Untrue World

Disclaimer: some may find this chapter disturbing. For inspiration after reading, look up Stockholm Syndrome, dog-fighting, torture and brainwashing.

4.

...Moo. Breath deeply, calm, and eat more grass. Moo... - Milktank's Philosophy

Who am I. Am I Leos? Or am I Charmander? his fuzzy, half-conscious thoughts swam in a state like and not-like sleep. Were he more aware, he would have wondered if he was dead. I've always been Charmander... But tha' was in the other world. In this world, I was named Leos. But is that just the name of this body, or is that me? Is there a difference?

Slowly, sensations returned to him, an incredible uncomfortable coldness like he had never felt before. Such a chill about his tail alarmed his groggy mind to an abrupt waking, his eyes flicking open wide-

only to stare at the face of yet another human.

"Gah!" he snarled, stepping back, except he found he couldn't. His limbs were bound up in a blanket, and he kicked and wiggled frantically out of the cloth, and saw alarmingly his tail was down to a mere slight reddish glow with the occasional small spark and a tiny whisp. Focusing his anger, he forced it to burn hotter, and relight into a proper looking fire, albeit a tiny one. A ninetails laughed at him, laying not far beside him, along with a lombre eating at the table, and a quagsire. The charmander was in a medium-sized human-made room.

"I wonder what a little guy like you was doing out all alone in the rain. I'm sure you're mommy wouldn't let you alone. I've contacted the authorities to check to see if you have a trainer; it looks like you should be all well and healed up soon, eh?" the woman grinned, and patted him on the head before turning around and walking to her bag.

"Nine tail tails I!" the fox spoke to him, and he stared without comprehension, embarrassingly. "Nii, nine." it tried to speak to him again, then shook its head and looked at its companions. "Nin nan tail tail, ninetails." He got the feeling it was mocking him to its friends.

"He doesn't talk? That's weird." the human glanced back. "Sounds like they could use some good training. We should begin immediately."

Fearful, Leos launched himself to escape, but was too slow to escape the human's grip as she outstretched her arm and plunked him down into her lap and proceeded to scratch him lightly on the head. Wha- what is this..? This is training? He felt utterly baffled. "Snuggle time everybody!" the girl commanded, giggling as her pokemon launched themselves at her in an eager frenzy, knocking each other over to get the best spot. Soon he had a lombre foot leaning on his head, not something he'd ever thought he'd experience, truthfully, and a quagsire trying to squish him. Compared to everything that had happened lately, though, this was, well, it was nice.

He was beginning to understand the logic of her insidious tactic. After watching a 'television show', as she called it, where a boy rescued a pokemon and it came to love him, the idea occurred to him that she probably expected the same thing to happen to him. He 'owed' her, after all she saved his life, and she was treating him fairly nicely, feeding him nice food and things, and frankly, appealing to his instincts. Ever since coming to this world and body, he'd been finding it harder and harder to fight them. Humiliatingly, as a baby, a part of him found he wanted to be hugged and nurtured, and led around. It was a struggle to remind himself he was in fact an adult and a person, not some sort of pet.

"We found your trainer!" she walked in excitedly, and horror filled the charmander as he looked up, expecting to see Kebin as well. "Turns out his name is Kebin, and he's only a little ways away. Said he had trouble training you, so I get to keep you for a little while until he makes his way here! Said I might get to keep you permanently, since he had some sort of squabble with his folks."

...great. He closed his eyes, sighing.

"So your name is Leos?"

Very, very reluctantly, he acknowledged this, although it seemed to be a rhetorical question as before he could nod, she continued on. "That's nice. Well Leos, I believe you are ready for the next part of your training. Come here, boy."

He gazed at her, hesitant. Why?

She held out a piece of food, and it was then he realized what was going on. The coming was the training, she was treating him like a need-to-be-trained pet. Insulted, he laid down on the floor in an obstinate manner, as if to say he definitely wasn't going anywhere. She waited, then clicked her tongue and outstretched her hand again, trying to sound and smell appealing enough for a lizard to want to investigate. He closed eyes and pretended to go to sleep.

Five minutes later, he realized a flaw in his plan. He was bored. She wasn't going away. And if she kept this up, he would begin to get hungry. To keep himself entertained, he turned his head and looked at what the other pokemon were doing.

"Hmm, oh I see what you are doing." she said quietly to herself, glancing at the pokemon. "I'll have to remove them, then. And all possible distractions." Picking up her pokeball, she returned the others, who looked disappointed to be interrupted during play, and picked up all interesting objects off the floor. Soon, she was the only appealing object in the room.

Annoyed, he walked away and curled up in the opposite corner of the room, waiting. She couldn't keep this up forever...

Dinnertime. He had not eaten in two days. While he had been bored waiting and pacing around the room, she had cooked meals for herself and entertained herself with a book, occasionally looking up and asking him to come again.

Now she was cooking again, and the smell was delicious. Beans and chili sauce and meat, it was enough to make him drool. She glanced at him. His will was breaking.

"Come here and have some. Come Leos!" she commanded. "Come here!"

His will was broken. He rushed over, clamoring for food.

"Come, Leos."

She commanded, and unthinkingly now, he obeyed, getting up and walking over to her. Repeated treatments of the food and fun-withholding 'game', sometimes in different variations, had gradually beaten those two words into his head. It was demoralizing, but there was little point as he had found to disobeying. It got one nowhere. That was perhaps the whole point of the training. This time, she rewarded him by wrapping her arms around him in a hug and picking him up.

"Let's step up the training a little."

Opening the door, they entered in to a new room he'd never seen before, and she placed him down in a ring just tall enough to inch over his head and prevent him from easily jumping over. There, she released another pokemon, lotad. It smelled faintly like it was related to her lombre he'd seen before. He bore his teeth aggressively in intimidation, but did no more. Truthfully, the sleepy playful days of relaxation and food had left him in no mood to fight even after he'd made a full recuperation from the storm. The smell of grass stirred his natural instinct to use fire, but as he felt it was no real threat, this went down again.

"Ember, Leos." the woman commanded, and he almost did, just purely out of habit of obeying her. His mouth opened, but he closed it again, nothing coming out, and gazed untrustingly at the young lotad. It jabbered its name meaninglessly at him, and he failed to understand once more. "Astonish, Lolo Jr."

It bounced off his belly, slightly painfully, and he glanced at it in amusement for it had nearly startled him into leaping away. He got the feeling he could take that treatment for a long time, his tolerance to pain increased by the treatment Kebin had put him through, and the fact the move was fairly weak. "Again and again until I say stop, Lolo Jr."

He resisted, snorting and turning his side to it as it tried to inflict pain and startle him by attacking in a swerving, jumpy manner that attempted to 'astonish'. He could see how the move was so named, but it wasn't working so well on him, as he was determined not to care too much about what it would do.

"Nature power, now." Nature what? He turned his head, and gave a cry as he received a swift blow to the face. "Absorb, finish him off Jr.!" It latched on to him, and green energy drained out, something he instinctively hated, feeling himself grow weaker and weaker to the grass move. Unbidden, his tail flame grew larger, angry, and smoke plumed out of his mouth.

"Ember, Leos!" she commanded again, and he slashed his claws out, tucking them in harmlessly at the last minute and using them to merely push the lotad away. Disobediently, he tried to flee the battle, leaping at the sides of the enclosure and scratching at the ring's wire. It rang with a hard metal and refused to break or let him out, each attempt at clambering out resulting in him falling or getting pushed over by the trainer back in. "I said, Ember!"

In a scene reminiscent to before, he opened his mouth wide and tried to ember her, but she came prepared to his tricks and stepped backward, farther than his flame could reach while he was in the enclosure. He tried to climb out while she was away, but was tackled by lotad who toppled him over. Snarling and enraged after the arrogant little grass midget had pummeled him repeatedly before and now joined in as traitor by helping the human without being asked, he scratched and fought with it, rolling around on the floor, though it proved to be tougher than it looked. He saw to his consternation that while he was distracted, the human had released a water pokemon, the quagsire, to watch over the ring to make sure he didn't try to get out or flame her again.

Feeling weak, he shunned the grass type named Lolo Jr. again, expecting to be knocked out by the lotad. Instead, he felt a misty spray wash over him and a squirting noise, and looked up to see the human holding a potion. He felt better as she, to his unhappiness, healed both of them. Still refusing to ember, but thinking he might be able to end it with a lucky strike, he scratched out at the lotad and tried to knock it out, then throw it over the walls of the ring. This didn't work, as quagsire squirted water threateningly the moment he got near the edges, and the human squirted the lotad again to heal them.

It was just like the withholding food 'game', he realized, stilling. His arms were getting tired from scratching, yet his flame was still going strong and his body itched to use it, he actually had to resist it from forcing itself out of his mouth as a retaliation for the attacks. He did not really want to fight on command, and yet he was already fighting...

For over five hours, the brutal game went on. He danced around the ring, avoiding as many attacks as he could, avoiding dishing them back, but still took them. He snarled and growled until he grew tired of noise and became silent, and occasionally tried to deter the other pokemon with a claw or scratch. And despite his exhaustion, he could not sleep, for the potion spray kept him up, and a secondary spray, aptly called 'awakening' prevented the act of sleep entirely. At one point, he simply laid down and gave up on moving, letting it pummel him silly. At one point, he watched the human walk out to get more supplies and grew hopeful, but that merely brought the activities to a brief pause, and on one occasion she brought food back with her and a book to enjoy. How he truly wished he could read a book...

A blow indignantly punched him in his tender nose, illiciting a small growl.

Trembling, his will began to break once more. "Just leave me alone!" he roared, and flames battered outward from his breath, enveloping the lotad which gave a crying peep before crumbling over to the ground as his breath continously raged on it. Its leaves curled and cindered, and it wiggled and cried furiously as it blackened, before going faint, heavily dried out like a prune. The trainer returned it, smiling.

"Excellent, good job Leos, come now." she opened up the ring, and he rushed out into the wider, open area, though there were still four walls around him he felt joy even to have that little bit extra more of freedom for the moment. Still, that treatment had not just done nothing; mouth still itching with a desire for burning, and an incredible hatred of what had just been done to him, he 'came' to the trainer, opened his mouth wide, and fired.

Sploosh. Not the noise he was expecting. The moment flame lit up and out from his mouth, water shot out from the quagsire, who to his irritation doused him in the process, getting him wet.

"None of that now!" the other pokemon shouted, and he was startled to realize he could understand them, perfectly, but did not have much time to dwell on this as the human's hand reached down fearlessly to pat him. "That nonsense won't work here, not ever, so you better give it up now. It'll be pleasant to be rewarded, just you see."

"Good boy, Leos, good good boy!" she out held a lovely smelling liver treat, which he couldn't resist taking, hungry after that ordeal. "I think you should know now, my name is Betty Black. I'll be your trainer for now. And if all goes well, I'll be yours forever, Leos." Betty smiled. "Kebin is coming tomorrow, so rest up. I'll talk to him for you and try to convince him it would be best if you stay with me!"

Charman- Leos was torn between exhaustion, grief, and relief at the idea he might not go back to Kebin at least. Emotionally wrecked and physically a child, he dug his head in to his tormentor and hugged her with his arms, begging for comfort, which he received, being petted and held in long arms as he was finally permitted to rest. Isolated from the world and from any friends, he realized wearily that he was beginning to both hate, and adore her. His tail swished and fluttered in her grip contently as he began to go into a babyish slumber...