Chapter 15: Breaking Free Of Chains

"Luke! Cinnamon! David!" The first words to come out of the water deprived mouth of Jenny, "Spirit! Soul! Are you here?!" Her throats as dry as a desert, she took a few laps out of the bowl of water besides her. Mud and twigs were mangled in her fur, showing evidence of her capture. Cage's weren't exactly something Jenny was happy about being in, and she thought the same of Soul and the others. There was no food, and something was digging in her side.

"Aghhhh! What the hell is this?!" Screaming, her tail managed to pull out the needle injected into her. "It looks like tranquilizer, but it says AKOH." What did that stand for she thought. It didn't matter at the time. She needed to find a way out of this prison. A key card was left on the counter right beside the cage's door itself, but Jenny wasn't dumb enough to fall for that trick. She knew that there had to be something inside this room watching her, someone had to be, otherwise that card wouldn't be right there in front of her pretty little nose.

"Do they really think I'm that stupid?" Even thinking about the situation at hand irritated her beyond ends. She may be a Pokémon, but did her kidnapers think she had no common sense? As soon as she tried to grab it, the she would get shocked.

"Well I don't know. Maybe you tell me? Are you that stupid?" Claws scraped on the metal beside her cage, and a sharp, unbearable noise emitted because of it.

"No, in case you didn't know. Why am I here?"

"Because, they want to experiment on you. Why else would they have gone through the trouble of setting this all up?" No anger was residing in his voice, so she could at least tell he wasn't hostile towards her. Thankful for that reason, she decided to see if she could get an answer out of the mysterious figure.

"Who and where are you? And can you help me escape, more importantly?" Shadows engulfed the room. Nothing but the muffled sounds of his footsteps could be heard. It was walking towards her somewhat, to the point she could make out a slim figure, but could not tell what Pokémon it was.

"The answer to your second question, is yes. I can help you escape. As for your first question, no. I'm not giving out names." His voice was deep and dark, which mixed in with the brute atmosphere he was giving off with his presence. Only breathing could be heard when the silence remained unbroken.

"How can I escape?" Jenny looked into the dark corner of the room where the being was standing on it's two legs, so it's definitely not a mightyena she thought. But what could it be? Trying to come up with an answer; nothing came to her mind. Blank as a page.

"Well, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the key card, and I'm going to unlock your cage. And after that, you help me find my friend in return. She should be at the loading dock." Coming out of the shadows, his red and black hair fell down over his shoulders. His eyes were a piercing blue, and he held out his hand to the Ninetails in front of him. His claws were a mix between black, and the tips were a bright red. "Sounds like a fair deal." She put out her paw and shook his. Jenny could feel the warm embrace of his hand. She felt that she could trust him.

"First things first…. let's get you out of that cage." Sliding the card in between the locks was simple enough and she was out of the cage. "And now let's get out of the room…." They walked very quietly over to the door, to the point a living soul could not hear them. When cracking the door open, he noticed that several scientists were in the hallway. "Crap! Move back!" Nobody noticed the door closing quickly and forcefully with all the commotion going on out there.

"You still never told me your name. I need to call you something." Jenny demanded a name from the worry stricken Zoroark.

"Really is this the time for that?" His whispers strained as he tried to keep his voice low, but at the same time sounding angry, "We need to get somewhere fast and quietly now! Not talking about names." Re-focusing back on the task at hand, Jenny quickly brought up the name situation again.

"Look, my name's Jenny, now please tell me something I can call you by."

"Ugh…..fine" irritated at the white vixen, he caved in and gave her a name,"They call me Crimson. Now can I get us out of here?!" His breathing increased rapidly at the fear of being caught by them. Drenched in his own sweat, he opened up the door again.

"Let's go Jenny!" Like the wind, they raced down the hall like dodrio and found cover behind a rusty old garbage can.

"Where's the room where they captured all the Pokémon?" Whipping her hair back, she turned to Crimson and asked.

"They should be at the loading dock! They're shipping off today. If we get there in time, we can get my friend and yours; and get out of here before they even notice we are gone. But we can't go immediately…."Jenny's face turned 50 different shades of red before finally settling on one. She shot laser beams hot enough to melt metal at Crimson. "Look Jenny,we can't go there right now, I mean, did you see how many scientists were out there when the door opened? Imagine having them capture you and experiment on you. If we wait and they go, we can follow the trails. If we get captured, the trails will be gone and we will never see our….." without a second word, Jenny was already running off in the pointed direction. "Hey! Wait up for me at least! We need to stick together!"

"Man; she runs so fast! Well, I would expect that from a Ninetails of her stature." Crimson thought to himself. "Take a left turn at the loading dock, and then take a right and you should get there!" Stopping to turn around at the left corner, they were stopped by a houndoom. He stood over the Ninetails and looked her right in the eyes as he rudely asked his question.

"And just where do you think you guys are going? Crimson? What are you doing here? If you're here to break your friend out, it's not happening. You've been tracking us for two years. You're not going to get her back. Besides the fact, how did you even break out?" His voice was very rocky and sturn. Anger resided within him, so he would not be moving peacefully anytime soon, Crimson could tell that much. If he wanted to get to his friend, he needed to get past him.

"Move out of my way. I will grab her, and leave you alone."

"Not happening Crimson. If you want her, you're gonna have to get through me."

His eyes grew dark as he bared his teeth.

"Well that's fine by me!" Moving like a train, he went to tackle the houndoom to the ground. "I've been wanting to do this a long time Wayne! Jenny! Run ahead and get your friends! I'll meet up with you later!" Looking horrified, she ran towards the corner and turned right. Fury swipes clawed the houndoom in the side. He shrieked in agony as he managed to kick the feisty Crimson off of him. Rearing up against the wall, Wayne charged up a flamethrower and pointed it against the fire alarm. "Lets see you get through the whole crowd of scientists with AKOS shots!" Wayne put himself at a great disadvantage as the rain pooped down, drenching any chance he had of using fire type moves. Crimson leaped and bounded torwards the soaking wet fire type and tackled him to the ground. He wrapped one arm around the dog and started fury swiping faster and harder on the wounds from the previous ones. Combined with the fact he was weakened by the water, being attacked in the same area, and it being done by a strong Pokémon, the pain was unbearable. Like a rodeo bull, he bucked and bucked until he finally got fed up with the Zoroarks shenanigans and threw him off with a dark pulse. "Get off of me!" Dark pulse shots came out of the Houndooms mouth and shot straight into the face of the now half blind Crimson. "Once I finish you off, I'll make sure to kill your little Ninetails friend. Sound good?" Crimson held his hand over his eye, burning from the shots she had received. "She's not my friend. I was helping her out because she was trapped by you guys. I can't stand to see someone being trapped against their will. But you wouldn't know that would you?" Lunging towards Wayne, he prepared his claws and targeted his throat. Flying pass the wounded and weakened Houndoom, he missed because he couldn't see and fell down on the cold marble floor below him. Wayne put his paw on the body of Crimson, and pushed him to the side.

"Now if you excuse me, I'll be going to rip out the throats of that ninetails now. I'll leave you a little gift though. Think about your actions next time; would ya?" His teeth sank into the arm of the Zoroark. Blood entrained from his arm as he shrieked in agony. "Next time, I won't be as friendly as I was this time. Take this as a warning, Crimson."

"No. I'm not done yet; get back here!" Breathing coming heavy, he dragged on after the houndoom, in hopes of stopping him in time. "Would you just die already? You've been trailing us for years. Just stop it already." His words like ice shards when he spoke. Wayne didn't want to waste time on Crimson, so he moved on to find Jenny. Blood dripped in combination with the water still leaking out of the fire alarm sprinklers. He was glad they came, because now they his his tears of pain. Slowly but surely, he got up and started running towards the houndoom again and bit his hind legs. He but deep into his leg enough to shred his muscles, he held on for as long as he could before he let go.

"Ahhh!" Wayne thought he was hurting before, but this was a whole new sensation to him. His muscles were already weakened by the water and that combined with the bite tore his muscle. He could no longer use his left leg.

"Why you! Forget that Ninetails, I'm staying here so I can make you watch your best friend die within my teeth!" Meaning every word of his sentence, Crimson replied with two words. "Bring it!"

Jenny's P.O.V

"The sprinkler system messed me up. Being a fire type; note; pure fire type, I could barely run. How much longer till I get to the loading dock? Wait! I had walked past the sign that said loading dock. This is it! Jenny walked into the room and was met by several happy Pokémon that were happy to see her.

"Jenny!" Luke, David, and Spirit shouted in union. There was one jolteon…. and a dead Soul…. my happiness died as I realized that the one Pokémon I tried to save, had died under my protection.

"Soul?" Sad wasn't even we're I would begin to describe this feeling, but I'll have to find one out once I stop crying.