Chapter 12

"He loves me," the darkness thought. "He loves me not."

But was it a question or a statement?

"He loves me."

"He loves me not."

"He's coming!" the shadows interrupted. The great black Pantherian flicked an ear to dismiss the whisper. She did not wish to be disturbed during such an important reflection, but the voices were persistent.

"He's coming!" they said again. "He's here!"

A loud pounding of flesh on wood broke the quiet focus of the cat's deliberations. She stopped licking the flower petals trapped between her front paws and listened.

"Open up, you bastard!" a voice from the other side demanded. "I know you're in there!" The shadows swirled away as the great black cat lifted her head. "Open the door or I'll break it down!"

Pantera stood up from the floor and revealed the cold pale face of the corpse underneath her. White ribbons of flesh blossomed from the dead man's throat. Their original red color faded after she had licked all of the blood clean.

"You did this!" the voice continued. "This is all your fault!" Pantera flicked her tail, clearing the rush of excitement and doubt from her system all at once. Was it true? Was it really him? "You did this to me, you shitty Ace! Now, I'm here to return the favor. You wanted me dead, but I'm gonna kill you first!"

Pantera flexed her paws and softened the rigor mortis beneath her. It was him. The one who called himself, Zach. The one she had been waiting for in the darkness all this time. He came. He finally came!

"He loves me!"

But the pounding suddenly stopped. Growling, shouting, and cursing took its place. There were sounds of a scuffle, maybe even a fight, but it deescalated quickly and then, there was silence. Did Zach change his mind? Did he leave without saying goodbye?

Pantera had to make sure. She couldn't play with fickle emotions forever. The cat stepped off of the dead ace and padded through the open style kitchen of the apartment condo. Even in the dark of the blackout curtains and waning twilight, she avoided the stream of blood and piss trickling from the body as easily as if she floated on top of it. The great black shadow passed in front of the bedroom door, interrupting the glare of another white corpse. Unlike the body in the kitchen, this one belonged to a woman that smelled like cigarettes and sex. Her head hung upside down over the edge of the bed. Her eyes were glassy and her mouth lay agape in a silent scream. Pantera didn't hear it as she slid past. She could only hear the pounding on the front door.

Darkness met darkness as Pantera stopped in front of the door and stared up at its unwavering black face. It was as solid and imposing as she was. Strange voices drifted in from the other side.

"He's come," she told herself.

"I knew he would!"

"But where'd he go?"

"Why would he leave? This is what he wanted."

"But what if he doesn't like it?"

"Of course he will."

"Of course he won't."

Pantera hated herself for pouncing ahead. This was supposed to be Zach's kill. He was the one who started the hunt for the ace that had left him crippled and disgraced. But while he was still stalking and watching from the alley outside, deliberating his method of attack, she had jumped ahead and made the kill in his stead.

"You stupid rotten vile sack of worthless paws. You stole it."

"How could you?"

"Why wouldn't you?"

"We're friends after all."

"He loves me."

"He loves me not."

Pantera rubbed her head and shoulders back and forth across the door. Of course Zach would be happy. This was what he wanted. A dead Ace. He would be proud of her for what she had done. After all, it was her fangs and claws that had granted his deepest desire. Pantera rubbed her chin against the door frame to mark her scent. Nobody else understood him like she did. She was the one who heard the pangs of his heart.

"Kill him," they said. "Rip him. Tear him."

The great black cat jumped up and scratched at the face of the door. She wanted out of this darkness. To be with him and present her gifts. Someone approached the door from the other side and Pantera stopped scratching to listen. She never would've heard the soft rustle of cautious steps if she wasn't so well versed in the art of stealth. Was it him? Was it Zach? Pantera dropped to all four paws and sniffed the bottom of the door. It smelt like cooper and rainwater. She knew that smell. It was her. The one Zach called, "Baby". Pantera rammed her shoulder into the door, teeth bared and hair bristled.

"Who is it?" the voice on the other side suddenly demanded. "Is that you?"

It was Zach, but his voice didn't come through the door like before. It came directly to her through a connection that bypassed the laws of human and pokemon. Pantera lifted her head with tears shinning in her black eyes. She had knocked against the portal of his soul and he had answered. From the first time she saw Zach in that rain drenched alley, she knew he was the one. He was her soulmate.

Her Saudade.

Someone approached the door again, and this time, the doorknob jingled with a touch as soft as the feet on the carpet.

"He's coming! He's coming!"

"Places everyone!"

Having memorized the veins of darkness throughout the condo, Pantera bounded away from the door and weaved back into the kitchen where she jumped upon her throne of flesh and bone. She sharpened her claws in anticipation down the corpse's spine. The front door clicked and slowly creaked open.

"Welcome home!" she cried.

"MPD," came Baby's voice down the hall. Pantera froze, her claws still stuck in the dead man's clothes. "MPD, I have a canine!"

The cat lashed her tail back and forth and squeezed the body beneath her. It was all she could do to hold herself back. This encounter would not be like the others. Baby would not come between her and Zach again. Not this time.

The front door cracked open a little further and a dim sliver of light too weak to reach the walls of the foyer melted into the darkness. A second light blinked hesitantly into the void. It was narrow but strong enough to establish a navigable framework of the entrance. Pantera crouched down lower to her kill.

"I can hear you," she whispered.

"I can taste you."

Baby slowly crept around the door with a weapon held high in her hand and her heart just as high in her throat. Pantera heard it pounding all the way from across the condo, especially when she closed her eyes and focused. For a human, Baby did well to control her fear, but the fur ball of a pokemon at her feet trembled so hard that his claws rattled against the floor even when he stood still. Poochyena were pathetically fragile in the dark for a nocturnal type.

He worriedly glanced around the floor of the foyer for any signs of life. It was a fruitless effort, simply because there wasn't much life left to find in the condo. Plus, his eyesight wasn't nearly as good as hers and never would be. Neither would his nose, especially during his first encounter with death.

"I can smell you," Pantera boasted.

"I can cut you."

Baby touched her arm to her nose, but quickly put both hands around her weapon again. She knew death was in the room and yet her breathing was steady and her foot placement was precise. This wasn't her first time dealing with the stink of rotting flesh. How interesting. With eyes as level as her weapon, Baby advanced deeper into the room. She was a natural born stalker. Black looked good on her, but was she truly a predator at heart?

Baby's light bounced off of the mirror hanging in the hallway and swung into the bedroom where the dead woman lay. It paused, trembled slightly, and quickly flashed back into the hallway with quickening speed. The beam passed over the breaker box. Then, the wires that had been pulled from it. Baby moved forward and discovered a hole in the screen door leading out onto the balcony. Scaling the vertical high rise had proven difficult even for a Pantherian, but the old brownstone building next to it had surprisingly good footholds. One leap was more than enough for Pantera to clear the space between the buildings and land where she needed to.

Baby turned into the kitchen.

"I see you," Pantera sang.

The flashlight swept over the cat, whitening her snarl as she launched herself at the officer. Startled, Baby jumped and triggered the taser in her hand. Hours of relentless training kept her aim straight and true, but Pantera was already airborne when the metal prongs stabbed into her shoulder and flooded her nerves with electricity. They collided but Pantera wasn't able to keep her grip on the human while being shocked. Baby spun as the cat barreled into her shoulder and bounced off of the corner of the entryway. She landed on her stomach facing the kitchen while Pantera clipped the wall and spun off down the hallway. Shattered pieces of modeling flew across the room and the sudden distance ripped the metal prongs out of place. The cat's muscles, now softened with the heat of adrenaline and endorphins, bounced back into motion before Pantera's paws even slid to a halt.

Baby crawled up onto her elbows and the Pantherian jumped on her back to flatten her against the floor again. Surprisingly, nothing cracked under pressure. Not Baby's ribs or her voice. Pantera clamped down on the back of the human's neck, but this too kept its shape. Something hard and smooth plated Baby's neck like the armor of an aggron. Since when did humans have shells?

Pantera lifted her mouthful of metal off of the ground to readjust her grip. A bite meant for squeezing, not piercing, might do the trick. Without the suffocating pressure of an obsidian obelisk weighing her down, Baby reached over her shoulder and blindly grabbed at the cat's face. Pantera winked an eye against the probing fingers. At this rate, she'd have to pin it down if she wanted to get anything done without losing a whisker.

Baby's other hand wasn't so obviously annoying. The officer pulled out a curved knife from a pocket in her chest and swung it up as fast as she could. The blade bit into Pantera's neck and the cat snarled through her teeth, moistening Baby's skin with her breath. Pantera bit down even harder but the shear bulk of her muscle drove the blade deeper into her body when it flexed. This human had claws and sharp ones at that.

Pantera spat out the nuisance and Baby hit the ground harder than a dead weight. She bit her cheek and tongue as her chin struck the floor. The knife, wet with blood, slipped from her hand and clattered across the room. Pantera kicked it away before she darted across the beam of the dropped flashlight and disappeared into the dark of the condo. Baby glanced up, grit her blood stained teeth, and staggered to her feet. She tried to steady herself on an end table, but only succeeded in knocking it and the decorations on top of it to the floor. With his trainer finally separated from the beast, Poochyena quickly returned to Baby's side. He bounced wildly off of his front feet and barked as loudly as he could to alert his trainer of the scourge hiding in the shadows. It was all he was good for given he was roughly the size of the cat's head.

Pantera let her lower jaw hang low. The blood running down her neck was hot and required panting to cool it. Silver discs shined in her eyes as she stalked along the outskirts of the light beam. They never once glanced away from the clumsy but resilient human staring back at her. Baby could see her enemy even in the dark. Pantera was beginning to suspect that this woman had leveled up since their last encounter. Humans weren't known to evolve, but maybe Baby was like Zach in that they were different than all the others. Maybe she too was special . . .

"Cofield!" a voice urgently called in the darkness.

Pantera and Baby both glanced to the kitchen entryway as two men hurriedly stumbled into the room. It was Zach and another man Pantera didn't know. Baby called him "Guerra" and he shined his flashlight along the wall. The Pantherian snarled when it grazed her skin. Guerra cursed and Zach wrenched himself free of his captor's grasp, but instead of running to her side like he should've, he ran over to Baby's. He grabbed the officer's biceps from behind and yanked her in front of him.

Was he playing some sort of game? It looked like fun.

But the two men weren't the only males in the room and Pantera wasn't the only beast bathed in black. A mightyena charged into the room from the back of the parade and launched himself at the Pantherian. Few pokemon had such boldness. It was a testament to his training and his foolishness. The two pokemon jumped at one another in the middle of the kitchen and landed on the fallen flashlight, causing it to spin and fill the room with strobing images of paws, legs, fangs, teeth, and claws.

Pantera outclassed the canine in size, weight, and strength, but Mightyena's three inch mane wasn't just for show. It buffeted her swipes and caught her claws like a zubat in a net, forcing her to retract her deadly weapons or risk becoming stuck in his mane. The thick black hair also hid the canine's neck, which made it that much harder to land an accurate hit, especially when his hackles were raised. This enemy wouldn't go down as easily as the others.

Pantera and Mightyena waged war throughout the kitchen, flinging tufts of fur and fury in every direction. They bumped into walls, toppled furniture, and ripped up the floorboards beneath them. Outside of the beam of light, it was impossible to tell who broke free first, but one of the two pokemon tripped and side swiped Baby and Zach off of their feet, forcing Poochyena to retreat across the room. The humans toppled over in a heap and Baby pulled herself free in just enough time to realize that a large black mass was hurtling straight towards her head.

She rolled to the side and away from Zach as four lead paws and a curtain of black silk drew between them. Zach curled into the fetal position as Pantera slid to a stop beside him. She laid down so that both of her front paws were underneath her body. Her tail swept side to side on the ground behind her as she watched the center of the room with the predatory patience of a sphynx.

In the center of the kitchen, Mightyena limped into the dusty beam of light and tripped over the outstretched arm of the dead ace. With one paw hovering off of the ground, he barely caught his balance. A sleeve of blood ran down his misshapen leg, masking the dozens of punctures riddled within. The sleeve matched the swatch of blood blinding his right eye. Mightyena looked up and raised his head just high enough so that Pantera had a clear view of his neck. There was no hiding it this time.

Pantera struck so fast that no one saw her until she darted in front of the light and hit the canine with such force that she picked him up off of his feet and slammed him onto his back. Then, all was silent. The crashing, snarling, and squealing stopped.

Guerra fumbled with his flashlight and aimed it into the kitchen once more. The beam illuminated the Pantherian's back, her foe reduced to nothing more than a dark lump beneath the shadow of her dominance. Baby slowly pushed herself to her feet. Blood trickled from her lip and ran down her neck into her collar, but she didn't dare wipe it away. She didn't want to move any more than she had to and draw the cat's attention. Another quick attack like that could cost her her life in the blink of an eye.

A few feet away, Zach unfurled and propped himself up off of the floor. Pantera's shoulders rolled and the whole room froze in anticipation of her next move. The dark heap beneath her began to spread across the floor. Poochyena quivered as the great black Pantherian raised her head not more than a few inches from his own. The attack on Mightyena had been so fast that he didn't have time to run away before the cat had pounced directly in front of him.

Pantera slowly lifted her head to meet his petrified stare. Silver unblinking crescents rimmed her dark empty pupils. Blood pooled so heavily in her mouth that her bottom jaw hung low, and when she lifted her head high enough, the blood cascaded between her teeth in a thick black sheet. Mightyena's blue collar hung from the side of her mouth. When she ripped through his throat the broken buckle had caught one of her fangs.

The metal tags jingled as the stream of blood trickled to a stop. The collar slipped free from her teeth and clanked dully against the floor. Guerra knew his partner was dead by the sheer size of the blood pool creeping across the floor, but instead of pissing himself again, he groped for the taser on his utility belt. Some shred of loyalty must have tricked the officer into believing revenge was possible, but between sweating hands and panicked shaking, he couldn't get a firm grip on the weapon and it clattered loudly to the floor.

Pantera looked over at him. Then, the weapon. Neither were any real threat to her, but getting stung again didn't sound like much fun. She could kill him now and rid herself of the annoyance or she could play along and let the game continue. Pantera stared at Guerra. This game was too much fun to end now. She bounded away and took cover behind the nearest object. Baby didn't move. She didn't breathe and she didn't look down as the cat circled behind her and rubbed against the back of her legs.

Pantera liked this game. It was like they were playing hide and seek.

Guerra recovered his weapon and aimed it at Baby. The fool couldn't even tell the two apart. Pantera dashed out from her hiding place and struck the officer before he had a chance to pull the trigger. Guerra's reflexes weren't nearly as sharp as Baby's so he fell flat on his back and misfired the weapon. The prongs sparked off of a metal barstool with a crackle of electricity.

The sound spooked the cat, but Pantera already knew that the weapon couldn't be fired again. She bit down on Guerra's arm with a satisfying crunch and kept biting until she couldn't hear the bone snap anymore. Behind them, Baby snapped out something of her own. She extended her baton and charged. Pantera felt the electricity approach and whirled around to stop it, but Baby was faster than she realized. The baton cracked across the top of her head the moment she turned around.

Blue electricity surged down the cat's body, burning the blood on her neck. Pantera kept her head down and blindly hurtled herself into Baby. The officer stumbled but the hit was too high to knock her off of her feet. Determined to tear her down, Pantera leapt for her shoulders. Baby was in the middle of raising her baton again when she caught the attack in the chest and fell backwards to the floor.

She shoved her forearm into the back of Pantera's mouth where the teeth weren't as sharp, dropped her baton, and used her second arm to brace the first. Her body armor pinched with every chomping bite. Her arms shook against the force pressing down from above. It was all Baby could do to hold back the bloody maw trying to rip its way to her throat.

Pantera twisted her head to try and find the angle that could break through the armor, but Baby pushed back just as hard. The cat squeezed her claws into the human's chest, but they couldn't break through the black shell either. She'd have to use her weight to smoother her instead. The reinforced joints of Baby's armor popped and groaned like steel bending just before it collapsed. She couldn't breathe, but her teeth were clenched so hard that air couldn't get through anyway.

It was a stalemate, but it wouldn't last forever.

Both of Baby's arms began to shake and the tremors only grew worse as the cat pushed closer and closer to her face. Baby flinched as several whiskers prodded her cheeks. Hot blood infused saliva dribbled over the bridge of her nose. Pantera increased her point of leverage and Baby's arm dropped down across her throat with the weight of a dumbbell. It was the breaking point not even a hatchling could miss.

Poochyena rushed into the battle and bit into Pantera's back leg. His teeth were sharp with new growth and tickled her tendons and nerves. Pantera quickly pulled up and kicked the pest away. He was weak, but another surprise attack like that in the right spot and she might take some unnecessary damage. There was no need for such a blemish. One more blow and he'd be finished, but just as fast as the Pantherian was to attack, Baby was to defend.

Pantera turned her attention on the canine and Baby wrapped her arms around the cat's legs. Pantera's ankles snapped together and the momentum of her spring, combined with the placement of her paws, threw her off balance. She fell to the side and the unexpected vulnerability spurred her into panic. The cat flailed and kicked Baby in the shoulder, freeing herself from the human's clutches. She then rolled over and retreated into the safety of the darkness to reassess her next attack.

Baby grabbed her shoulder with a wince, but it wasn't dislocated. The reinforced threading of her armor made sure of that. Guerra wasn't so lucky. He writhed on the ground, clutching his mangled arm and screaming into the radio pinned to his shoulder. Poochyena cried in a much weaker manor across the room. Baby crawled over to her pokemon partner's side, and after a quick examination, counted four long gashes across his belly. If it wasn't for the ring of puppy fat around his organs, it was likely he would have been disemboweled. She returned him to his pokeball, and for a moment, his soft red energy coated the room in a dim blood red glow.

In it, Zach and Pantera's eyes found each other. They stared at one another even with the room returned to darkness. Pantera slunk along the wall outside of the flashlight and jumped onto the ace's corpse once more. She laid low in another game of hide and seek.

"Can you see me?" she asked.

Slowly, Zach turned to look at her, eyes wide and pupils thin like a cat's. He found her, even when he couldn't see. Pantera sharpened her claws in the ace's chest again. She dug her claws so deep into his flesh that they clacked against the bones in his ribcage. It was so delightful a sensation that she squirmed from head to tail.

"Did you see? Did you see what I brought you?"

But Zach wasn't the only one watching. Baby pinpointed the cat's location by the sound of her kneading and slid in front of Zach to obstruct the cat's view of him. Pantera stopped flexing her paws. She wasn't in the mood for any more games. Neither was Baby. With no one but the cat in front of her, Baby slowly reached around her back. Probably to grab another weapon. There was no end to her range of attacks.

Baby brought out the weapon and purposefully held it at her side so that the cat could see it. Pantera flicked her tail but didn't move. She never saw a set of claws like that before, but the way Baby held the weapon told her that it was distinctly different than the others. It was not for show or defense. It was meant for killing.

Just like her.

Pantera worked her claws into the flesh beneath her. She was right. This human was special, but it wouldn't stop the Pantherian from claiming what was rightfully hers.

Nothing would.

Zach's skin prickled. He felt the charge build between the two. He had seconds before Pantera's muscles tightened and Baby shifted her finger onto the trigger of her gun. His heart paused between beats and the tension snapped. Pantera sprang forward, Baby threw up her weapon, and Zach jumped between them.

"Stop!" he screamed.

And she did.

Pantera froze mid-sprint, but Baby only threw her arm up faster. She slung the barrel of her gun off to the side and a gunshot rang out, sharp, loud, and piercing like a lightning strike. The bullet whizzed by Zach's shoulder and nicked the fabric of his jacket before it drove into the drywall across the room. The echo of the shot faded and left them all suspended in silent weightless disbelief. Nobody was dead.

The three combatants stood frozen in a line across the kitchen as if a command whistle had been blown. Baby slowly lowered her firearm as the tension in her body decompressed. Zach stood in front of her with his arm outstretched towards Pantera. It trembled not more than a few inches from the end of the cat's nose.

Pantera looked at the offering: the deep creases in his palm, the short thick fingers, and the grim coated skin. She didn't understand why it hovered in front of her face instead of striking it. That's what every other hand did. That's what the researchers had done since her life began. The tests, the battles, the torture, they all taught her one thing: If you love it, hurt it. Love is pain. And the more pain she endured and inflicted, the happier the humans in the white lab coats were. Pantera wanted to be happy and she wanted her masters to be happy too. They deserved it more than she did, so when she became strong enough,

She killed them.

In the most painful way possible.

So why didn't Zach try to do the same?

"He loves me. He loves me not"

Loud frantic voices suddenly broke the silence as they scratched over the radios pinned to the officers' shoulders. Pantera had been around Baby long enough to know what that meant. Back up was on the way. It was time to make her escape.

Pantera jumped away from the pair, and for a second, Baby thought she was going to attack Guerra again for calling in the cavalry, but the great black cat leapt over the fallen officer, out of the kitchen, through the balcony door, and into the night.

In the blink of an eye, it was over.

Zach fell to his knees, dumbfounded by his ridiculously stupid actions. Why did he jump out into the frontlines like that? He could have died. He should have died, but he didn't. Again. Zach held up his hands and tried to read the lines in his palms. If he looked hard enough, he might be able to decipher the magic he used to save their lives. Stigmata would explain the occurrence of a miracle. Or maybe his hands were just cursed and the worse had yet to come.

Zach looked up at Baby. His eyes begged for an answer, some type of explanation to his madness, but he already knew that there was none. Crazy couldn't be cured. What was he supposed to do now? Baby walked out in front of him after making sure the cat was truly gone and offered her hand. He looked at it: the smoothness of her skin, the slenderness of her fingers, and the tattered black glove and reddening bandages wrapped around her palm. He didn't understand why she didn't use it to arrest him. That's what she was supposed to do in a situation like this. That's what he thought he wanted and what her partner tried to do back in the hallway.

So why didn't she try to do the same?

"She loves me. She loves me not."