N stirred, and Quiet, still invisible, took a seat on the foot of the bed, careful to not touch N's feet. He really did not understand the almost aching, yearning emotion in his chest as he realized this would likely be the last time he could be with N in any capacity. Lord Ghetsis is gone now, he wanted to say but couldn't. You are free of him. I think you will smile more without him. You always were happier without him around, like when you were in the forest with the pokémon, or when you would invite us in to play with you, even though we… did not understand what you wanted. Quiet looked away from N, abruptly finding it uncomfortable and unpleasant to see him. I do not want this to be the last time I see you. But I do not think I can see you in the future… But I believe you will be happier and safer. In that case, I think I do not mind it so much…
Quiet sat there for quite some time. Perhaps it was even until the next morning. All he knew was that doctors had started to flood the room, and Loud convinced him that they should return to Dr. Colress and see if he needed anything done. The fateful days surrounding Ghetsis' defeat and death were over.
It was back to work after that. Part of him was afraid that he would forget Lord N and everything they had been through… But that was why he had that recording of when N was a baby. It allowed him to never forget, even when his memory of Ghetsis became dim and unclear, who Lord N was, nor that confusing, yet overall pleasant achiness in his chest that came with his memory. No matter where Dr. Colress or Rosa dragged him and his remaining brother, he remembered Lord N… and he was quite content with it that way.
