Important notice!: This story utilizes language that certain people may find offensive, and deals with aggressive themes generally directed toward a more mature demographic. For these reasons, I have given this story an R rating. It is highly - and I cannot emphasize that enough! - HIGHLY recommended that you must be at least 18 years of age or older if you wish to read any further. If you are a person who gets queasy easily, then you might want to leave while you still can. Please proceed with prudence - but do not say that I did not warn you if you never view pokemon in the same light as before!
A Corrupted Conscience by FatalCalamityz
Over a stretch of mountains in the distance, the sun began to rise slowly, bringing with its arrival a radiant light that brought life to the vast darkness. The bright orange tint emitting from the celestial orb coincided with the night sky, gradually transforming the ubiquitous black into a shade of blue akin to a sapphire as the darker color absorbed the more warmer one's hue; some dashes of pink stood in between the two more prominent colors, marking where the colors faded unto each other. The sun continued to rise higher and higher, and its brilliant glow kept increasing in volume until several layers of orange were painted over the sky's canvas. Below, the mountains provided a marvelous silhouette, encased in one giant shadow, leaving the outlines of their trees' foliage clearly visible against the orange. Such a pleasant spectacle signified the start of a new day in the cycle of life.
Yet what seemed out of place was the presence of smoke. Long streams of the remnants of burning material rose high up into the sky, tainting its warm hues with gray particles. The smoke was coming from down below on the earth, from the charred remains of a building which had obviously suffered a substantial amount of damage from conflagration. But it wasn't just that one building, for all other buildings that surrounded it had also been burned.
The city of Sunshadow lay in smoldering ruins. What was once a grand city abounding with all sorts of activity now held an ambiance of dread throughout its empty streets. Ineffable destruction lay everywhere. Buildings that used to stretch high over the heads of all pedestrians had crumbled to the ground after their infrastructures suffered an extreme amount of damage, and failed to support them any longer. The remnants of those buildings cluttered the same streets that people would stroll down, visit shops, hang out with friends, and have friendly pokemon battles with fellow trainers on a daily basis. Random pieces of wood, metal, glass, bricks, and other materials were scattered about in a large, disorderly mess. Worn furniture - including chairs, tables, and shelves - was strewn about outside of the buildings they were once inside of. Some buildings still stood, looming ominously over the rubble, but the occasional creak indicated they were on the verge of collapse, soon to fall and join the clutter.
The gloomy state of the world below could not have been a more ironic contrast to the beauty of the overhanging sunrise.
Wrecked vehicles lay on either side of the street, showing as much wear as the buildings, either with all four wheels on the ground or lying on their sides, long abandoned by their owners; some had their doors and hoods removed. A bus had been flipped onto its side, leaving its metallic exterior dented, the cheery mural on the side now scratched, and its windows smashed. Streetlights had been bisected, their top-halves lying separate from their post; those few left standing could no longer illuminate the streets with their broken lights, creating a dark environment even in the midst of the daylight. Over in the local park, all of the trees had been uprooted in a drastically dissonant contrast to the typical tranquil atmosphere parks like these were known for. In one area, before the wrecked facade of the town hall, small shards of black rock covered the ground. Of course, all those pieces used to be connected together to form a larger statue, depicting the confident yet humble pose and optimistic face of a middle-aged man named Nikolas Armstrong, the previous champion of Inari, and the regional record holder as the youngest person to accomplish such an impressive feat, when he was 25 years old; but Nikolas' sculpture had since been dislodged from its stone plaque and destroyed beyond recognition, making it a frivolous task to mentally reconnect everything together even if you had prior knowledge of what the statue looked like before. If a monument that grand was reduced to minuscule fragments, then the violence must have been greater than any battle the champion might have witnessed in battles of the past... combined, perhaps.
But the most nauseating sight were the numerous dead bodies - both human and pokemon alike - jumbled among the debris. They littered the streets, bloodied, mangled, and viciously torn apart. No human bore identical injuries, it seemed, as all corpses showed a wide variety of wounds: deep, gnarly-looking scratches; horrible burns; and limbs bending in unnatural directions, exposing bones in some cases. An odd observation, though: the number of human corpses appeared to drastically outnumber the tally of dead pokemon.
But it was the scratches, the sets of four parallel red lines on their skin, that said it all. These wounds were definitely not the result of getting caught in some natural disaster like an earthquake or tsunami. No, cuts like these could have only been dealt by some savage animal. Some pokemon had attacked these humans. But how? It was an inconceivable thought to fathom that a single pokemon could bring so much destruction to a city as large as Sunshadow. It should be impossible for any single species of pokemon, no matter how powerful they were, was capable of committing such a grand massacre alone. Perhaps it was the result of an angry legendary pokemon's rampage? No, that could not be it, two factors made that clear: one, knowing legendary pokemon as altruistic entities, they would not have killed so many of the smaller creatures they loved, let alone put them in such a dangerous predicament in the first place; and two, to the public's knowledge, the Inari region did not host any original legendary pokemon of their own.
But... what if this was not a solo endeavor? That had to be it. This must have been a cooperative effort - an attack executed by a cohesive unit of more than one pokemon. Whoever they were, they had absolutely decimated the population of Sunshadow, transforming the big, bustling city into an empty ghost town devoid of life.
Suddenly, a low sound dared to pierce the melancholy silence. It sounded like a doleful moan, as if someone was in a tremendous amount of agony, and it appeared to have originated from a street lined with ruined brick apartments - specifically, from in between two stone staircases that led into separate domiciles, both of which had clearly seen better days. Between the staircases, a large cluster of both human and pokemon corpses covered the ground, buried underneath a pile of wood and stone. They lay completely still, dismembered and disemboweled in a disturbing display of death. Scattered around their limp bodies were several pokeballs, dirtied with dirt and blood. They must have been pokemon trainers, and these must have been their loyal pokemon, who may or may not have been killed now, their lifeless bodies possibly lying beside their owner's. It looked like everyone present was deceased, so what had made the mysterious noise? Certainly one of them was not about to reanimate through mystical means, right?
The moan repeated itself a second time; however, this time, there was movement among the bodies. The body of a severely injured umbreon started to stir, its legs moving and its ear slightly twitching. Its chest visibly raised with a slow inhale through its nose, then dropped with a gentle exhale through its mouth. A survivor! The umbreon was alive! Unconscious, but alive! Thank Arceus!
The umbreon lay in a dried puddle of blood - presumably her own. Several cuts donned her body, some light while others cut deeper into her flesh. The whole left side of her face had suffered a horrible burn mark. All of the fur there had been eradicated by hot flames, revealing the charred flesh underneath; what sparse fur remained was left in an unkempt state. Some of the skin around the top left corner of her lips had been removed, exposing her bloodstained molars, regardless of whether or not her mouth was closed. But perhaps most eerily of all, her left eyeball had been brutally severed, leaving an empty black hole on the side of her face where a ruby-red eye should be. It was an unattractive sight, for sure. A substantial amount of blood covered the umbreon's body, a majority of the bodily fluid around her muzzle and forelegs; her naturally black fur could not be seen underneath the abundance of crimson. Her body was also attenuated to an alarming degree. Her bones - each individual rib, both of her scapulae, and even some of her vertebrae - visibly protruded against her thin skin, and her legs were as thin as twigs. She looked as dead as the other pokemon and humans around her, yet her hoarse breathing proved otherwise, that life still flowed through her veins, if but barely.
At last, the umbreon's senses finally returned to her, and she opened her sole remaining eye; however, she found herself forcibly closing it shut with a wince from a bad headache. Terrible waves of pain throbbed about inside her cranium, causing her great discomfort. It felt like her head was just seconds short of exploding into a grisly mess from an extreme amount of pressure being applied. It hurt a lot, and it was difficult to think; but she did her best to ignore the pain, like her trainer had taught her years ago. She reopened her eye and slowly raised her head, an action that worsened her headache, but she valiantly fought through the pain. She rolled herself onto her belly, which proved to be a painful endeavor, for she complained of several aching sensations across her sore body as she moved her legs. Even a centimeter of movement sent surges of burning pain throughout her body.
Never had she felt pain as excruciatingly unbearable as this, not even during the most violent pokemon battle she had ever participated in, against the toughest foe she ever fought; given that her opponent came dangerously close to killing her that match, that said something about her current condition. She felt lucky to be alive right now, but she needed to focus.
However, that proved quite difficult. Because she had just come out of an unconscious slumber, her eyes had yet to fully adapt to the light of the bright sky, which made it difficult to discern the world around her. She was surprised to see that she was not in a small, cramped metal box like she was used to, but rather on the streets of a large city. She could identify plenty of familiar scents, but was confused that they were present at all, given that she was out in the daylight instead of a battleground. Additionally, she realized with alarm that the complete left half of her vision was shrouded in darkness, and she hadn't any idea why that was until, with a shudder, she raised a paw to her face and felt the rough texture of burnt flesh.
But the biggest shock came upon her comprehension of the many dead bodies that surrounded her. She feverishly looked around her, from one frozen face to another, all unmoving. Her mind filled with fear, an emotion the umbreon was confident she had long abandoned. The sight truly frightened her - not because it was dead bodies, but because it was the dead bodies of humans.
Normally, the umbreon would not be so easily perturbed; she was accustomed to gruesome sights like these. Witnessing death was normal for her. Everyday, she saw many an unfortunate pokemon's final moments through spectating tough battles, whether it be at the training base or in an official pokemon battle; sometimes, when she herself participated in those battles, she would be directly responsible for inflicting the fatal injuries that would result in their deaths. For as long as she could remember, her life revolved around watching pokemon who failed to adapt to their current environment die. But this was different - this was a human. A human! The creatures she had idolized her whole life, whom she viewed as an invulnerable species immune to defeat... actually dead. Murdered.
'No,' the umbreon repeated in her head. 'They can't be dead! They can't be! It's not possible! They're... humans, for fuck's sake!' She gave an anxious glance toward a nearby corpse, one of an elderly man, with the gray hair and the liver spots to show it. His fatal injury had been a large gash to his abdomen, staining the white shirt he wore with red blood. His eyes were closed, his skin was pale, and it didn't look like he was breathing; but he couldn't possibly be dead, right? Mutilated beyond belief, yes; unconscious, maybe; but actually dead? Not possible - she refused to believe that a human could be killed. This required further inspection.
With prudence, the umbreon positioned her paws under her and gingerly sat up. Despite her emaciation, her bony legs displayed impressive durability, seemingly betraying how weak her body looked. She slowly limped over to the old man, and she attempted to communicate with him. "Hey, come on!" she said, hopeful for a response; unfortunately, she got none. Upset but not undeterred, she tried a second time, asking, "Hey! Can you hear me?" But once again, the man gave no indication that he heard her. All attempts at communication went ignored.
Feeling fairly frustrated now, the umbreon switched to a more aggressive approach. "Gah, fuck! Get up!" she yelled, hoping that, by raising her voice, the human would hear her. Still nothing, though. Now she was getting desperate. She raised a paw and lightly tapped the man's shoulder while repeatedly shouting, "Hey!" but still nothing happened. 'Great, now what?!' There had to be some reason why he wasn't responding... aside from death, but she didn't want to think about that.
Maybe he was just asleep? An odd thought, but she knew that some humans were notorious for being heavy sleepers, sometimes succumbing to a serene slumber in the most inappropriate of places. The umbreon smirked as an idea devised in her head. 'Well, nothing like a li'l strike to wake him up!' A good kick to the gut always snapped someone awake - she could attest to the brilliance of that strategy, having been on the receiving end of it herself. She crouched down, ready to sprint, then quickly lunged forward; then, she focused on an area on the man's body, and she delivered the hardest headbutt she could muster to the man's right shoulder. However, that, too, proved about as fruitless as all of her previous attempts. The umbreon stared in disbelief, her heart sinking to the deepest depths of her stomach. If a hard blow to the chest couldn't wake this man up, then it was useless to deny it anymore: he was absolutely, positively, undoubtedly dead.
A human was dead. That painful truth caused her initial panic to return, and she soon found herself unable to think straight. She had never seen anything like this before, and hadn't the faintest idea of what she should do. Her lithe body started trembling out of terror. Her breathing rate increased until she was hyperventilating. Finally, her horror culminated in a loud cry. Here she was, all alone, with no idea of what was going on. Without her trainer to guide her, she felt miserable, like her life had lost all sense of meaning. What if he were here? What would Levi do?
Levi Knight was her trainer, the man she had grown to depend upon, and, in her opinion, the best trainer in the world. If someone as strong as Levi were here, how would he handle this? What would he instruct her to do? Knowing him, he would probably say something like:
"Goddammit, umbreon! Come on! Get up! I can tell you've got a lot more left in you, so don't you dare even think about giving up just yet! Focus, you stupid animal!"
'H-He's right,' the umbreon reasoned, 'I've got to fucking focus. Panicking will get me nowhere. I just need to calm down.' She inhaled a big breath of air, held it for a few seconds as she held her eye shut, then released it. She repeated the motion several times, feeling her anxiety diminish with each exhalation. She felt a bit better now.
The sudden thought of her trainer suddenly made her realize: Levi was nowhere in sight. "Levi?" she called. No response. She failed to identify his scent. Suddenly, her anxiety returned, though her recovery was quicker than the first time. She scanned the heap of dead bodies that surrounded her; luckily, none of them were Levi, so she then questioned herself why she had done something so meaningless. "Come on, you dumbass!" the umbreon said to herself, "Levi wouldn't die that easily! He has to be here somewhere! He has to be! He's Levi, the best trainer in the whole fuckin' world, for fuck's sake!" There was a noticeable lisp to her speech, undoubtedly affected by her missing lip - "S's" became "Th's" and "Sh's," "R's" became "W's," "Ooh's" became "Aah's," and "Eee's" became "Uh's." Her barely legible voice was almost impossible to understand.
But then, if her trainer wasn't among the deceased here, where was he? Here she was, all by herself, and no handsome middle-aged man with cool blonde hair and impeccable fashion sense in sight. He hadn't abandoned her, had he? The thought was brief, but was gone just as quickly. She was owned by that man ever since she was an eevee, and she knew that, despite his aggressive dogma, Levi, unlike other trainers she knew, genuinely cared about each and every pokemon he owned, doing everything he could to push them and help them reach their full potential. Her evolution served as proof of the strong bond Levi established between him and her. Someone as compassionate as that would not even think about leaving one of his own pokemon behind!
The umbreon kept thinking about any other possible scenario regarding her trainer's whereabouts. 'Maybe... Maybe... Wait, what if he's hurt? Oh, God, is he okay?!' Maybe he was dying this very moment, as she lay here doing nothing! "No!" the umbreon said aloud, in terror, following by a louder, "NO!" She refused to acknowledge a negative answer until she found him herself! With that, she gave a defiant cry, "I have to find him! He needs my help!" With newfound hope in her heart, she gave a triumphant shout. "D-Don't worry, Levi! Your favorite pokemon is coming t-to the rescue!"
As she declaimed her promise, she happened to glance down at her paws, noticing the absurd amount of blood that covered her forelegs. Yet oddly, a horrendous sight that would typically elicit an emotional response from any normal person did not seem to bother the umbreon in the slightest, with her showing the same apathetic reaction she had with the hoard of corpses. She stared down at her bloody paws not with incredulous horror but with what appeared to be some sort of morbid fascination in her gaze. The sight of blood captivated her. There was a lot of blood. So much blood. Deep within her, she felt a familiar urge. She couldn't resist; she needed to do this. She raised a paw up to her mouth, and gave her bloodstained paw a good lick, consuming a tiny amount of blood.
One lick was all it took.
Suddenly, a tidal wave of strong emotions overwhelmed her. The flavor of what she had just tasted - it was amazing, like it always had. She returned a starstruck gaze down to her paws, and took another lick... then another... and another. Her tongue seemingly dominated control over all other movements. She couldn't stop licking the blood off of her paws. Her rationality had disappeared upon ingesting the bodily fluid, and before she knew it, she couldn't control herself any longer; it just tasted too good! That sweet flavor she had grown obsessed with over the years!
As she continued to rigorously lick the blood, she sighed dreamily in between licks, and her rings began to flash erratically like a malfunctioning strobe light, emitting inconsistent yellow lighting about the area. A wide grin, one with a manic quality to it, spread across her face, and her whole body started to twitch from frenetic excitement. A few silent chuckles escaped her mouth, which gradually crescendoed into maniacal laughter, until it finally culminated in a boisterous outburst that echoed throughout the empty streets. She had lost herself to a blood-sucking frenzy, determined to clean herself of the delicious substance, and enjoying every tasty morsel of it.
Then she realized what she was doing, momentarily ceasing all bizarre behavior. She was in a substantial amount of pain, terribly confused, lost and alone... and she was enchanted into another euphoric episode? Now, of all times? Seriously?! And had she not just said she had to focus on finding her trainer?! "Oh, fuck!" she realized, muttering her epiphany out loud, "Gah, I need to pull my shit together!" She quickly jerked her head away from her paws and concentrated on calming down, shaking her head and relaxing her breathing. She could clean her fur at a later time - she looked forward to that.
The umbreon carefully stepped around all the decaying bodies of the deceased and trudged onward beyond the brick buildings as she moved to the worn sidewalk. Every step she took felt uncomfortable, sending sharp waves of pain up her legs as they made contact with the ground. She did her best to ignore the pain, her awkward gait being the only indicator that it affected her. Yet her demeanor remained that of a brave fighter, like Levi had raised her to be since the day he captured her.
She ventured out onto the street, and she gazed up at the destroyed buildings in awe. She had never seen a real building before. While Levi had traveled across Inari with her and a select few other pokemon, journeying to various different cities, from Stonedust to Steelspire, she never actually knew what any of them looked like - at least, what lay above ground. However, while cognizant of that information, she figured a human city would look a lot more vibrant than this. It was a silly thought to imagine that humans could survive and establish a community in such a devastated area like the ruins she was walking about in. Speaking of those humans, where were they? It was suspiciously quiet for a city. She quickly found her answer when she discovered the several dead bodies that littered the streets and road. She was surrounded by even more corpses of the species she held to a near-divine standard. Even humans were capable of being killed, it seemed, and the discovery left the umbreon unsettled that her beliefs were being unfairly challenged like this. Eventually, she could not hold her frustration any longer, and she threw her head back and screamed in despair.
Surely this must be some dream? Some sick, twisted, hellish nightmare? Perhaps she was exploring a false reality her brain constructed on its own? Her ears perked up at the thought. Maybe she was still asleep in her cage after all! A pleasant thought it was, waking up to discover that this gloomy depiction of her favorite city in all of Inari was just a super-realistic fabrication; but she needed to test it. There was only one way to prove that.
Drawing her claws, she raised her left paw up to her right shoulder, mentally preparing herself for the action she was about to do. She then lightly dragged their sharp points against her thin skin to create a small cut. The self-inflicted wound did hurt, even if the umbreon's stoic expression said implied otherwise. It also oozed blood, the crimson bodily fluid slowly dripping down her chest, only adding to her creepy appearance. But the fact that it bled at all while nothing changed about her environment proved something: this could not possibly be fantasy. This was real life. But, if this was not a dream, then what had happened to Sunshadow? These ruined buildings literally existed and these humans were literally dead - something had to have happened to them. It overall looked like a large-scale attack had struck Sunshadow.
Then, in a flash, it all came back.
A series of hazy images flashed through her head, one after the other. It was difficult to discern exactly what was happening in these scenes due to the blurry environment, but the sounds she was hearing made it obvious that it was not pleasant. Pokemon were everywhere, using various attacks of all types to damage buildings and kill any unfortunate humans caught in their paths. Fire-types set large buildings ablaze, psychic-types threw debris in all directions, and ground-types dug into the earth to create a rugged terrain. Amidst the array of different attacks, loud screams of terror filled the air as people and pokemon started dropping. True to her initial theory, a large-scale attack had struck Sunshadow, one executed by a large group of pokemon. Sunshadow had fallen into unprecedented levels of chaos.
But one particularly traumatic memory played more slowly. In spite of the dim illumination and the lack of few objects having distinct outlines, the summary of the scene was obvious. She remembered feeling immobilized by some heavy weight pinning her to the ground, left unable to do anything but violently threaten her assailant; forcibly looking forward at the ivysaur in front of her, who held the body of a man in its vines, which were wrapped tightly around the man's neck, preventing the flow of oxygen to his brain and slowly asphyxiating him; her profane tirade toward the two wild pokemon, begging the ivysaur to release the man and spare his life, which sadly went ignored; the man's struggle against the ivysaur's painful grasp, his legs swinging and attempting to kick - and hopefully distract - the ivysaur, until his movements became weaker; her hysterical cry upon seeing the man hit the pavement limp, dead; the harsh promise of vengeance she swore unto the ivysaur, who didn't seem to care about what it had done, appearing to take some sadistic pleasure in the act of murder it had just committed; and lastly, the ivysaur's mouth moving, implying it was speaking to her, but she heard no dialogue coming from it, leaving her ignorant to the ivysaur's intent. Her flashback abruptly stopped there as an omnipresent darkness clouded her vision, but not before a sole word from her past self could be heard echoing throughout her subconscious.
"LEEEVIIIII!"
"Levi... Levi!" The umbreon stood still, realizing that she was silently mumbling the name of her trainer aloud. "I-It's not p-possible..." she stammered, bewildered out of her mind as she struggled to comprehend the reality of what she had seen. "H-H-He's...? No! No, no, no, no! No! NO! NO!" Her rings began flashing erratically again to reflect her emotional instability. "I... I refuse t-to believe this bullshit! It's bullshit! All of it is stupid, good-for-nothing bullshit!" She sobbed in between fits of weird giggling, seemingly stuck in an ambivalent state of creepy cheerfulness and intense anxiety. Despite how real it felt, she dared to doubt the veracity of her flashback. "He can't be dead! He's Levi! Levi! Levi has to be alive!"
As if her own brain was mocking her obstinacy, the events replayed in her mind, like she was being forced to watch a horrific film she didn't want to view a second time. She cringed, and her ear twitched twice. Viewing the visionary ordeal another time was just as, if not, more painful than the first time. Dispirited, the umbreon's head drooped, all the while twitching from the distress. Then it played again... and again... and again. Each subsequent replay slowly ate at her crumbling psyche until, finally, she had had enough. Unleashing a loud cry toward the sky above.
"I can't believe he's- N-No! He's not dead!" she repeated. "He's not-" She stopped herself, still fighting against the horrible truth. What she just saw was no truth; it had to be a lie, a faux image her mind conceived from her trauma. Levi was still alive, she was sure of that. He had to be around, somewhere; she just had to find him. Her hope rejuvenated, she erupted into another fit of giggling. "I'm coming for you, Levi! I'm coming!" she loudly declaimed, her raspy voice reverberating down the dark, empty street. "I will find you, Levi!"
Until she saw a corpse of her trainer, she stuck to her belief that Levi lived.
- oOo -
She had strolled down many ruined sidewalks, wandered around the rubble of many destroyed buildings, and had searched underneath every car she saw - but Levi's scent was nowhere to be found. The umbreon knew exactly what Levi smelled like, that sweet aroma that brought forth strong emotions within her whenever he came close. It had been roughly an hour since her search had started, but she wasn't giving up on him, no way. Levi was her trainer. The thought of abandoning him was inconceivable, obscene even. When she finally found him, it would be a joyful reunion. Happiness would return to her, and she would refuse to stop nuzzling up against his leg as his fingers gently caressed through her fur. And if he was angry at her for separating from him - which she was certain he was - then she would let him punish her until he felt she had paid her dues for her absence. She already accepted her punishment.
A sudden grumbling sound snapped her out of her daydream - she was hungry. Very hungry. So hungry it hurt. Normally, the sound would not be so unpleasant to hear, as her digestive system had adapted to forgoing food for extensive periods of time; but she had to admit that, even by her standards, she needed to eat something. But was it worth diverting attention away from Levi to satiate her hunger, to not wait for him to permit her to eat?
"O-Oh, my gosh! H-Hey, dude!"
Then, a voice distracted her from her extreme hunger. The voice came from somewhere behind her; it had a cheery tone to it, which she found annoying. It also sounded relieved... to see her? And why did he call her "dude," the same insult Levi used toward stupid people?
She shifted her body around to see a pikachu running toward her. Just like herself, the pikachu bore some damage from the large-scale attack the army of wild pokemon in the form of various scars on its abdomen, and its movements were hindered by a slight limp from the pikachu's right hind leg. With a snarl, the umbreon readied herself into a battle stance, anticipating a fight; however, the pikachu's friendly voice and juvenile innocence did not indicate that it wanted to attack her. But she kept her guard up, anyway. No pokemon had ever approached her to talk.
"A-Are you a... another survivor?" the pikachu asked the umbreon. He was relieved to see that he was not the only one who had survived the travesty. As the pikachu crept closer, he could discern just how mangled and emaciated this umbreon's body was. He cringed at the sight of her empty eye socket. Her grotesque appearance made him feel nauseous, but he refrained from vomiting out of fear of upsetting her. She looked dangerous, after all, like she could slice him into tiny chunks at a moment's glance. 'Remember, appearances can be deceiving,' he remembered. It was a lesson he had learned from his trainer. Even though this pokemon looked like she wanted to kill him, he didn't assume anything of her yet. But he kept his guard up, anyway.
The umbreon nodded in response to the pikachu's question, still unsure how to behave in conversation. Her response did seem to make the pikachu's mood more cheery, she noticed, much to her chagrin. But in the midst of her analysis of the mouse pokemon, her stomach grumbled again like a fierce animal, causing her to wince. The sound reminded her that if she didn't seek any kind of nourishment soon, she might not see the end of the day, or see Levi again.
The pikachu heard the sound, and lowered his voice while he adopted a more sympathetic tone. "Ooh, you're hungry aren't you? Uh, hey, I know a place where we can, um, get some... f-food for you, i-if you want." The pikachu's stammering made it obvious that he was nervous. How could he not? This umbreon looked like a dead corpse brought back to life.
The umbreon's only response to the pikachu's proposal was to stare back without saying a word. Her strange behavior only made him more uncomfortable. "Uh... you okay, dude?"
The umbreon's aggressive gaze never shifted away from the pikachu. Another alarmingly long and loud grumble sounded from her stomach, yet she did not appear to notice. Instead, she slowly moved her twig-like legs forward, one prudent pawstep at a time. The pikachu was frightened. Had his words even reached her ears? Instinctively, he stepped back out of fear, but the umbreon kept advancing at a slow pace. With every step the umbreon took forward, the pikachu took two back.
She was smiling now. Why was she smiling? "H-hey, d-d-dude!" he protested, "You're, um, kinda, uh, f-freaking me out now!" He was scared, but should he flee? He debated it. But this was the first pokemon he encountered after the incident since he had came to, one in seriously critical condition, and presumably separated from her trainer, as he was. Even if she looked like a serial killer from a horror movie, she was just painfully hungry, right? Starvation was an unexpectedly powerful thing, capable of driving some people to do questionable actions that defy their morals, all to satisfy their empty stomachs. So all he needed to do was find some food for her to hopefully assuage her, and she would be capable of logical thought again, right?
But the umbreon was not in any rational state to listen. She couldn't take it any longer. Her hunger pangs had to be cleared, and here a walking meal was right in front of her. Although much more delectable species of pokemon existed, she didn't complain, as she didn't care whether her meat came from a tauros or a magikarp. And of course, sinking her teeth into him and drinking his blood was a most tantalizing thought.
'Well, what are you waiting for, you stupid animal?! Attack it!'
The umbreon gasped at the sudden voice. That dogmatic tone sounded familiar... Levi?! But wasn't he dead? 'Use Dark Pulse! Disorient him!' he shouted, his voice echoing in the background. The umbreon was confused. She could hear Levi's disembodied voice, but failed to identify Levi's scent about the area. Regardless, she felt some subconscious will to obey Levi's order. He was her trainer, and she was his pokemon; it was her responsibility to follow her trainer's every command. 'Come on, umbreon! Attack!'
"Y-Yes, Levi..." she weakly said.
"Huh? Whoa!" Before the pikachu could ask the umbreon who Levi was, he was bombarded by a series of dark-purple rings of energy, and sent flying backwards. Luckily, none collided with him, a fault most likely caused by the umbreon's impaired vision affecting her focus. The pikachu landed safely on his feet, looking up just in time to see the umbreon unleash a battle cry as she sprinted toward him. He jumped out of the way onto a nearby table, avoiding the umbreon's clutches. The umbreon turned to face the pikachu with a look of total animus in her sole remaining eye. If looks could kill, he'd drop dead right then and there.
Her failed attack did not appear to disturb her; rather, she started giggling hysterically as her smirk reformed. "What next, Levi? What next?"
'Levi?' Whom was she referring to? The only two scents of alive creatures about the area were those of himself and her - it was just the two of them, yet her odd behavior seemed to imply a third party was present, one that the pikachu was apparently ignorant to. 'Her hunger must be really getting to her! She needs help!'
So the pikachu quickly devised a new plan in his head: subdue the umbreon with electric attacks, but not enough to be fatal - just enough to make her faint. Then, he would scavenge the nearby poke marts for whatever food and healing items remained intact, and bring them to her, presented on a piece of cloth in front of her; that way, when she came to, the supplies would be the first thing she would see, and she would hopefully realize that he was an ally, not her next meal.
Finding some inner drive to accomplish the new idea, the pikachu zapped a thunderbolt in the umbreon's direction, but the umbreon easily evaded the attack, displaying great agility and strength that defied her alarmingly attenuated frame. His eyes shot open wide in awe. 'She looks so weak, yet she's so agile! How is that possible?!'
The umbreon kept chuckling to herself. "Is that seriously the best you got?! Ha! You're weak!"
'Good, good! Now pounce him, umbreon!'
"Yes, Levi!" she shouted with more enthusiasm than the first time. And that she did. She lunged at the pikachu, tantalized by the thought of sinking her teeth into his flesh. The pikachu jumped off the table in an attempt to avoid the attack and flee; but he never got the chance to, for he felt his body be forcefully pulled back by the umbreon, who had sunk her teeth into his lightning bolt-shaped tail. In the midst of his terror, he realized that this might be his only chance to dominate his assailant. Feeling his courage return, he produced several bright bolts of electricity through his tail, illuminating the area. This time, he had scored a hit. As soon as electricity touched skin, the umbreon's body lit up and jerked violently... yet she never let go of his tail. She didn't even wail out in pain. Instead, she slammed him against the street, his body colliding harshly with the concrete, eliciting a big scream. Regarding his attempted attack, the umbreon cracked a joke about the ordeal while giggling. "That tickled!"
"Tickled?" came the pikachu's incredulous reply. "T-Tickled?!" She compared electrocution to tickling?! "Are you-?! Y-Y-You're out of your m-mi-! Gah!"
A heavy weight pressed against his chest. The umbreon was holding the pikachu in place with her paw, her disgusting face inches away from his own, donning the most maniacal grin he had ever seen in his life. With a hateful glare, the umbreon said "Does it look like I give a shit, shithead?" clearly showing that she did not care if this moron thought of her as crazy.
Her paw was touching him, whereupon the pikachu realized he had another chance to attack her, for she might tolerate the pain, but she may still release him as she flinched. So he tried one more time to hurt her, producing more bolts of electricity that struck her sides, leaving dark marks on her skin showing where the electricity had fried it. She flinched... but she also didn't move.
"Fool!" she shouted. "Haha! You should've already known... from the first time... that your puny little attacks... don't do shit to me!"
It was no use thinking any more. He was exhausted, while she looked like she could continue fighting; his injuries were distracting his concentration, whereas she mostly shrugged off any pain she received. The pikachu could only lie there, burdened by hopelessness, as the umbreon laughed like a lunatic above him, knowing that she had achieved victory.
'Yes! You've got this, umbreon!'
"To think that you ended up... so fucking pathetic... Your trainer must not have hurt you enough, loser. He must've been... so bad!"
The pikachu's eyes faltered in frustration. Alright, now she crossed the line. She dared to delve into the one subject the pikachu was sensitive about, and she had to be arrogant about it. "Hey! Nobody insults my trainer, you jerk!" he cried in a fit of fury.
'Don't let his pathetic excuse for trash talk get to you, umbreon! Finish him with Psychic!'
"Yes, Levi..." the umbreon said as her eye suddenly gained a blue tint. A light-blue aura enveloped the pikachu's body, finding that he was unable to move on his own. Her missing eye made it more unnecessarily difficult to focus. He felt his body lift itself off the ground and high into the air.
"H-Hey, put me down!" the pikachu demanded.
"Hmm... okaaay..." said the umbreon as she fulfilled the pikachu's demand by hurling his body toward the ground at an alarming speed. The pikachu coughed from the impact, and he closed his eyes from the intense pain, wishing that the torture would cease.
'Tear him apart, umbreon!'
"Yes, Levi!" She furiously scratched her claws across the pikachu's abdomen, causing her victim to yell a sharp cry, much to her morbid delight. Blood seeped from his many open wounds, some of which coated the umbreon's fur, but she was too busy laughing madly to notice. Suddenly, the world around her disappeared: she was no longer on the streets of an abandoned city, but situated within the forcefield of a subterranean fighting arena; concrete became dirt, and the buildings became walls ten feet high. And this pikachu was just another weak opponent, one whose shot at winning she stole from mere minutes ago, and whose suffering she took a morbid pleasure in. She could hear the crescendo of a cheering crowd. And Levi was standing behind her on a raised platform, guiding her with the fierce, passionate voice she loved.
As her carnage carried on, the pikachu's cries became more garbled as his body suffered more damage, and he started choking from blood filling his esophagus. His twitching body lay dying. That smile... that wide, crazed smile... this monster was enjoying giving him a slow and painful death, wasn't she? And to think he thought he could make a demented creature like her trust him. What was he thinking?
"D-Dude! Dude, pl-plea-please!" the pikachu managed through gasps for breath.
"Aww, he's begging for his life! Isn't that cute, Levi?" The umbreon was absolutely exhausted. Her breaths came quick and coarse, and sounded quite painful; she was practically hyperventilating from the intense fatigue. Her frail frame was trembling, threatening to collapse underneath her. And suddenly, she starting seeing double of everything, hindering her focus by creating the illusion of there being two pikachus, one a more blurry apparition than the other. Every fiber of her being screamed at her to stop, begging to rest. Her extreme hunger didn't make her condition any better. But she knew she couldn't stop, not with Levi's wary eye on her. She had to keep fighting. If she fainted now, that would mean a loss, and losing had to be the most ignominious act of treachery imaginable, and would surely disappoint Levi. The umbreon had seen Levi get upset with losers, and knew that Levi had... aggressive methods of dealing with them to inspire them never to lose again.
'Just ignore it! Pain is temporary, quitting is forever! You're not a loser, are you?! Are you a loser?!'
"N-No..."
'I repeat: are you a loser?'
"No! No!"
If the pikachu wasn't confused out of his mind before, he was now. Why was the umbreon muttering "No!" over and over again? And her gaze had diverted itself away from him, so whom was she screaming at? Nothing about this umbreon made any sense!
"No, no, no! No, no, I'm not! NO! NOOOOO! I'M NOOOT!"
The umbreon screamed, fighting her fatigue the best she could - which wasn't easy. She wrapped her jaws around the pikachu's throat and bit down hard, causing the pikachu to cry out in pain. She did not wince at the pikachu's sharp shout, instead finding great pleasure in inflicting as much pain as possible unto the pikachu. Blood seeped into the umbreon's mouth from the pikachu's wound, and the umbreon enjoyed the sweet taste of every drop. The pikachu's cry became more garbled as he started choking from the umbreon tugging at the chunk of his flesh she was holding, until she, after struggling for a good minute, tore the pikachu's throat out. It slipped into the umbreon's mangled mouth, where she chewed his organs into smaller and smaller chunks, until finally swallowing them. The pikachu tried to make any kind of noise, but found that he couldn't with the loss of his larynx; the only sounds the electric mouse was capable of making were weak gasps for air from what were his final breaths. His moribund body gave a few brief jerks of movement, until his body stood still and his eyes closed, never to open again.
A huge feeling of accomplishment overcame the umbreon, for she had conquered her fatigue once again, all thanks to Levi. She erupted into a fit of boisterous laughter at the top of her lungs to celebrate another victory for Levi - her as well, but mostly Levi, as it was his authority that won, after all. Her hysteria was interrupted by another loud rumble from her empty stomach, the condition of which was probably not improved by the amount of energy she had just exerted. "Levi, may I?"
'Yes, you may. You've earned it.'
"Yes, Levi!" After that, she feasted upon the loser's body. A sadistic smorgasbord had opened, and the umbreon was its first hungry customer. Legs, arms, torso, head - she cleaned the pikachu clean of all the meat from its bones.
'Good job, umbreon. Good job.'
"Ahahahahahahahahahaha! Thank you, Levi!"
She looked behind her, expecting to see the smiling face of the man she esteemed above all humans, but was confused to see that he was not there. Wherever she looked, he was not to be seen. Not only that, reality had returned, and she was back on the street of Sunshadow. Where had Levi gone? She had heard his voice - he had to be around somewhere. "Levi?" she called out like she had before at least a hundred times; but just like every instance before, there was no answer to be heard. "LEEVII?!" she tried again, raising her voice, but still garnering no response. What had happened? Perhaps she had been imagining all of his commands? She glanced at the ground, dispirited, before breaking into a fit of frenetic giggling. "I've got to find him," the umbreon declared in between chuckles, "Being separated from Levi is driving me insane!" She turned away from what was left of the pikachu. Her hunger now partially relieved, she could now focus on returning to her search. She walked away, desperately reiterating the name of her trainer every now and then.
She needed to find Levi. She hated being away from Levi. She felt completely useless without Levi. Levi was the man who gave her sorry existence purpose when he saw potential in her like no other trainer had, and she gave Levi her utmost loyalty in return, which he gladly reciprocated; without Levi, her life would be meaningless, her zeal for battle would be gone. But with Levi guiding her with his mellifluous voice, she felt invincible, like she could overcome any obstacle life threw at her.
Levi was her trainer, and as long as she was Levi's pokemon, she would refuse to acknowledge Levi's death until she saw Levi's dead body herself.