?

Pacing. Pacing.

Confusing thoughts every now and then were normal, though not common for me, so when they occured, handling them brought uneasy feelings. I had just finished cleaning my office space, clearing out all of the unnecessary documents that nobody else was to see. Otherwise, the situation would get complicated rather quickly. They weren't organized, but that's a task I would deal with another time, not when I had too many other worries present. I wasn't particularly concerned with me being found out, even if I was, I could safely retreat to an unknown location, and just start again. I did it once, who's to say it's not replicable?

A lack of resources was becoming evident, the medical ward was using them up at a quick and consistent rate. That may have been their job, but I wouldn't mind them slowing down just a little. I could always send others to get more, but the only places that hold these elements are far off, and would require time, a lot more time than I was willing to waste. It's not like I absolutely couldn't take it slow, but I wasn't fond of that approach. If I could help it, I would like to keep planning out more jobs to complete to further my control.

I shivered, thinking of the possibility that another group would rise up, out of nowhere, because I ended up missing a growing power. I knew it wasn't likely, but the chance was still there, someplace, a secretly growing threat. I had everyone here under command though, I could prevent whoever may oppose with relative ease, so long as I don't screw anything up, and mess with my course of action. Even if I do end up messing up, I can always start again, from scratch, and make it happen just like before.

As proud as I was about my achievements, I was equally stumped in other areas. Such as, how to increase our range without acting too sketchy. My second in command was an issue for me just as much as he contributed to everything. Skeptical pokemon were always a concern, and he certainly is one of them, but he hasn't nabbed onto the whole story yet. He's discovered bits and pieces, nothing more, he can't even make sense of any of them. I wouldn't let him find out about anything else, not now, and not for future reference. I couldn't afford any risks, not with such a fragile thing to hide. One hint, and it all goes under.

Sometimes I wonder, how I managed to build everything I have, and yet, not let a single one here latch onto what I may be doing. Not that I was complaining about my own capabilities to be shady, it just surprised me, how I haven't needed to start over yet. The more I have control the better, so if I can stay like this for the rest of my life, I'll be content. I can keep on having my trades and desires, keep having my tasks completed without me stepping in to accomplish them first-hand, and that's all I need. I get to stay in control of everything, and that's the most important aspect of it all.

Everyone needs a mediator, everyone.

Luna

The echoing steps in the hallways began to annoy me. I couldn't think of any drawbacks to practically never leaving your soundproof personal room, it took ten minutes of being out to find one. I needed to check up on a few things though, the security was worth the general annoyance.

The mawile we captured a while back and now control showed no signs of breaking out of the state I put him under, that was a plus. That technique didn't always work, I was excited to see it actually stick for once, he must have truly given up once he was taken in by us, his mind has given no attempt at resistance whatsoever.

The ability to control another's mind, body, and soul. What a special and powerful tactic it is, for many, many situations. Sneaking into someone else's psyche is supposed to be exclusive to very talented psychics, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for those of different types. Dark types, being somewhat related to psychics in the first place, have an easy time mastering a technique similar to theirs, as long as you don't mind the idea of it. The victim of the attack can resist, and contrary to what most think, it's relatively easy to break out of. You merely need to will yourself into it, and not give up on your own life. Surrendering yourself to it, well, the chances of you breaking out aren't exactly in your favor, unless I'm the one to prompt it. It may not work on some of the more threatening opponents in this war, but it sure is useful for buffing up the riff raff and the easily manipulated.

As time passes, the grip I have over someone tightens, and tightens. It becomes more difficult to break with every passing moment if you fail to resist immediately. Eventually, it becomes possible for me to shatter whatever is left of their damaged psyche, and voila, I have a permanent slave to do my bidding. Not many Void members live long enough for that, as a lack of conscious actions also leads to a lack of good judgement, which further leads to putting themselves in plenty of life or death situations. I would be distraught over losing a strong slave, but all of them could be replaced in one way or another. There's only a select few who can't, and they have little to no chance of doing so.

An interesting thing about these mindless slaves: It seems as if, once I finally break their psyche, and they're officially dead on the inside, they regain some of their common sense, and act smarter, without direct orders. You would think the opposite is true, but that's not quite the case. No matter how much I try to reason with myself on how exactly this happens, I couldn't come up with a solid answer. Perhaps, rather than breaking them, I'm freeing their minds, but at the same time, retaining the ability to give commands they're unable to refuse. The way the world works is unknown, nor do I care about figuring anything out, though it certainly is an interesting study to think about.

My paws continued to move across the interior of the Void, causing light taps with every step, annoying me. I was easily annoyed by a lot of things, one of which is myself apparently. Once I arrived at a certain point in the corridor I was traveling through, I brought my paw to the wall, and traced a pattern on it, a variation of the Void's icon. It wasn't obvious to an outsider how to open new areas in the Void, so the codes preventing others from moving around freely didn't have to be needlessly complex.

As soon as my paw detached from the wall, the sound of metal rubbing against metal entered my ears, which made me close my eyes in disgust. Once the newly revealed entrance was available, I slowly walked inside, into a very wide room we had here. It was cylindrical, consisting of a red, rocky material, the ground uneven as the walls. It wasn't meant to be stable though, this was just as area for certain Void members, namely admins, to hone their skills. Most of the time two admins would bring one another here, and train with one another. Not everyone complies to this, as many of them have murdered an ally in this small arena. There's one pokemon always here it seems, one who's always either banging their head into the wall to adapt to the impact of certain attacks, aiming at bits of stone that have chipped off of the wall to increase their accuracy, generally sprinting around, practicing with their known abilities, even silently meditating.

That same pokemon was present in the room now, sitting down with their back to me, not making a noise.

With this pokemon, my concerns were evident. I had never had a fear of anything similar in the past, nobody has ever had the philosophy that she does. A philosophy that shouldn't exist in the first place, but some things can't be erased. When she started off, she was a weakling. Couldn't take the simplest of Raven recruits in a battle if she tried. I almost lost hope for her, but then, began to feel admittedly impressed when I noticed a quality she had. More diligence than I've ever seen from a pokemon. Every opportunity she had, she would be somewhere, training herself. Her mind and body, continuously getting stronger, more dangerous. Eventually, I was comfortable bringing her to the position of an admin, despite the fact that her seemingly unbreakable focus didn't translate to when I actually asked her to do something.

Even with the promotion, and the ego boost, she never stopped trying to better herself. Most admins take their position and run with it, never trying to adapt, but she wasn't like them. She still had a quality I figured would be long gone after her treatment. And with that quality, came her bursting into the top five of the Void, knocking Rage right out. Before long, she passed the scientist too. It's still hard to judge which one of them is more dangerous, but to me, it was a safe assumption to move her up. That seemed to be her peak, or so I thought. Semi-recently, she passed The Assassin as well. An impressive feat, yes. Impressive, and perhaps, intimidating one. She's not even done improving yet. There's a more than likely possibility that she's rounding closer and closer to Aven with each passing day. That's not a day I'm looking forward to. The side of me that wants to prevent it from ever happening was going to take control soon, I had to organize a way to accomplish it, messing up could be dangerous for the Void as a whole. It could be detrimental to the everlasting war we're in the middle of.

Even so, it was better than being intimidated by an underling of yours.

I took a few steps forward, before tapping my paw on the ground a few times audibly, causing the pokemon in the middle of the room to slowly tilt her head back, until she could barely see me.

"Hey Boss!" Her smile grew, looking innocent if you weren't familiar with her.

It was time to give her information on an important future task.

Shine

This is so difficult…

I never really liked wooded areas, especially when forced to wear very uncomfortable weighted braces on all four of your legs. These are heavier than the ones I had on before too, I certainly wasn't used to it yet. It took time to adapt to these things, being comfortable with a increased mass pulling down on me at all times wasn't the most practical decision sadly. According to Crescent, this is supposed to be very beneficial to me over time, but right now, I have a firm stance when it comes to hating them. I don't remember the last time my legs weren't sore.

"Stop being so sloppy, keep moving." I rolled my eyes at the voice behind me, feeling ever so slightly annoyed.

"I would be a lot less sloppy if I didn't have to walk with my weight suddenly doubled." I replied with a sigh, rather unimpressively climbing over a fallen tree.

"Tripled. Doubled was last week." Crescent reminded me. "You'll thank me later, for now, get used to it." No need to be so blunt…

"And how many more of these weights do you have that can somehow add up exactly to multiples of my weight?" I curiously asked, also wondering how much longer I would have to submit to this.

"You wouldn't like the answer to that." I shivered at the sylveon's words.

"Point taken…"

The two of us continued through the heavy greenery of a dense forest, looking for some small camp. We're supposed to meet a pokemon there according to our group's leader, though, I had no clue what kind of personality we would be dealing with, and the lack of emotion in our mission lecture didn't help.

"You think you're willing to fight off any ferals that attack with those weights on?" Crescent caught up and walked beside me as I put on a baffled expression.

"I can hardly walk in these and I'm not good at fighting in the first place, how exactly do you expect me to do that?" I responded, not looking in her direction, as to make sure I didn't trip.

"I dunno, I'm not the one wearing triple my body mass." She innocently shrugged, and I glanced at her.

"And I suppose you already went through what I'm being subjected to?" Each step felt heavier and heavier, I really did hate this.

"Not exactly, but I did my own training." Crescent stretched her ribbons out on either side of her body. "Though, I got beaten up a lot more because of it, I think this method works better, hence why I decided to lend you my lovely weights."

"I can think of so many other adjectives to describe them…" I muttered.

"Yeah yeah, you don't like them, I get it. It's better than overworking yourself to the point in which you can hardly walk."

I tilted my head. "You do realize-"

"I noticed it as I said it, shut up." She sighed. "This is better, trust me."

"If you say so, not like I have any idea what I'm doing when it comes to this stuff." I said, amused by Crescent's little slip up.

"You didn't seem terrible, I was surprised when you said you've never tried actually training yourself beyond midnight jogging and meditation." Crescent encouraged, likely referring to when I was in that very confusing three way battle in Myriad.

"Beginners luck." I sighed. "Besides, I have no idea how to move effectively in battle, I just used inspiration from someone else I saw."

"You told me about that already." Crescent turned her head towards me. "But, being able to imitate it is still good, nobody is completely self-taught."

"I couldn't repeat that moment if I tried though. My body just kind of took over, I hardly knew what I was doing, just acted on instinct." Thinking back, I really don't know how I did half the things I ended up doing in that fight. I just sorta… Let my body move.

"You gotta start somewhere, right?" Crescent slapped me with one of her ribbons, making me stumble, before jogging ahead of me. "Keep up and maybe I'll go easy on you next week!"

I fixed my posture and looked in the direction Crescent was running, and with a face that perfectly reflected how annoyed I was, I took a breath, and began jogging after her. Each heavy step took effort, and any time I had to hop over a large rock or a downed tree, I felt my legs scream at me to let up for a second, but I continued moving as quickly as I could through the rough terrain, the sound of cracking twigs, ripping leaves, and my panting being all I could hear in the ambient atmosphere.

The two of us kept in one direction for a decent while, before Crescent finally stopped and turned around to face me. I trudged forward slowly and collapsed on the ground about five feet in front of her, breathing heavily. My four legs all ached, and I had little confidence I was able to move any more than I already have with them on.

Crescent took a few steps forward and looked down at me. "You know, you're going to have to get a lot better if you want to actually make progress."

I flipped onto my back and looked up at her. "Y-You're the one leading my training, perhaps you're doing something wrong?" I taunted.

"Right, right, and your body being as fragile as a twig when I found you is my fault too." She replied in an annoyed voice. "For all you know, you could be much, much stronger already if you didn't slack and ignore your body's needs for-"

"It was a joke, Crescent." I interrupted, closing my eyes and trying to catch my breath.

"I-I knew that…" Crescent's voice was quiet and bashful, almost inaudible through her pawsteps a little bit away from me. "You told a joke."

I slowly opened my eyes and glanced toward her, tilting my head. It took me a second to catch onto what she was saying. "I did, didn't I..?" I looked back up to the sky, barely making out the formations of clouds behind all of the scattered branches from tall trees.

The past week or so hasn't been any easier than the previous ones. I still have the same mental problems, none of them feel like they've faltered in the slightest, all still totally present in my mind. Crescent, in a way, was the only one pulling me back down to earth. She would pep talk me when she thought I needed it, even if I really didn't. When it was really obvious I needed it, she would pin me to the ground with her ribbons and not let me move until I snapped out of it. If I resisted in any way, she would start attacking me, and dear Arceus I learned very quickly to not fight back.

I appreciated everything she did to help, and more so, appreciated the fact that she was willing to do so. I mean, I feel like most would look at my state, both physical and emotional, and assume I'm a lost cause, but she didn't give up on me. Crescent, even though I was stubborn, kept on talking, kept on making sure I wasn't alone, kept on encouraging me. I couldn't express my gratitude for that, even if I had more than a hard time showing it. I never knew what to say when it came to talking to her about how thankful I was, I don't really know how to put it into words, so I end up losing my train of thought and deciding it's better I don't embarrass myself by trying to express it.

I shook my head and slowly stood up. "That's a good sign, right?" I asked, not specifically to Crescent, but just out loud.

"Who knows? I would say yes, but I'm no therapist." She replied, walking over to me. You sure sound like one at times.

I stood still, as to not overwork my legs too much more. "Is this where we need to be? To meet the guy?" I just realized, they didn't even give us his name.

"Yep! I think so, he should be arriving here from his area any moment now!" Crescent turned around and stared forward, and I followed her lead. "By the way, you can remove the braces now, it's been long enough.

Never before has such a small statement cause my eyes to light up like that did. I bent my neck down and clamped the weight on one of my forelegs in my teeth, slowly pulling it off of my leg with some effort, and feeling immense relief, along with a bit of soreness.

"Can't you just use your psychic powers to take all of them off at once?" Crescent asked, tilting her head at me.

"Technically yes, but I would rather save them for when I really need to ring them out." I responded, moving to my other foreleg and slowly slipping the brace off.

"I would think you could just use them whenever you want, is there a limit or something?" Crescent had a curious voice.

"That's not really how it works." I took a breath. "Psychic abilities are weird, they work by-"

"I wasn't asking for a lecture." Crescent interrupted me, holding her paw up. "I don't need to be taught the ways of another type extensively."

I put on an annoyed expression. "You're the one who brought it up…" I turned myself around and fiddled with the braces on my back legs, awkwardly shuffling until I managed to slip them off too. As soon as I was free of all extra mass, my body felt light as a feather, though still sore. I stretched each of my legs out, before standing tall and strongly once more. So much better…

"Seriously, I have no clue how you'll deal with the coming weeks if you're that pleased to be free of those dinky things." Crescent observed my facial expressions.

I intentionally changed the emotions my face was showing to throw her off. "I'm sure I'll be fine. I'll be able to adapt to whatever you put me through." I hope.

"Oh really?" She directed a smirk at me. "Then why did you cower in fear and stop resisting my help after I tried attacking you once?"

My eyes widened a little and I nervously looked away. "Totally unrelated." I spouted.

Crescent just giggled and walked over to me. "No need to be bashful, I already know you have no idea how to get around a fight properly." One of her ribbons slowly made its way under my chin and forced me to lock eyes with her. "That being said, how about you listen to whatever I say when you feel like self-deprecating, or we can repeat those events all over again." Crescent gave me a half-evil, half-innocent smile.

I stared back at her and barely managed to gulp. "I-I can't tell whether that's supposed to comfort me or terrify me… because it's doing a bit of both…" I shivered. "A little more of the terrifying bit…"

Crescent bursted out into laughter and backed away from me, releasing my head. "Good, good, fear is a great motivator." She turned in the other direction, and I was able to freely shake my head to get rid of whatever embarrassment I felt. Why can't she let up..?

I wanted to bite back at her, but I didn't quite get the chance, my attention was quickly directed elsewhere. I walked over to join Crescent's side, and in front of us, stood a new pokemon, looking rather intimidating, forcing an uncomfortable shudder out of me. Towering above, a few feet in front of the two of us, stood a haxorus. I had never seen one of these before, they were certainly just as large as I imagined. The large pokemon intimidated me on sheer size alone, though that wasn't necessarily a reason to pass judgement on them, just a personal problem I wasn't aware I would have.

The party of Crescent and I only stared at the newly entered dragon for a few seconds, sizing them up. The silence was admittedly awkward, and lasted for longer than I would have liked to be honest. Eventually though, the sylveon next to me had to show her big mouth off to someone other than me.

"Hello!" Crescent simply greeted, bowing her head with a smile. "My name is Crescent! NIce to meet you!" One of her ribbons rose above my head, and settled on top of me. "This is Shine!" She introduced me, catching me a little off-guard. Not knowing what to say, I rose my paw a little and gave what was likely the most pathetic wave that could ever come from a pokemon.

The haxorus in front of us bowed their head down. "Pleased to meet you two." His voice was deep, and like everything else, intimidating. "I'm known as Apex, I look forward to briefly working with you." Apex rose his head, looking down at us. Crescent was as bright as ever, but you would get better emotion from a brick then what I was giving off. I had no idea if I should be putting up a facade or what I should be saying, so I was indifferent on both fronts.

"We were told that you're going to show us to somewhere in one of the hills around here, where you would be able to help us gather some resources. Is that all good?" Crescent said, likely just to confirm that we were indeed here with the right pokemon, and for the right purpose.

"Of course, that would be correct." Apex's eyes fell onto Crescent, with an expression that was hard to perfectly place. "Make sure you don't go too much farther in this direction, you might run into some pokemon who still see you as hostile." Hostile? As in, other than ferals?

"Hostile? As in, other than ferals?" Crescent asked, causing me to paused for a second. Did she ju- "And wait a second, what do you mean by that exactly? You're saying it like I came here already and created a bad reputation for myself." That's also true, the wording used was weird… I shook my head.

"Yes, other than ferals. Details aren't necessary, just make sure to stay clear from it, and be careful when you see anyone else around this forest." Apex stated matter of factly. Why aren't the details necessary? Wouldn't that be important so we know if we should defend ourselves or not..?

"Huh, if you say so." Crescent replied, seemingly not bothered by the same thing I was. "Anywho, want to get going? I bet we can get all of this done really quickly if we go now!" She followed, with a distinct energy in her voice.

Apex simply nodded with a smile. "I agree, stay behind me and we'll be there in no time at all." He took a second to scan the endless greenery surrounding us, before his eyes locked in one direction. As soon as his vision was focused, he faced it, and began walking off. Without hesitation, Crescent and I followed.

Only after a minute or so of walking in silence, I felt a rough slap on the back of my head, forcing me to stumble forward and nearly fall down. Oww… Why..? Without slowing our pace down, I glanced back at Crescent, one of her ribbons retracting to her. "Why don't you say something for once?" She spoke in a whisper.

Was that really worth smacking me over..? I let out a small sigh. "I have nothing to say, and it's not like we're here to socialize, we're here for gathering materials."

She just scoffed in response. "Your social skills will never get better if you don't use them."

"I already have plenty of social skills, now isn't the time to be worrying about how well I can hold a conversation with a stranger." I shot back in a whisper. I turned my eyes to Apex, still walking in the front, not noticing the small spat behind him.

"I would be perfectly okay with that if I couldn't tell you had a burning question in your head a few minutes ago. Why don't you speak up for once?" Crescent sounded annoyed.

"I'll let you know later, just focus on the current task for now." I continued walking, making sure I kept my voice down. I received another vicious smack, this time on my forehead, making me bite my lip to stay quiet. Quit that…

Our journey continued on, this time, in complete silence. I used the opportunity to take in the environment around me, every little detail of it. The trees standing tall, the ones that have been long fallen, each of the array of plants we crossed, and even the scents that I picked up on. Some pleasant, others neutral, and some just plain revolting. At times, it almost smelled like something was burning, but no sight of a fire. I had no clue where this sensation came from, but it was rather… irritating at times.

"How long have you been with Ark?" Apex asked, not turning his head.

"He's a new leader, so not very long in my case, and even less so for him." Crescent said, nodding her head towards me even though Apex wasn't looking. "How do you know Ark?" She went on to ask.

"One can say we communicate through the same group. We have the same resources to pull from when we need it." Apex explained. "He's closer to them than I am, but the two of us have worked together once or twice before on tasks very similar to this one." This information was interesting to hear, as I didn't think Ark was one to ever have allies other than the group that he leads, and we're not even allies. I likely would stay as far away as possible from him if I had somewhere else to be, his silence and lack of emotion generally creeped me out. Ark… What an interesting garchomp…

"Out of curiosity, does he ever talk around you with… like… feelings?" Crescent asked in a confused voice.

"Not with me. It seems to me that Ark only really cares about getting the components necessary to get through whatever he may be doing, then he's on his way like always. I don't know what he does outside of the few collaborations we've had." Apex went on.

"Huh… Thought I finally found someone who would be willing to be his friend. He doesn't have many of those." Crescent tilted her head. "Any of those…"

"Ark isn't the type to need friends, you shouldn't worry about him." I've never heard anything about our leader before, this is interesting.

"Worried? Oh please, I'm not exactly fond of the guy. I just work for him because it gives me something to do, and since we occasionally find criminals to take down, I'd say it's a win win."

I continued to listen to the conversation between both Apex and Crescent, but at no time did I feel the need to give my input. I enjoyed just listening, and taking note of anything I didn't know before. I was also admittedly getting wrapped up in the ambience surrounding us, even though I've never specifically liked forests, I've never had the ability to spend a lot of time in them either. I paid enough attention to keep up with Apex, so I didn't see the harm in taking some time to relish our surroundings. I will admit though, the conversation had by Apex and Crescent sort of went over my head after a while.

After spacing out for a decent while, Apex stopped walking just as we were passing a large rocky structure. Crescent and I stopped right behind him, and my eyes automatically traced the entirety of the large rock planted within the ground beside us. It was big. Very big. The material that the mountain was made of was a light orange, no part of it was smooth, rough and pointy through its entirety. Climbing it would be a massive pain if anyone had the desire to do so, and considering that I'm a quadruped, I'll pass.

"Is this it?" Crescent asked, turning to the earth and observing.

Without talking, Apex opened his mouth, and shot off a small, purple sphere, which connected with the rocky surface, shattering a portion of the wall with a very loud crack, which made me flinch. Large portions of rocky debris flew away from the mountain, some of which connecting with trees, which I imagined wasn't too healthy for their stability. Inside of the newly made entrance, was a hollow cave, looking pitch black from the outside.

"This is it alright." Apex stated, but he sounded off. Almost as if he was… anxious? Or maybe anticipating something? Strange…

Without a pause, Apex hopped into the hole, and began walking forward. Crescent and I were obviously both taken off guard by this, and hesitated. The two of us exchanged a glance, sharing a similar expression of discomfort.

Soon after, that glance became a nod, and the two of us followed Apex.

Hello Readers!

Dear lord I've been busy, but I managed to complete this just before I get another flurry of work to do, so yay for that! I'll have some more time to focus on my own studies and whatnot now, so hopefully, that means I can pick up the writing pace a little! We can only hope, right?

Anywho, thank you for reading, thank you for all of the messages and reviews, I love em all!
See You Next Chapter!