Chapter Four: Cecille Freys

Crinson awoke, certain he had only fallen asleep ten minutes ago. All night he had replayed what Oak had said, feared what Jeremy might do, doubted if he was the person he claimed to be, Maybe I do like blue more than red, he thought, oh god, Crimson, do not break yourself over the words of an old drunk, just because he was the only person you talked to.

Crimson pulled himself together. He drank some coffee. He ate some corn. He kissed his mother on the forehead, And he left the house for work. It's just another day, he hoped.

He could not see Jeremy as he joined the crowd heading to work. He could not see Jeremy as he barged his way through the crowd.. And he could not see Jeremy being there… he wasn't in the crowd; Crimson knew it. He had quietly decided Jeremy was trying to leave, getting caught and getting killed; he had decided this while loudly searching for him, drowning out his own whispers.

Soon enough Crimson was given real reason to panic. There was commotion in the yard, not just workers, but Pokemon too. He could see the Murkrow from where he stood, circling frantically; he heard the Poochyena shouting and growling and trying to maintain order. Crimson rushed through the mass, shoving people out of the way, his heart losing its sense of self, desperately pumping blood in an attempt to regain some scrap of humanity.

When he got to the front he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, And then nothing happened. There was no horror waiting for him; no horror he had not met before, at least.

As he began to calm down Crimson also began to notice, the Gnarl's were nowhere to be found. The Poochyena were aggressively trying to establish control, as night shift wanted to go home but couldn't, and day shift wanted to know what was going on, but no one would tell them. All the while, there was not a bulb, a flower, vine or leaf in sight.

Crimson looked for someone he knew.

Tess, an older woman who had been close friends with his mother, was shouting down a Poochyenam who demanded that she "STEP BACK LADY!"

Tess stepped back but did not fall silent.

"I have worked here for forty-seven years, I deserve to be told why we can't go in but we can't go home?! I deserve that! I have earned that! I have given my life to this factory and that family. Compared to me you may as well be from fucking space. For better or for worse this place is my home, and if something is going on I have a right to know!"

"No!" Boomed a new voice. "You have what rights I allow you."

The new voice was loud. deep and textured, the voice of a commander - a commander who was choking, who was diseased, struggling to speak underwater. They all knew who it was. As the air became thick with the smells of burning plastic, crude oil, sewage and smoke, any brave enough to look saw something even nightmares feared to brook. A pool of toxic slime, runoff, and industrial chemicals, at all times only half formed, at all times consumed by despair and disdain, at all times reaching, spreading, contaminating by instinct.

Crimson had only seen Noxos a handful of times. He could have seen him a thousand and he would feel the same. There are some horrors so pure, some monsters so abominable, some wrongs to absolute, that only death can free you from your fear of them.

This was Noxus, a Muk; the most wretched, corrupted, poisonous substances that pollute the world, forced together and cursed with consciousness. Crimson had thought this before, when people told old stories about the gods; if there were gods, and they had anything to do with Noxos, they were at least as foul as the monster they created.

Noxos drew itself towards the crowd, glaring at them with two hollow eyes that flickered with eldritch light. "You think you deserve to know…You think this is your home… You think you are here because you are so valuable… YOU ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO WEAK TO GO ANYWHERE ELSE. YOU THINK WE HAVE TRAPPED YOU HERE? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW EASY IT IS FOR ME… How easy it would be, to end the lives of every single one of you, now, here; can you even comprehend what you, momentary, malformed membranes are to me? YOU ARE ALREADY DYING! All of you, constantly falling apart, just like the systems you build, as if they can save you from your inadequacies. Oh, you are an ill conceived design built by incompetent labour, left ignorant of maintenance, and rejected by anyone skillful enough to repair you."

Noxos laughed so hard it began to boil,."You squark and you implore and you complain and you demand, and when that fails, you request and you beg…. But I hear your negotiations as you would hear the offered amnesty from the mould you must remove, lest its spores cause you to prove your fragility too soon."

The crowd was silent; some terrified, some enraged, some more weary than anything else - but all knew, for all its self indulgent lecturing, Noxos could murder every person there, feel no guilt, and receive no consequences. But even the Murkrow had fallen silent; many of the Poochyena had slunk away from the area entirely.

"Good, you will wait, and carry your uncertainty and fear in silence as-"

Noxos turned his attention to something else. Suddenly, the great abomination seemed uncertain and afraid," as everyone slowly heard it too; it was the sound of a car engine.

Every head turned to watch as a huge black car, polished to a perfect sheen, drove up the road. There were miniature federal flags on the bonnet, and the windows were tinted. Crimson raised and eyebrow and felt his body muster both anxiety and excitement as he wondered What the fuck are the government doing here?

The crowd parted to let the car through, and Noxos slank away to the side. It parked in the middle of the yard, and after a silence and stillness too long not to be a powerplay, two doors opened. Firstly, a huge, burnished beetle, with two silver horns, an earpiece and a pistol, stepped out. Followed by a white cat stood on its hind legs. It wore a black suit, held a clipboard, and had a golden coin fixed to its forehead.

Did the government really send a Meowth? Thought Crimson bewildered by the federal hiring policies.

And then,,, with a confidence that convinced all present the cat was, in fact, the obvious choice for leader, they strode towards the crowd and slapped their clipboard. "I am Cecille Freys, Senior Executive Taxation Officer, Trained and Registered Financial Field Agent, Dr of Economics, and authorised with total freedom to act on behalf of the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Government, selected for this assignment by The High Chancellor themself. Hold your applause until the end. Now you are all probably wondering what is going on, so allow me to enlighten you, though I will be brief. Your employer, Morganna Gnarl, and by extension The Gnarl Corn Company, has been indicted for a list of financial crimes so long I would struggle to remember it myself, and you heard how many of my official stations I forced you to recognise. It would appear that Mrs. Gnarl and her family fled in the night, having been tipped off in regards to my arrival. Do not worry, no one else here is under arrest, though I will be interviewing some of you and you may be under arrest following that interview. That's just how it works, folks. FInally, just to make it absolutely clear: yes, The Gnarl Corn Company is officially defunct and dissolved, dust in the wind. The Gnarl estate is now the official property of The High Chancellor, their Government, and the citizens of The United Provinces. I don't know if you will keep your jobs, Farmer was not one of my titles and neither was Factory Supervisor. I will not be taking questions, I will not tolerate resistance, and I most certainly will not hesitate to shoot you, sick this salaried embodiment of Pain on you, or call in the prepped air strike, and scorch this estate into a charcoal orchard, Oh, but Cecille, you say, if you did that, you would also get scorched. My response to that is thus: Never fuck with someone who is willing to die for their country." Cecille adjusted his tie and smiled. "Good? Good." As he strode towards the factory Cecille turned to his insectoid bodyguard and said, "Call in some local cops to round up these dogs, charge them with intention to build a criminal syndicate. If they reist send them to the farm."

Before he got to the door someone in the crowd shouted, "Are we supposed to just wait here?"

Cecille turned around, "What? No, I didn't say that. Just stay on the estate. If any of you try to run off, remember, I have everyone's information, we'll either catch you, or you'll live the rest of your life unable to ever take out a library book so you can convince that cute barista you know how to read." Cecille turned away once more, getting as far as placing his paw against the door when he stopped and swung around.

"What the fuck is that?"

The Pincer squinted, trying to see what Cecille was talking about.

"No, not off in the distance, the fucking sentient Health and Safety violation." Cecille's face dropped into pure and utter disgust, "Oh god, she didn't…" Cecille turned to the crowd, who still hadn't moved, "Morganna Gnarl didn't just let that thing be here, in a food processing plant, a canning factory and two thousand acres of farmland?" He turned to look at Noxos. "You, waste disposal law suite that wished it was a real boy, how long have you lived here?"

"I don't have to tell you-"

"If you don't cooperate, right now, you're going to end up on a commercial proving just how strong new Super Dirt and Grease remover is. Don't worry, we'll edit out your screams for the sake of the kids."

Crimson wondered if the government really was executing people on live television. Generally he;d be opposed to it, but for Noxos… he could live with that.

"I… I have resided in this place more winters than I can easily-"

"Come here," snapped Cecille.

Noxos hesitated,

"I said come fucking here!"

The terror of The Gnarl Estate moved over with the presence of a guilty child.

Flipping through the pages on his clipboard, Cecille Freys shook his head, golden bursts flashing from the coin on his forehead. He stroked his whiskers and then took a pen out of his pocket. "Right, I'll just note this down informally now, and we'll sort out the specifics later. "Name?"

Noxox gurgled, the sludge equivalent of speechlessness.

Cecille rolled his eyes. "You are not in any of my paperwork. You are currently a nonentity. We can't have that."

"Well if I am not your subject then you have no power over me, and I-"

"Ey, literal shit for brains, if someone has no papers I am generally encouraged to charge them as an illegal immigrant. Do you want to be deported? Ship you off to one of the placed the Chancellor fucked up so bad they let the orphans and and burnt up cripples keep it. Or no, I'll send you to one of those tiny Islands where its nothing but Crabbies fucking their cousins, and one huge Vileploom watching, with a straw, just waiting til you turn your back so it can slurp you up like a big toxic milkshake."

Noxos stammered. "That… That's not a real thing."

"Without papers princess, neither are you. Now what's your fucking name?"

"Noxos."

"Now that's a good wretched puddle of filth." Cecille looked up at his bodyguard for a moment, "You know what, let's take this thing inside, after we get its info I want to put it in a barrel or something, otherwise it will flee, hide in a well and accidentally kill two thousand people." The Pincer nodded, and Cecille gestured for Noxos to follow them inside. "Come on, or it's Crabby Island and the big slurp. And I hear Vileplooms like to chew even their drinking."

As Cecille and his bodyguard ushered Noxos into the factory, Crimson realised something. If Jeremy had run away last night or early this morning… he made it.

Crimson turned to walk home, but couldn't help but see Tess glaring at the factory, shaking her head. "Fucking bastards," she muttered.

Crimson put a hand on her shoulder and smiled, "Yeah, but they're gone now."

Tess pulled away from him, "Not the Gnarls, the fucking government."

Crimson stared at her, confused, "But they got rid of the Gnarls. The Gnarls are-"

"One of the richest, most ruthless families in the whole country." Tess sighed, "Crimson, do you really think they are here to bring the Gnarls to justice? They just want the fucking land. Financial crimes… this government is the biggest gang of criminals to have ever walk the earth. He didn't even tell us what they did; lists too long to read? Oh, I have too many good reasons so I won't tell you any." Tess gripped her head and began to pace, "I'm telling you Crimson, this is going to come to blood. What do you think will happen now? Being persecuted by the government is a great incentive to start funding a civil war."

"What, you think there's going to be a civil war?"

"How can there not be?"

"You… You really think so?"

"What would you do if you were The Gnarls. And what do you think the over a thousand people who live on this estate are going to do when they kick us off this land, not so much as a bus ticket?"

"What do we do?"

Tess put a hand on Crimson's shoulder. "If I were you Crimson, I'd get the fuck out of here, right fucking now."

"But he said they'd come after us."

"They're gonna have much bigger problems than you very soon. You'll be fine,"

"I can't leave mum. We'll look after your mum, don't worry." She placed a hand on each side of his face, tears in her eyes. "You're young, you're strong, you're smart, you will be fine. But not here Crimson. If you stay here your just another body in the barrel for Cecille and his bug. Run, crimson. Run and don't look back."

"Can't I at least go home and get some more pairs of underwear, and like… I'm quite hungry."

"Oh, I didn't mean literally now, you got to pack a bag."

"Okay cool."

"But tonight, you fucking get out of here, or I will make every moment you stay as miserable as I possibly can."

"Okay… I'll go."