Even though this is the final chapter I've already typed up, I'm not afraid to admit this right here is my favorite chapter. No really, it is. Stuff really starts to kick off from here. A lot of the things that happen after this chapter can trace back to here. But you'll have to read on to find out those things. ;3
There's also a bit of foreshadowing in the beginning, so watch for that. Other than that, all I can really say is enjoy the chapter! (:
Disclaimer: I don't Pokemon, or Superjail... tch, that's the way it goes, I guess.
Three days later, and nothing much had changed.
Now, of course I had been attempting to keep busy. I had tried to track down some of the places Bird told me about, but whenever I even attempted I wound up getting lost in the massive corridors of Superjail. I still believe the Warden had something to do about that.
Anyway, it was at this time that I found myself trekking back to my quarters once again. I had just now searched out a handy path back to our room, and I was trying to enjoy it while it lasted. One thing I had learned from Jared about this place was that rooms and entire buildings tended to shift frequently.
Like some sort of whacked-out glacier, I thought, and smirked slightly.
Just then, I heard someone yelling at me, and as I turned around I could see Kona barreling down the hallway towards me. I stopped short, and waited for the Floatzel to catch up.
"Hey, Kona, what's up?" I asked. These past couple of days my Pokemon had been wandering off to adventure, so I was seeing them less and less.
"It was so bizarre, Dana!" Kona barked at me, clearly out of breath and looking very disturbed. I cocked my head.
"There's a lot of bizarre things here, big guy," I pointed out, "You're gonna have to be a bit more specific."
"These… these two guys, they looked like twins…" Kona panted, "I saw them… they were both wreaking havoc in one of the cell blocks… and then, they caught sight of me! I tried to panic and run from them, but they didn't come after me! No! You know what they did?!"
"No," I said bluntly.
"They teleported away, that's what! In this freaky flash of green light, too!" Kona was now heavily freaked out, more so then when I first ran into him a few minutes ago, "It's scary…" I folded my arms.
"Huh, so, teleporting twins, eh? Another thing I can add to the 'weird and wacky world of Superjail' portfolio I'm assembling," I said cheekily.
"Thanks for taking my fear so seriously," Kona spat, glaring at me. I grinned, and knelt to his eye level.
"Sorry, Kona, it's just that… well, after seeing all the stuff I've seen over the past couple of days, this talk of teleporting twins doesn't really bother me," I said, patting his sleek head, "Now, if you said I had a secret cyborg clone who was coming to kill me, then I'd be worried." Kona laughed out loud at that.
"Yeah, I guess you're right…" he said, and licked my cheek, "I guess I'm not very used to a daily overload of weird everyday."
"It's only for the rest of our lives, Kona," I mentioned, "Now, I was just going to stop by the room. You wanna come with?" Kona nodded, and I lifted my Floatzel into my arms, grunting slightly, "Jesus, Kona, have you been gaining weight?"
"Pfft, no," he laughed, "You're just out of shape."
"Shaddup," I snapped, crating him over to our room, which, like I said, wasn't very far today. I nudged open the door carefully, shifting my Floatzel's weight to my other arm, and waddled on inside.
I let out a weary sigh as I dropped Kona to the floor and stretched. The room hadn't changed at all, even with the world place around it morphing and transforming every second.
"Damn cubicle-room…" I breathed irritably. To be honest, at this point I'd rather be wandering the insanity outside then be in this claustrophobic nightmare.
"Whatcha gonna do now?" Kona suddenly tore me from my thought, and I glanced at him as he leapt onto the lounge bed.
"Oh… I dunno," I said, "This tiny room's making me wanna go outside, though. Of course, then I'll probably just get lost…"
"Maybe you can track down Rex or Hibiscus or something," Kona replied, and his tail twitched. I sucked on my lip a little, thinking that over.
"Yeah… I guess I'll do that," said, a bit distantly. Between the two choices (stay in the tiny room or wander Superjail) I'd have to say this was the better option, "I guess I'll see you whenever then, big guy."
"Okee-dokee," he said back, before curling into a ball and closing his eyes. I sighed again; leave it to Kona to fall out like a light.
I gave my otter-like Pokemon one more glance before slipping back out, less than ten minutes after I first got in. Wow, that was a new record.
I rocked back and forth on my heels for a few moments. So, now what was I to do?
I wonder how my friends in Cellblock 742 are doing… I thought, folding my arms, Well, it's worth a check. Not like I have anything better to do.All I had to do to get back there just had to remember how the hell to get to that cellblock. Last time I did I took the "fun" elevator.
I paused. Hey, maybe that was it! If I could find that elevator I could get back to that unit!
"Just gotta take that path I took a few days ago…" I said as I began jogging down the hallway much like I did one my first day, looking for the fork in the path. I quickly found. It, unlike most of this hellhole, was in the same spot.
"Now I just go right," I concluded, and proudly turned down the right path, hoping to find myself in the elevator like last time.
Well, there was no elevator. I turned down the right path and instantly found myself at the door leading to Cellblock 742. I blinked. I still have no clue how this damn place works.
"At least I don't haveto go through the elevator again, though," I said optimistically, and smiled. Maybe this adjustment wasn't as bad as I expected. At any rate, I pushed open the door to the Cellblock, eager to see how the friends I made down there were doing.
When I go inside, though, I was confused. It was the right Cellblock, but it too had shifted, so now the hallways were different. I gritted my teeth.
"It's a wonder that all these inmates haven't gone insane yet," I muttered through clenched jaws, walking slowly down the hallway. With any luck I'd hear Bird's chirping again to guide me.
However, it didn't seem like I had a lot of luck on my side, because a few steps down the hall, and I found myself face to face with one of the most gruesome sights I had ever encountered.
I was standing before one of the cells, its door hanging wide open. But the thought of the prisoners inside running wayward didn't bother me, no. What bothered me was that they were probably all dead. Inside the cell there was what looked like the remains of at least four people, scattered about the concrete room. And there was blood, lots of lots of blood. It was splattered about the walls like finger-paints. In all, it looked like something out an awful, ghastly horror movie.
And in the center of the room was Emily, chewing on what looked like an arm.
"Oh… my… God…" I said in hushed tone, slowly taking everything in again, "Emily, WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!"
"I got hungry," Emily replied, slightly muffled from her chewing. She looked up at me with surprisingly innocence eyes. I rubbed my temples.
"Is that… is that an arm?" I finally found it in me to ask. Emily stopped chewing for a moment, looking at the appendage in her claws, and then back at me.
"Maybeh," she replied thoughtfully. I groaned. I had to have the most unruly Pokemon in the world. Honestly, if the Warden found out about this (no doubt he already did) then we'd all be screwed.
Suddenly, I heard a familiar chirping, and a blood-stained Bird landed on the open cell door. I looked at her irritably.
"Oh, so you helped too?" I snapped. She tweeted matter-a-factly.
"Great, just great," I said, before storming into the cell and grabbing Emily by the ear, "C'mon Emily, playtime is over."
"Aww…" she moaned, dropping the arm as I threw her onto my shoulder, "But don't you wanna know what we did?" I glared at her.
"I think I can tell!" I said, "Clearly, you ripped apart all the prisoners in there and then ate them!"
"Nu-uh," my Weavile retorted, "Well, the eating them part is right… but, I didn't rip them apart! You know what I did?"
"Something terrible," I guessed.
"Beauty's in the eye of the beholder," she said, "But, no. What I did was I jumped on the guys, and then I used Dark Pulse. And then they exploded! It was awesome! Their organs were flying all over the place!" She grinned. Bird, who had stayed back at the scene of the crime, gave a resounding twitter in agreement. I rolled my eyes.
"Great, now you have a new killing technique," I said dully, vaguely taking into account that Emily had disobeyed my "don't use your powers" rule I had tried to set up. Just then, I thought up a new question, "How many people did you blow up then, anyway?"
"Four," Emily said in response. I looked at her. She looked around shiftily, "Okay… it was more like six. I was really hungry, okay!" I nearly stopped the bash my head into the wall. Fortunately, I restrained myself.
"What am I going to do with you, huh?" I said. It was a very rhetorical question at this point, "Honestly…"
I suddenly stopped, and looked around. I had been so caught up with this incident that I didn't realize where we were going. So, low and behold, now both Emily and I were lost.
"Well, what a wonderful day this is turning out to be," I said sarcastically, "Now where the hell are we?" Emily looked around and her ears quivered.
"I believe… we are near the mess hall," she said firmly, "I can hear the shouts." I nodded appreciatively, briefly forgiving her for being such a wild, flesh-eating beast at times.
"Then lead us there," I said, placing her on the ground. Emily sniffed at the air, and her ears fluttered more as she pinpointed the exact location. Finally, she got it.
"Follow me," she commanded, and bolted down the hallway. I nodded, quickly running after her. We ran for about five minutes, and I still didn't see anything like a mess hall. God, I really hoped that Weavile of mine wasn't dragging me further into this cesspool known as Superjail.
"And… we're here!" Fortunately, she wasn't. Not a moment too soon, Emily stopped before the open doors of Superjail's communal dining room, which was already packed with inmates. I smiled, knowing it was just about lunchtime.
"Good job, Emily," I said.
"Thanks, I try," she replied cheekily.
"Now, why don't we venture inside?" I suggested.
"But I already ate," she pointed out. I rolled my eyes.
"Yeah, but I didn't. And I'm not in the mood to be a cannibal. Now let's go," I said, and without another word grabbed Emily and dragged her inside.
A few minutes later we found ourselves in the center of the dining hall. I looked about. The place was packed, and I doubted there was any place to sit. Not like I wanted to hang around here very long, though. Those big buff guys still gave me the creeps. As did the scary cafeteria ladies I could make out by the kitchen, but that's another story entirely.
"Well, now what?" Emily asked dully, "What are we gonna do now? This is boring." I shrugged, pulling a bottle of tequila (my drink of choice, for your information) out of my hoodie pocket and taking a long swig.
"Well, I just wanted to check and see what it looked like here," I said, capping the bottle, "Clearly, it's not much different here than in the cells."
"So are we going back to the room?" my Weavile questioned.
"I guess. There's no way in hell I'm taking any food from here," I said, before turning and heading back for the exit.
Just then, something caught my ear. It sounded like the conversation at one of the nearby tables of inmates. I paused, and began to pick up fragments of the conversation. I managed to pick up the words "riot", "busting out", and "tonight". My eyes widened. It sounded like that group of guys was plotting a riot!
"Well ain't that curious…" I commented.
"What is?" Emily asked, not having heard what I did.
"Something about a riot going down tonight," I replied, gazing over at the chatting table of prisoners absently.
"Spiffy," she responded. Suddenly, I heard more voices coming from the table, and it took me a minute to realize they were addressing me.
"Whata you lookin' at, bitch?!" one of the guys, a big muscular guy with a sea of tattoos all over him, said. He stood up and glared at me. I took a step back, realizing that it never was good to make eye contact with convicted criminals.
"Uh… I wasn't looking at anything…" I replied hastily, "I was staring into space, dammit!" It didn't seem that excuse was working, though. By now all the convicts at the table had stood up, and were slowly advancing towards me.
"We don't like girls intruding on our turf," a thin rat-like inmate said. I was very tempted to shoot back with "I don't think you've even seen a woman in a looong time", but from the looks of things, this wasn't the time for that.
"Hey, hey now, I don't mean any trouble," I said, desperately trying to figure out a way out of this situation, "I wasn't listening to you talk about a riot or anything. I was just pausing for a breather." The second those words came out of my mouth I regretted it.
"Oh, so you heard about our little plan, eh?" the first muscular-tattoo guy said, cracking his knuckles, "Well, we can't have that, can we?"
"Looks like we'll have to shut her up for good," a new speaker, some Spanish looking guy chimed in. I gritted my teeth, knowing by now there was no way I could run. I began to feel a very powerful warmth bubbling up from inside me as I realized I only had one other option.
I was gonna have to fight them.
…remember how I said I wasn't your typical Pokemon Trainer? Well, aside from my little nightmares of Pokemon that follow me around, I myself have a bit of an… ability, if you will. Of course, I hardly ever use it unless it's an emergency and all, but it's still there.
You see, friends, I have the bizarre quirk of being able to transform into a Ninetales.
Yes, you heard that right. Due to some weird rocks I bought off Ebay I've found that if I focus on it enough, I burst into flames and alter into the form of a Ninetales, fire-breathing and all. It's a rather handy power to have when I'm in tight situations.
You know, like, being surrounded by murderous convicts who'd like to kill me.
The heat inside me was now coursing through my entire body, and I knew I was ready for this fight. I tilted my head and smirked insanely at the advancing inmates.
"Sorry, hate to break it to you, but I'm not one to be 'shut up for good'," I hissed with finality. Then, throwing caution to the wind, I burst into the flames I were familiar with, and felt my body change. When the heat subsided, I was no longer in the appearance of a human. No, now I was a large, golden-furred Ninetaleswith wild head fluff. I gave a malicious snarl, and lunged forward.
Most of the inmates who had surrounded me instantly jumped back. They were clearly horrified by transformation. To be honest, so was I. I mean, I really wasn't supposed to use my powers here. But hell, if Emily already violated that contract by slaughtering a whole batch of prisoners, then why couldn't I?
At any rate, Emily let out a loud whoop of joy as the convict I had lunged at, the leader muscular guy, was flung into the ground by my Body Slam. I gave him a fiery glower, before opening my jaws and roasting him with a fine-tuned Fire Blast.
"Hey, Emily," I yelled to my Weavile when I was done cooking my victim, "Now might be a good time to show me your new trick!"
"Way ahead of ya," she replied, leaping and clinging to the rat-like man. I saw a flicker of determination pass through her eyes as she channeled her Dark Pulse, and then, just as she had explained to me, the guy she was grasping exploded in a shower of organs. I stood up straight, and whistled.
"Nice," I admired.
"I know," Emily replied, before leaping onto another enemy inmate to do it again. I nodded to myself, and continued my rage of flaming attacks. In the back of my head I knew this was horribly wrong, but I made that thought pass. Besides, those guys were the ones who had provoked me. I was simply defending myself.
Finally, after ten minutes of attacking and flaming and exploding, the mass of would-be rioters were dead on the floor, every last one of them. Most of them had been reduced to nothing but a pile of blood and bits of skin.
After shaking out the blood that had gotten on my fur, I went back human and stretched. Emily returned to my shoulder.
"Looks like we've had an audience," she commented. I blinked, and looked to see what she meant. Sure enough, our vicious fight had drawn quite the mass of attention, with almost all of the inmates in the dining hall gazing at the two of us. I bit my lip, and raised my arms up pacifistically.
"Um… we come in peace?" I said cautiously. To my surprise, some of the closer criminals backed up slightly, chattering to each other nervously, as if they were scared of me. I couldn't help but chuckle at that. I mean, it wasn't that bad, was it?
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!" Out of the blue, a voice I had become very, very familiar with echoed from behind us. My body slumped, and I slowly turned around, all of my pride shriveling up and dieing.
There, about two yards or so away, was the Warden, flanked by his associates. And boy, did he look pissed. Out of all of the Superjail staff in front of Emily and me, the Warden definitely looked the most like he wanted to kill us. Jared looked like he was going to have a heart attack, no doubt from the sight of the carnage before us. Alice looked a bit bored by the whole scene, as if she had done this sort of crap before. Not like I was going to ask her about it, anyway. Jailbot was the only one who looked slightly pleased, and that was probably because he liked violence anyway.
"Uh, hey, everybody…" I said quietly, waving awkwardly. The Warden stormed forward, looking frantically at the dead bodies around us.
"What the… what happened here, Dana?!" he demanded, giving me a look that could probably turn the average person to stone.
"Well, um, you see… there were these guys… and they started this fight… and then I got in it… and then the guys… kinda all died…" Knowing he wanted to explanation, I decided to give him one. Once I got most of it out, Warden folded his arms and continued giving me that damn dirty look.
"You mean you did all this? With your bare hands?" he questioned. I looked away slightly.
"Well, Emily helped…" I said, making my Weavilehiss in annoyance, "And 'with our bare hands' doesn't really explain it…"
"What the hell does that mean?" Warden queried, getting more pissed looking by the second. I twiddled my thumbs.
"Let's just say I brought in some home-made fire power," I squeaked, not really wanting to get into my Pokemon and my powers at this point and time.
The Warden rolled his eyes, agitated by my response obviously. He looked around at the bodies again and then back at me.
"Was there any particular reason why you did this?" he asked. I sighed, getting tired of this interrogation. Maybe if I just gave him the real reason he'd leave me alone.
"You know what? Yes, there was a particular reason I did this," I said firmly, "Those guys that we killed, I heard that they were planning a riot tonight, so I was only getting rid of them so that it wouldn't happen and everything would remain all hunky-dory and stuff." Emily nodded vigorously to prove my point. Hey, I wasn't totally lying, so it was as good an explanation as any. I didn't really think we had stopped a riot anyway; I was just beating up some guys who had pissed me off.
Anyway, the Warden blinked a few times, taking in my justification. I swallowed, hoping he would accept that and we would be free to go.
"So…you're saying you stopped a riot?" Warden asked me. I flinched. What was with this guy and questions?
"Well, yeah, I guess we did," I said wanly, and shrugged. At this point I didn't know what else to clarify. However, it appeared I wouldn't need to clarify much at all. For as soon as I verified that yes, we had (sort of) stopped a prison riot, the Warden's features instantly brightened, and he flashed me a goofy grin.
"That's absolutely marvelous~!" he chimed, "Well done, Dana, well done!"
"Um, thanks…" I responded unsurely, not quite sure what to make of this.
"You know, this reminds me: since you happen to be staying here for a little bit, I decided you might as well make yourself useful, Dana," Warden went on, now spinning about like a madman, "I have a job for you to perform. Now, at first I wasn't sure if it would be quite right for you, but seeing all this just proves my point!"
"Um, what point is that?" I asked in confusion. Unfortunately, a straight answer didn't appear to be coming my way just yet.
"Meet me in my office in a few minutes, and I can explain," he said to me, and before I could interject he bounced off out of the dining hall and was gone. I blinked slowly, before looking at his still-remaining staff members.
"Is he always like that?" I asked Jared. The accountant nodded.
"He can be a little moody sometimes…" he explained simply. I gave him an odd look, before turning to go.
Moody? Jesus Christ, the guy went from completely evil to all sunshine-and-happiness in less than two seconds flat! I think that qualifies to be bipolar… I thought to myself.
"Now I just gotta get to his office without becoming totally lost," I said to myself, and folded my arms.
"Ooh, that'll be so easy," Emily muttered sarcastically. She was still clinging to my shoulder. I rolled my eyes.
"I guess I'll manage," I said, and began to file out of the canteen.
Before I got very far, however, I had the sensation of being picked up by a familiar metal clamp. Next thing I knew, Jailbot was carefully placing me on his metallic back, and I, not knowing what else to do, hung onto it.
"Jailbot can easily take you to the Warden's office," Jared called over. I cocked my head.
"Oh, well, that's nice of you, Jailbot," I said. His emoticon turned pleasurably happy. I laughed and patted his side.
Suddenly, the ghostly robot fired out of the mess hall at high speed, making me grip him even harder. Emily shrieked in irritation as she struggled to hold on. Eventually, her claws lost their grip, and I watched as she went tumbled off my back.
"Eh… she can find her way back," I said. I then looked around as Jailbot carried me along. The halls of Superjail were blurring by, so I couldn't make heads or tails of our location. Finally, though, the robot slowed down, slowly coming to a stop in front of the door I recognized as the one to the Warden's office.
Carefully sliding of his back, I turned to Jailbot and smiled at him.
"Hey, thanks for the ride," I said to him. To my immediate surprise, two of Jailbot's metallic arms sprang out, one from each compartment, and gripped me in what I supposed was a hug. His face changed to a blinking neon green heart.
"Um, thanks, Jailbot, but… uh… I can't breathe…" I struggled to say as he crushed me against his metal side. Realizing I was having a hard time, Jailbot sheepishly withdrew the arms, and I dropped to the ground. His features turned glum.
"Hey, it's fine, no harm done," I said, before turning to the door, "Now if you'll excuse me; I have an 'appointment'." And before Jailbotcould give me any more hugs or something, I opened the door and slipped in.
That robot's cute and all, but I think he likes me waaaaay too much, I thought as I went in. Once inside the LSD-infused office, I noticed the Warden wasn't here yet, he probably tricked me or something. Gah, I knew I couldn't trust him!
Just then, though, the Warden made his entrance.
"HOLY JESUS!!!" I sprang back instantly as a giant rainbow shot through the panoramic window, shattering a good part of it. A few moments later, the Warden came in, sliding down the rainbow and landing before me.
"Heh, did you enjoy my ingress?" he purred to me, before taking off his hat and allowing the rainbow to slither on inside of it, which probably broke a few more laws of physics right there.
"That was freaking scary…" I muttered, rubbing my temples once again.
"Now now, no need for criticism," Warden said, before walking over and sitting down on his desk.
"Shut up, Warden," I snapped, "Just tell me what this little 'job' is."
"Say please," he replied cheekily. I rolled my eyes.
"Fine… please tell me what this little job is," I snarled, getting very exasperated very quickly.
"Okee-dokee," he said, before finally explaining to what I had been waiting so long for, "I've decided you'll make a great assistant." I blinked.
"I get to be an assistant?" I repeated, "For whom?"
"Why, me, of course!" the Warden sprang up and did another on of those wiggle-moves over to me, "I came to the conclusion that you can be my personal assistant!" my eyes widened.
"I get to be your assistant?" I said, crestfallen, "What the hell does a personal assistant for you even do?"
"I dunno, I haven't had one before," he said simply, before wrapping his almost-elastic arm around me, "But, eh, I'll think you'll manage."
"That's a little disturbing…" I murmured, looking at his noddleish arm, before snapping back to attention, "Well, fine, since you don't really seem to know what I'm supposed to do for you right now, can go back to my room?" The Warden's arm reeled back to normal size, and he shrugged.
"If you wish," he said, before smiling mysteriously, "Oh, and on the subject of that room… let's just say I think you'll like what you see there over the next couple of days." I raised a curious eyebrow, but didn't question what he meant. Instead, I simply turned and walked out of the office.
"Call me when you've finally figured out what I have to do," I hissed on the way out.
Once outside, I let out a deep sigh. Of all the jobs in the world, I had to be stuck being the assistant of the most insane person in the area, and he didn't even know what I was suppose to do! What a job that was, huh? I hope I'm getting paid for this.
"Well, I guess it could've been worse," I mused as I headed back to my quarters, "I could've been Alice's assistant."
Like I said, I really like this chapter. Dana's power is revealed, she gets a new "job", and the Warden's treating her a bit better. Of course, all good things comes to end an end, some things quicker than others. But that's later. WE GOTTA LIVE IN THE PRESENT, PEOPLE! (coughs)
...The part with Emily, inside the cell, that came from a picture I once drew of my Weavile with a severed arm sticking out of her mouth, with the exlcaimed question-and answer of "Is that an arm?" and "Maybeh". It stuck, and here it is now.
Did you find the foreshadowing? It's there alright, and the stuff it's hinting at is coming up soon. One of the things described is... next chapter, I believe. Speak of the devil, I haven't quite typed the next chapter up yet, but I'm working on it. :P
So, hope you like these first three chapter, and I've got more coming soon!
R&R now, yo. ;D