Book II: Impending Twilight

Chapter 111: An empty shell

The air was silent tonight. The world around me was nothing but a vacant void filled with a light mist. Without a sound, I walked through an open field of grass, the only light being the moon's reflections off the misty air. At one point through my journey the mist around me began to clear up, revealing the clear skies above. With the illumination of the moon watching clearly over me, I glanced up and caught a glimpse of something curious. I allowed myself to come to a rest and stare, puzzled at the movement of white streaks soaring through the air, shooting stars. I watched in complete silence as a fleeting memory came to my mind, reminding me of a life that once was. I could see the picture so vividly, yet it felt like something from another life, like I never experienced the memory with my family to begin with. I could still remember the expression on my brothers and sister's face when we watched the shooting stars years ago in awe.

"Do you regret the path you have chosen?" a voice asked me from behind. My ears rose up as the voice sent a tremor through my spine. I turned around to see a vaporeon sitting on the grass with her lips radiating into a comforting smile. She let out a snicker from the shocked expression I gave her.

I remained in place as I eyed my sister, too startled to respond properly, "Casey…" was all managed to whispered as I realized that this was all just another dream, similar to the ones I had of Kaz. Still, the face of my barely older sister was comforting, even if it was a painful reminder. The vaporeon patiently waited as her finned tail slowly swayed back and forth along the ground, pushing the blades of grass flat against the dirt.

"What do you mean, do I regret my path?" I repeated in confusion.

"I mean do you regret your choices?" the water eeveelution reiterated.

"I don't want to discuss that," I bit down as I pulled my stare from her and continued walking through my dream like I was before.

"Okay, then let's talk about your new friends if you don't want to discuss that." Casey caught up to my pace and walked a few steps behind in my tracks. My pace increased as I tried to escape the topic. "Do you miss them?"

"Does it matter how I feel?" I responded to Casey, "And I don't want to discuss that either."

"Okay, what about Vincent, do you still love your brother?"

"I especially don't want to talk about him."

"Then what about Dad, would you like to talk about him?"

"Just lay off it."

"How about Kaz, come on everyone loved that jolte-" my sister mused enthusiastically before I cut her off.

"No."

"Mom?"

I let out a scowl as I continued walking to wherever this dream would take me.

"Okay, how do you feel about yourself then?"

My pace came to a stop as I was caught off guard by that question.

"What about you, Ryder, how do you feel about who you are?"

My heart began to pick up from the thought of the question, but I felt the same about this topic as I did all the others, "Pass," I spoke as I went back to aimlessly wandering.

"So this is who my brother is now?" Casey continued on as she stayed behind me, not bothering to chase me any further. "Just a hollow shell that resembles him?"

Two months before the events of chapter 110

I walked through the silent night with no one by my side, no Flare, no Kana, no friends, no one but myself. Since I left Shalour I put a lot of ground between me and everything I knew.

I glanced upwards into the canopy above me and stared at what little I could see of the cloudy sky. The sky above was beginning to lighten up a bit, meaning dawn would be arriving shortly. As I continued to walk I felt a pulse of pain in my head and I grunted as I came to a halt. For almost ten seconds my head rang with an intense pain like my brain was going to rupture at any moment, until my mind went numb and the feeling spreaded throughout my body. Almost as quickly as it came, the numbness began to subside and I was able to resumed my journey through the darkness of the lonely night.

Ever since earlier this night when I talked to Gray about leaving, I wanted to turn back and say it was all some stupid lie. I really wanted to be nowhere else but by their side right now, to be in the comfort of those I love. The void growing in my chest was far worse than any stab I've endured, worse than the feeling of breaking my arm. This pain was something much deeper than the greatest of physical afflictions an umbreon could endure.

As I continued on, my ears perked up from the sound of a twig snapping from behind. I turned around with happiness as I hoped to see my friends chasing after me, but those thoughts were quickly ended at the sight of a zorua. I gave the fox a glare of hatred and he watched me with a more somber expression, one of loss I was all too familiar with.

For a while the two of us just read each other in the silence of the night, until Rhys was the first to speak. "Ryder, it seems we both lost something dear to us through these events," the zorua spoke. "As much as I want this hunt for you to end, I have my mission."

I let out a hard breath as my head lowered to the ground. at this point I was tired of all the pain weighing over my shoulders and I just wanted everything to come to an end. "Do what you're going to do," I quietly asked, accepting whatever fate he had planned for me.

"You want to die?" Rhys asked with bewilderment

I gave him an incomplete nod. "I don't have any fight left in me. I've harmed everyone around me enough, at least if I'm gone everyone can have a chance to be happy."

Rhys frowned at the response I gave him, "Two years back I didn't save you so I could do this to you. I did it because I wanted you to live, and never once did I want to kill you, even when I was trying."

In a melancholic voice I responded to Rhys. "You weren't supposed to save me from that blizzard, I wanted to die that night, I just wanted to prevent myself from experiencing more pain. If I did die Kana would still be alive. By saving me, her life was taken and so many others were hurt because of me. Was my life really worth all of theirs?"

The zorua's ears flattened as he shook his head, "I really wish we could have met under different circumstances, this really isn't what I wanted," Rhys told me as he walked towards me and a purple energy began to form around his right paw. I stood in place as the old zorua rose up his paw and reached out towards me, with the touch of his paw against my nose I felt an extreme drowsiness enter my body like a drug. Within seconds my legs began to shake from my own weight, before it all became too much and I ended up on my side. I watched as blurs of Rhys standing over me could be made out and with each second my eyes grew heavier. I didn't bother resisting the drowsiness, and instead I succumbed to my fate, allowing myself to fall into a deep slumber that I hoped would bring peace in the end.

The following morning

A bright light pierced through the cracks of my eyes. For a few minutes I fought off the outside lights, until I stirred awake. Quickly my head rose up and I got up onto all fours as I looked around the room I mysteriously ended up in.

I cleared my throat as I realized that Rhys didn't kill me and somehow I was in a pokecenter. "Hello?" I called out as I jumped off the bed I was on, and upon landing I felt a sharp pain in my left forepaw. I bit down as I glanced down to see the fresh bandages wrapped around my wrist. Memories of what that servine almost made me do came flooding back to me, haunting my thoughts relentlessly.

"Flare, Alex, Kana?!" I called out, before I realized the last name didn't hold the same value as it once did. My head drooped down at the memory of the jolteon, another victim of my cursed existence. As much as I wanted to reflect on her memory, I didn't let it consume my thought process. Right now, I needed to focus on figuring out what's going on.

Just as I was going to find a way to open the door, it cracked open on its own. As the door cracked open I felt a strong feeling of hope, but those emotions were quickly shredded as a sylveon entered in the room. Her figure was very lithe, almost like Naomi's body, which added to the sway of her hips as she walked in.

"Good morning, I know you must be in quite the haze right now, but would you please follow me?" the random sylveon asked.

"Who are you, and where am I? This is a pokecenter, right?" I asked skeptically, not knowing what kind of bizarre situation I ended up in.

The sylveon chuckled in response to my words, but I just stared at her with seriousness, not seeing what was so funny. The sylveon let out a sigh as she caught onto my mood, "My name is Lily, as for your whereabouts I was instructed to leave all of that to my superiors. Now, would you follow me?" Lily asked again, losing a bit of the politeness she originally had in her voice. I stared at the fairy type with uncertainty for a moment, I doubted that this was a pokecenter at this point, but if I wanted answers I had to follow her or face the consequences. Doing all I could, I gave Lily a single nod of my head.

"Follow me." Lily began leading the way and I followed behind her out the door. When outside I was presented with a long hallway that was actually similar to a pokecenter, but not identical. This place seemed just as obnoxiously bright with the lighting, but had a lot more traffic flow with bigger halls to accommodate for it. Humans and pokemon both travelled throughout the broadened halls. Even with the heavy traffic in the halls, none of them were able to get near me due to the pokemon guards that joined us. The escorts were made up of two affinities, bug and fairy types. It was a very obvious strategic move, but I couldn't fathom why they'd go to such lengths to have escorts like this. Did they really expect me to cause trouble?

During the walk to wherever they were leading me I kept my silence, and everyone else did the same. It wasn't until halfway down the third hall that we finally stopped in front of a door.

"Head on in, our boss told us to wait outside for when you're finished," Lily told me. As I approached the door it slid open on its own and I entered. Inside was some kind of fancy office with luxurious things throughout it. I may be a wild at heart, but it was obvious that all the paintings and artistic things in the room were pricy. And at the end of the room full of the frivolous items was a kadabra, one that I never thought I would encounter again.

"Good morning, please take a seat." the kadabra gestured for me to sit down on one of the chairs in front of his desk. I stood in place as I stared at the kadabra with an untrusting glare, there was no way I was trusting him after what happened last time.

'If he's here, then that means…' I thought to myself as the memories of my last encounter with Genesis played out in my head.

"As I said before, you may sit," the kadabra pointed his hand towards the chair. I couldn't bring myself to listen, not without an explanation.

"You're the kadabra I met at the genesis base in Ambrette. How could I trust you after all that shit?" I let out a low growl towards the kadabra, I wanted him to know we weren't on good terms.

"Still sore over the past, that would be expected," Zero nonchalantly spoke as if it was nothing. "Listen, we can be hostile towards me if it eases your anger, but that won't get you anywhere. Right now you're deep underground within one of Genesis's bases, which is heavily guarded. One wrong move and you'll have no escape; you'll be dealt with accordingly. Deep down here, I'm one of the closest things you have to a friend, and so is Rhys. I would consider being more thoughtful about that, you're lucky."

"If I was lucky in the first place I wouldn't be here in the first place," I spat out. "Fine, whatever you wanna discuss, let's get it over with." As instructed earlier, I hopped up onto the chair and took a seat on the soft-cushions.

"If you don't recall my name from earlier, you may address me as Zero, and today I'm talking to you on behalf of Rhys. So, tell me, do you know where you are?"

I shook my head.

"Excellent, that's just how we wanted to keep things until we could converse in person. As of now you are in a facility known as Techvivre. Also one of Genesis's more established bases."

The fur on my body stood up as a chill coursed through me as those words rolled off the kadabra's tongue. It became clear that I was beyond the point of return from my previous life.

"You're supposed to be dead right now, but for some reason Rhys found other uses in you. Either way I don't question my superior's motives, but I was supposed to explain your current situation to you due to Rhys's busy schedule today. Anyways, I respect your time just as much as I respect my own, so I won't burden you with information that'll be explained in greater detail later. So, let's get straight down to business." Zero spoke as he reached down onto his desk and held up a photo. The picture was from a distance and somewhat unfocused, but I could make out an older lucario with some kind of cloak over his torso.

"It seems the leader of Crimson Dawn is much stronger than we anticipated. As of now we are assembling a team of pokemon to track him down and assassinate him. Rhys believes with you being who you are, you're very capable of standing a chance against him, with the help of the right pokemon. Rhys told me he'd set the terms and conditions with you around this evening when he has the availability." The kadabra placed the photo back down onto the desk, and reached out for a red button on his desk, "Lily, please escort our guest back to his room. Keep an eye on him."

The doors behind me slid open, and Lily entered the room. "Follow me, I'll take you back to your room."

Even though my better judgement told me not to trust anyone here, I still allowed Lily to take me back to my room. When I was returned to my living quarters, I heard the sound of the door locking me in. Now that I was finally alone, I could allow myself to unravel a bit and think over things. I jumped up onto the bed in my room and got properly situated for what could possibly be a long wait.

'Is this really happening?' I asked myself. 'Why would Genesis need me, what could I possibly do against their leader, Mandus?' I thought. It was true though, if the leader of Crimson was strong enough to hold off an army then what would a umbreon like me do? I mean sure I had my gift, and if they planned to utilize that then they better plan this attack on a full moon so I can actually use it. Still, I can't even control this gift well. I've sparsely used it in the past, I've already gotten enough crap for being a shiny with red eyes, I couldn't even begin to fathom what they'd do if they found out about my abnormality.

Hours passed by as I waited in my room in a deep trance with thoughts clouding my mind. From time to time Lily would come in to check on me, and at one point she offered me a meal, but I turned it down due to a lack of appetite. It wasn't until around the evening that the door to my room slid open a sixth time, but this time it wasn't the sylveon, it was the pokemon who brought me here.

"Good evening," Rhys tipped his head towards me. I sat up in my bed as I grinded my teeth together at the sight of him. While I sat with discomfort the zorua jumped up onto a chair so the two of us were as close to eye level as possible. "I'd recommend you stop looking at the man who's going to help you like that. It's quite rude," Rhys stated, and I just looked away from him, not able to bare the sight of him any longer.

"I suppose my colleague, Zero, informed you of your situation, what I want from you. More importantly I hope you took the day to consider what I wanted instead of sulking over your luck."

Rhys's words rubbed me off in the wrong way and I began to feel a burning anger surfacing from within my chest, "Don't test me," I snapped my teeth at him. "I thought you were supposed to kill me, not this."

Rhys shook his head at me yet another time, "I was supposed to kill you, and maybe I still will if you don't quiet down and listen for once. Last night was an act of mercy. Seeing someone like yourself broken to the point where you're submissive towards your fate is something I don't find pleasure in. I see this as an opportunity for you, a chance for you to set things right, and because of that, I think I can use you. Consider it a win for both sides.

A growl began to emit from me as my claws began to tear into my bed sheets, "I'm not some damn puppet for you to manipulate, you hear me?!" My words echoed throughout the enclosed room.

A few seconds passed and Rhys scoffed at my response, "As Zero told you, we want to hunt down and eliminate Mandus for good. With the help of a pokemon with your gift, it may be possible if we play our cards right. The whole day I've been planning out and analyzing many of our finest fighters, we're going to assemble a team to take him out and I want you to be a part of this team. Think of this as a chance to set things right in your life, I know you have a burning hatred towards the lucario Mandus."

My glance went back towards Rhys as I thought of what he was saying carefully. It was true I really wanted to see Mandus pay, but I couldn't just help the people who were trying to hunt down and kill my friends.

"I refuse."

Rhys laughed to himself for a moment before retorting my response, "How typical of you to be stubborn. Of course you wouldn't want to help us with nothing in exchange, so I'll offer you something no one else can. Answers to every question you have ever wondered, what you are, the origin of your kind, who are The Crimson Dawn and what they want with you."

My heart nearly skipped a beat, I couldn't believe that him of all pokemon would be the one to offer me the answers I've been searching so long for. "You really know of all that?" I questioned him with an edge of excitement in my voice.

"I know a lot more than most pokemon in this world, you'll never get an opportunity like this again. Think carefully about your answer Ryder, you want this and you know it."

I knew that the zorua wasn't wrong, I really did want these answers ever since I was a child. I had to know what I am, why I have always been an outcast, why my eyes were blood red since I was an eevee, but I couldn't accept his offer when he was going to kill my friends.

"I'll help you, but only if you accept one of my terms, and if you turn down my term then I refuse to lift a paw for you."

"I'll hear you out, shoot."

"For a long time Genesis has been hunting my friends, if I help you, you have to swear to me that you will leave them alone once and for all."

"So you want to protect your friends?" Rhys grinned, and I nodded yes in response. "Very well, in exchange for your services I will allow Genesis to to turn a blind eye towards your friends just this once, but should they ever cross our paths again I will not be able to protect them. Are we clear on that?"

Without hesitation I nodded my head in agreement "Y-Yes."

"Good, I will have that dealt with as soon as we're done talking here. There is much we have to do before we can send you out to kill Mandus. First you are going to undergo special training that'll help you unlock your potential. I'll tell you now, if you don't take this training seriously you'll regret it fast. This is different from what you and your trainer did to prep for gym battles, this training will help you learn to deal with far more intense things. That'll be explained more later though, I don't expect you to start today. Next you'll also need to get well acquainted with the team I will form, you will all need to act as one unit. Now, are there any questions, Ryder?"

I took a second to allow my brain to process all that info, but in the end I had everything I needed besides my answers. "No, but I want to know of these answers you promised me."

"Yes, yes. I know you're eager to learn of these things, so for now I will allow you one question. The rest you will have to earn through proving yourself to me, when I know you're truly devoted I will tell you what you want to know. So, one question to hold you over till your next chance."

I paused to think this over, if I had one question I had to make it count. While I was interested in knowing of Crimson Dawn and who this Mandus person was, I really couldn't help but want to know of who I am. "Okay, What am I?"

"Well, you already know that Ryder, our psychic checked your memories, oddly your mind was almost impossible to see into, and we could only access certain events, but we managed to get a glimpse of someone, Skullface. I'm curious to see who this pokemon is, but I also saw that he told you some truth in what you are."

"You went through my mind?!" I yelled out at Rhys as I nearly lunged off my bed to kill him.

"Relax," Rhys rose his voice, "There isn't much we already don't know of you, and besides it's better that we know of this Skull Face."

"Don't ever go through my mind again," I growled at him.

"Do as you're told and we won't have too. Now back on topic. What this Skull Face figure told you wasn't a lie, you are infact a being known as an eon. If you're wondering you're still an umbreon, just much different from a normal umbreon. This alteration you have that allows you to absorb and use other affinities is from a rare gene in your family tree. Although, your kind is only one side of a coin."

"What do you mean by that?"

Rhys smirked at me, "That was your one question Ryder. If you're able to impress me with your training results I might just throw you another bone." Rhys jumped off his chair and headed straight for the door.

"Oh come on that barely counted as an answer!"

"And now you know to choose more wisely Ryder. Till next time," Rhys tipped his head at me as he exited out the door. The door closed behind him and left me to myself again.

I waited a few moments before I cursed under my breath for him acting like that. If Rhys was to ever lie to me or wrong me in anyway then I'd kill him with my own fangs. I don't care if it's wrong, what would it matter if I fell any lower, I've already fallen this far, which is also how I'm able to go with this.

Time passed by in my room as I lied in silence without any attention. The visits from Lily ceased until many hours later. She offered me a meal once again, this time I accepted. About an hour later my meal arrived and I ate, surprisingly the food wasn't bad, but something about the taste of food felt so bitter now… It's a hard feeling to describe, it tasted good, but it was like I wasn't enjoying a simple pleasure of life, like I've been stripped of enjoying the most basic of things.

I didn't ponder the meal for long, I just figured it was due to all that was going on. Today was really a lot to take in, and I wouldn't have been surprised if I woke up any moment only to discover that it was just a dream. The thought of this being a dream was amusing, but of course I knew this was as real as anything. I just wondered what kind of monster Genesis would make me into, or perhaps what monster in me they'd bring out. None of that mattered to me though, if I had to light myself on fire to keep my friends warm then I'd do it, my well being means nothing, they mean everything.

20 hours later

The whole night was a struggle to sleep, this place didn't feel like a home I could settle into, it felt even more unsettling than my first time in a pokecenter. Even more oddly enough I've grown used to having others near me when I slept, but all night it was just dead silence, and I was trapped in that room all night.

Around when I was finally beginning to fall asleep an alarm went off and the lights to my room flicked on. Almost instantly my eyes burned as if I was looking into the sun. I tried clenching my eyes shut to fall back into my empty dreams, but the constant beeping of an alarm ripped me from my dreams and managed to fill me with rage. I jumped up onto all fours and stared at an alarm clock I never noticed until now.

"Shut up!" I yelled at it as I shot a shadow ball at it, causing the device to explode into pieces. Just as the pieces of the device flew around the room, Lily walked into the my room with a startled expression. The sylveon's mouth hung wide as she looked at the darkness that was lingering on the counter from my shadow ball, slowly eating away at the surface.

"H-Hey, you can't just do that, that costs money you know, and I'll get in trouble if you trash this room!" Lily yelled at me.

"Well it wouldn't stop," I replied in annoyance as I realized this was going to be one of those morning.

"You just hit the button on top, didn't your trainer before this ever teach you anything!?"

"Yeah, he always dealt with the alarms, and usually he let us sleep in until we were ready to get up."

Lily glared at me, before turning her head from me, "Right, you're still a wild at heart, I remember now. Well umbreon, you aren't allowed to go around destroying things without permission, if so we'll have you put somewhere more solitary where you won't have any rights. I'll let you choose."

I rolled my eyes in response to the sylveon.

"Anyways, now that that's out of the way, you have a long day ahead of you. So, let's get started, Rhys wants you to start your training right away."

"Don't I get breakfast?" I asked as she began to lead me out of the room.

"Rhys instructed me not to feed you until lunch, he said it'd just slow you down."

I didn't bother arguing with her, because I'm sure it would have worked wonders for my current situation. Instead I just followed behind her. This time instead of our location being on this floor I was taken into an elevator and we switched floors. I was hoping I'd get to leave this facility for the training, but to my dismay we just went to a lower floor of the underground base.

Lily lead me to a private room that had some strange machine in it… It was kind of hard to describe, but it had all this computery technology stuff. The room was like the rest of the facility, shiny white with a mirror-like floor. I glanced at the computer technology as I tried to understand what it was for.

"This is a private training room we'll be using to train you for your mission," Lily stated. "This is a VRTM machine, virtual reality training machine."

"Virtual reality?" I repeated in confusion.

Lily just sighed, "So uneducated… Virtual reality is a fake computer world, it is literally the same as the world inside a pokeball, are you familiar with a pokeball?" I glared at Lily from her attitude, but gave her a small nod. "Like I said, this is similar to a pokeball, except this technology is now used to train pokemon. Inside you will be put in certain scenarios with virtual enemies. No these enemies aren't real, but you'll think they're real. Inside the virtual world your five senses, touch, smell, sight, hearing and taste will change as well, it'll be as if everything is real. Now, know that you will be put in situation where you'll be getting hurt, so remember that. So, if you get impaled by a scyther up the butt, you're going to feel like you really got impaled up a scyther up the butt, you follow?"

"Ummm, yeah, but can we disable any attacks like tha-"

"No," Lily quickly interrupted. "Pain will teach you to learn how to fight fast, you won't really take damage but while you're in the simulation it'll feel that way. Simple solution to not getting hurt: learn from your mistakes. believe me when you're getting seriously injured in there you'll learn to not make the same mistake twice. Literally, this is one of the most effective training methods science has made without brainwashing someone. Now, do you have any questions?"

'Questions?' I thought in my head. I mean where would I even begin, I mean I was about to jump in a machine that was going to kick my ass repeatedly...

"I'll take your silence as a no," Lily said as she walked towards the machine. "Now, stand in front of machine to my right," Lily ordered. Hesitantly I did as she told me, and I stood to her right. A part of the machine opened up, revealing a core with a big ball in the middle that was glowing red with white whisps coming from it.

"Try not to freak out too much, this machine has more pull than a master ball," Lily commented as she stood up on two legs and used the computer for support. I was about to ask her what she meant before she pushed a green button. The whole room flashed white and I felt an intense pull suck me in. My head spun and I couldn't see a thing, until I tumbled to the ground.

My eyes opened and to my surprise I was in a completely new setting. "Wha-What is this place?" I asked as I got to my feet and looked around. The room I was in stretched out for a half mile, and then the ceiling went up quite a ways as well. The floor was a dark blue, and on the floor was a glowing grid that was glowing like my rings on a full moon. The walls looked as if they were made of steel, and lines ran upward along the wall that were like the grid, but they didn't make a grid pattern. In all honesty this looked like something out of one of those game videos Alex played on his phone.

"Is this the virtual reality?" I asked, but I got silence. "Hello?!"

"Loading AI" A robotic female voice spoke from all directions. "Model: lucario. Level: five. Mode: lethal," the female voice continued on and I became more confused. The voice honestly reminded me of that feature Alex's phone had, the one with the women that answered his questions.

In front of me I saw the ground flash blue in a small spot, and then a bunch of small blue blocks began to stack up and make a model of a person. The model flashed a few times and with each flash the figure became more and more real, until I was looking at a lucario.

"What in the actual hell?"

"Match starting in three, two, one, begin," the robot women spoke, and once she said begin the lucario ran towards me.

An aura sphere formed in his palm as he charged straight at me. He extended out his palm, and I dodged to the right avoiding the attack, but then he turned towards me and threw the aura sphere. In mid jump the sphere collided with the ground by my feet and created an explosion that sent me higher into the air. My head spun in all directions and just as I came near the ground the lucario stood below me and extended his paw out towards my gut. I came to a stop mid fall as I landed on his palm. I gasped all of my air out, and then I felt a strong force explode against my stomach. My stomach felt as if it torn open and I flew into the air and onto the ground with blood coming from my mouth. When I hit the ground I couldn't move, everything was cold, every muscle on my body was strained.

With the little energy I had I looked towards my stomach wound and saw that my guy was ripped wide open with my internal organs hanging out. My eyes grew wide for a second and I tried to cry out in pain, but there was no wind in my voice, instead everything faded to black faster than I could process what was going on.

Within seconds I awoke on my feet, but I felt just fine. The lucario that killed me before stood in place, just staring at me.

"I'm alright?" I said as I tried to move around.

"Battle failed. battle commencing in thirty seconds."

"I-I just died though, my stomach was ripped wide open!" I yelled at the AI voice.

"Scenario paused" The AI said to my surprise.

Then out of nowhere I heard Lily's voice speaking, "Alright listen up umbreon, you're obviously not grasping this well. The lucario is your opponent, he's the same species as the man you're going against, so it's best you get used to fighting this kind of pokemon. Now, you just died in the simulation in your first attempt, that's fine, but he's not even on a hard difficulty yet. This lucario AI goes up to level twenty, so you're three quarters from the hardest difficulty. Now, You're going to stay in this simulation and fight the level five lucario over and over until you can get a flawless victory, meaning you won't take a scratch. After that we will work you up to harder difficulties until you're able to take on the level twenty lucario. From time to time we will be doing other scenarios with other pokemon to help you be adaptable, but for now this is your training. So beat the lucario and you'll be allowed out for a break." Lily's voice stopped and I was left on my own again.

"Simulation commencing in thirty seconds," the robotic women spoke.

I bit down from the thought of this whole situation. In no way did I feel comfortable fighting this lucario in these conditions. The feeling of dying from a moment ago was terrifying, it was unlike anything I've ever felt, and this lucario was only a quarter through the difficulty according to Lily.

"Battle starting in three, two, one, begin!" On command the lucario charged straight at me like before with a aura sphere in his hand. I knew if my plan didn't work before I'd have to try something new. Instead of dodging to the side I jumped away from him with a shadow ball charging and launched it straight at the lucario. The fighting type slammed his aura sphere into my attack and the two forces collided, creating an explosion. The lucario emerged from a cloud of smoke with blood dripping from the torn skin on his right arm.

The fake pokemon didn't even hesitate before his next charge. I realized that he was very aggressive in a head on way, he left many opening through his brute attacks. I repeated the same thing as last time and shot a shadow ball at him. This time the lucario dodged to the side and jumped into the air towards me. I stepped back as the lucario slammed his fist down onto the ground, creating a strong wave. Seeing my opening I tackled onto the lucario and sank my teeth between his shoulder and neck. The fighting type didn't even scream but began punching me in the side. My teeth sank in deeper as blood began to pour into my mouth, filling my taste buds with the sticky metallic flavor. Immediately my grip on him released and I ran back from him and began to spit out the red liquid. I felt as if I was going to throw up, but before I could I felt a strong kick knock me to the ground.

I let out a loud cry as the lucario jumped on top of me and placed both of his hands over my neck and began pushing. The pressure from his strong grip strangled me and I could feel the bones in my neck being crushed. I tried to claw at him, but as I did I was just saw a flash of when I fought the riolu Sam. I remembered being pinned to the ground helpless as he strangled the life out of me, I remembered the fear of almost dying.

Feeling a flash of anger in me, I forced myself up just enough to bite down on the lucario's injured hand. As I bit down on him I felt myself snapping more from the thought of that monster having me pinned to the ground helpless again. The lucario tried to pull back from me, but I kept my grip on his arm as my bite tightened. I didn't care about the blood anymore, I just wanted to kill that monster! The lucario slammed his left fist into the side of my head and sent me away from him, but I quickly jumped to my feet with dark matter forming around my paws.

In a mixture of anger and fear, I charged at him with a battle cry. The lucario through a kick at me as I closed in, but i weaved around it and slammed my right paw into the lucario's gut. My paw went inside his stomach and I felt the soft innards of his body tear and the blood spewed out and soaked my paws. The lucario stopped as his body began to tremble, My paw remained in his gut as the lucario stood in place. I just stared at what I did. The lucario fell on his own and my paw withdrew from his stomach as the lucario fell on the ground lifeless. I looked at my bloodied paw, and then the dead pokemon. My stomach began to feel sick, and within seconds I vomited onto the floor.

"I… I killed him."

Lily's voice came back on, "Black, it's just a simulation, none of this is real. Calm down, you're going to have to learn this if you're going to work for Genesis."

Tears began to fall from my eyes and onto the floor, and as I continued to stand in shock I felt an intense pull yank me from the virtual reality. In a flash I was back in the same room with lily. The sylveon let out a scowl as she looked at me.

"Seriously, what in the Hell does Rhys see in you? If you want to work for Genesis you're going to have too get your paws dirty, it's just the business."

"I know… but-"

"But what?" Lily demanded.

"I don't want to hurt anyone else, ever again."

Lily let out a frustrated sigh, "Follow me, you managed to kill your target so I'll allow you one hour to get a grip on yourself. But you're going to have to get back in there and complete the training Rhys wants, their is no way around it."

"I know…" I admitted as I wiped my eyes, "I'll do what I promised, I'm fine with doing this for my friends, I just never said it'd be easy for me."

Chapter End

Author Note: Well, that hiatus was refreshing somewhat. Good timing I guess, life got busy, still is, but I took care of some business and now I'm good to go. Well, I hope everyone enjoys the last arc of book II, I've put a lot of thought into the plot for this. Thanks for reading.

Special thank you to genericgamer207 for editing.