On the island, there is no longer one large group, but several, small groups that have scattered around during the previous day's chaos, although the union's strung-out dissolution had started from day one. Now everyone was either alone or accompanied by, on average, no more than two others. This separation was a terrible idea for the vulnerability it resulted in and the animals knew it—or rather it wasn't an idea, but much more of a flustered decision; the unknown predator in the woods who had already slaughtered one of the animals could now strike one of the small groups at any moment and pick them off one by one. But who was the predator? More importantly, who will it decide to victimize?
"In the midst of all the chaos, I couldn't tell if anyone was hurt," groans #12: Manectric. "I was too disoriented because someone was shrieking in my ear. I'm pretty sure my right ear's deaf now."
"I think it got someone," replied #02: Alakazam solemnly. "I saw...a flash of something, then a torrent of blood was discharged from someone."
"Really?" Manectric lays in front of Alakazam curiously. "Aren't you supposed to be really, really smart? Who was it? You gotta know."
"I'm going to say...Miltank. She was killed. By who, I don't know."
Manectric frowned, suddenly losing what little spirit was left. "But...what're we gonna drink?"
"Water."
"Pff," the canine scoffs. "What water?"
Alakazam, too apprehensive to continue the chilling topic, chooses to digress. "Do you remember Absol and Kangaskhan's dispute about Miltank? Absol was...incensed after that, and so he disappeared, probably holding a grudge against the two of them."
"You think Absol's the murderer?" asks Manectric. "I mean, I think it's totally plausible, considering how much he wanted to eat Miltank. Does that mean he's going to target Kangaskhan next?"
"Kangaskhan's just as meaty as Miltank was."
"Sh-should we help her!?"
"There's not much we can do. In the meantime..." Alakazam tears a chunk from his bag and begins to nibble on it.
The two have temporarily resided in the hollow of a bush on the southeastern edge of the island. This area is particularly teeming with dense foliage, making it the darkest quadrant of the island. Even if it were daytime, this forest would be enshrouded in a perpetual darkness, only accented by the gloomy reflecting tint of the canopy and underbrush. However, it isn't long before the canine notices there is actually something visible in the distance. Peeking out through the holes of the bush, he can make out something that sends a chill down his back. "Alakazam," he breathes, his voice getting to be a little raspy. "I see two red eyes staring at us."
Alakazam is immediately attentive, peeking out the hole alongside Manectric. Sure enough, there are two dots of light a little ways from their shelter. They are glistening like rubies, hovering in the middle of the pitch black forest, and they seem to be locked directly on the duo!
"A-Alaka—"
Alakazam hushes the manectric. "Who is that? Who has eyes like that?"
"It's Absol," Manectric blurts out. "He's targeted us!" He struggles to get to his feet and exit the bush. He ends up stumbling over Alakazam and getting entangled in the branches. Alakazam seizes his head and clamps his snout shut while he continues to writhe around and attempt to scream out.
"What light are those eyes reflecting?" Alakazam wonders. "Unless they're—ow!" He looks to the squirming canine then back to where the eyes were, but they're gone. "He heard us; he's on the move..." His heart rate quickening, he looks down at the canine in anger. Bastard's putting my life at stake! he thinks. "Manectric, you need to keep quiet..."
Manectric attempts to shake his head and continues to wiggle around, making muffled cries for help. Then, a tingling sensation shoots up Alakazam's arm. Manectric's fur stands on end and begins to crackle with little flashes of white light. Such is the way of the electric-type.
"Arrgh! Manectric, if you persist, I'll...I'll..." He feels his hands position themselves around the canines head, all the while keeping a strong grip on the snout. Reluctantly entering desperate-survival-mode, he briefly considers snapping the Manectric's neck, but, horrified by such a thought, dismisses it and lets go, figuring the panicking canine had already too far compromised their safety.
Manectric leaps into the wall of branches, immediately getting trapped once again. Alakazam looks around, but to his amazement, the eyes are still nowhere to be seen.
"A sableye would have eyes like that, crystalline eyes that produce their own light," he muses.
"A sableye?" Manectric repeats from where he's suspended.
"A sableye," Alakazam confirms wisely. "I sense he's lost something. He's not hostile, I don't think, but by God, don't look into his eyes for too long."
"What'll—ack! What'll happen?"
"Just shut up for a moment." The two of them keep quiet and listen closely. There is no sign of Sableye. He must've continued on in search of something. Neither of the duo could really recall seeing Sableye before, so this was a not-so-pleasant surprise for them.
"I can't hear—," Manectric begins before he is cut off by a concerned Alakazam.
"You hear that...?"
A buzzing. It sounds similar to a tiny dentist drill about to bore through a tooth. Then, a little spurting noise followed by a pop emits from Alakazam's neck. He stiffens up, his eyes bulging, feeling himself being stifled as something opens up internally and a stream of liquid rushes down his throat. Suddenly, despite his unchanging face, he begins to speak, his words booming and slightly distorted.
"Tsk tsk tsk. All of you are such disappointments!" Alakazam roars, his body beginning to give off a candescent aura. "Never before have I had such a rebellious bunch!" His body arches backwards painfully as if he were being possessed. "It's been nearly two weeks and there's still more than ninety percent of you little pests left."
It then occurs to Manectric that Alakazam is being controlled by his collar, which is, in turn, presumably being controlled by some unknown outside source. "Oh, oh no!" he cries, frantically scrutinizing the collar so he can disarm it before it ineluctably explodes or tightens or whatever.
"So, I've decided to implement a new rule: at least three of you must die per day. That's all I ask. It's not that bad," Alakazam cajoles sweetly as if to euphemize murdering three animals a day. It is apparent that his collar is forcing him to say words, words which are probably then broadcasted throughout the entire island through his telepathy (the power to transmit speech mentally, an endemic shared by most psychic-types), meaning every animal must be receiving the memo. "Failing to comply with my rules will result in a very messy boom."
Manectric spots the thin drill, serving as a conduit between Alakazam's neck and the collar. It drew a little blood upon entering his neck, but Manectric believes it hadn't done too much damage. (Obviously, he can't see the internal damage.) And so, he begins to claw at the collar, pulling it towards him in hopes that the drill will be extracted doing Alakazam no further harm while at the same time silencing the bastard outside source.
"Quit your whining!" Alakazam yells. "Look, because I'm nice, I'll give you all a head start for the day and finish off your friend," the outside source said, referring to Alakazam. "Then you'll only have two to kill for the day."
"No! Don't you dare!" Manectric screams, pulling at the drill harder.
"Good luck, have fun, and, most importantly, don't disappoint me."
"Arghh!" Manectric hears a satisfying pop as the collar finally bends and shifts, exuding the drill from Alakazam's flesh.
Alakazam blinks, seemingly back to normal.
Manectric huffs and sighs. "Alakazam, are you alright?"
Unfortunately, removing the drill did nothing towards disarming the collar; it goes off, but instead of cleanly blowing Alakazam's head up, it blasts half the skin off his head and sends his right arm flying through the branches of the bush. This is the result of Manectric tampering with the collar and bending it. Manectric is stunned. He stares at the mangled head while it still emits a combination of bright aura and light from the little embers seamed into the flesh. The white of his skull is visible and his right eye has been detached. The light quickly fades away until everything is dark again, even Manectric's electric coat.
"Oh-hh-hhh," Manectric whines, picking away the bits of flesh from his face.
Alakazam groans loudly and swallows to clear his throat. "M-my head hurts!" he sobs like a child. "Mane'tri', my head! Is it bad?"
"Oh my God!" Manectric yelps, scuffling away from Alakazam.
"Where are you?" He's crying hard, trying to feel around for the canine but is too discombobulated to crawl. He continuously swallows so as to keep his esophagus from flooding with blood, but the hole that the drill made isn't within the bounds of his throat. Thus, his swallowing does nothing to help and his voice is nonetheless reduced to a gurgle. "Please, it hurts so bad ... What happen'?"
Manectric, too, is crying, but out of fear. Without saying anything, he pushes through the branches, ripping up his fur, and crawls out the other side. He scampers away, bumping into trees as he goes.
"Mane'tri'," Alakazam spurts silently, lying down on the ground, "please don't leave me!"
Gengar fiddles with his collar up on the mountain. Because he doesn't really have much of a neck to speak of, the collar is much wider and thinner.
"Geng. Can't you just disappear and escape from the collar?"
"Umbreon, I already tried that about a billion times. These collars are, like, a part of us. It's unreal!" He begins to pace the area, ruminating aloud. "Wherever I go, it comes with, even when I dissipate. It's immune to all ghost-type moves ... It's indestructible. Umbreon."
"What."
"Remember when the sceptile nearly took her collar off?"
"Erg," Umbreon uttered contemptuously. "I hate her. Yeah, I remember. What of it? Hey, why don't you slip your collar off like she did?"
"Obviously I would have tried that already, but there's something bugging me about it. When the sceptile moved it from her neck, it started beeping. I feel like touching the collar the tiniest bit would be enough to set it off. Or, if the collar is separated from its wearer, it goes off, as if the collar needs to be attached to some source of organic energy."
"So...we can't get out of this, can we?" Umbreon asks, his ears drooping morosely.
"Umbreon," gengar begins, watching Umbreon with a grave expression. "We have to kill them."
"What?"
"As far as I know, we're near the only fresh water spring on the island. That's why we're taking residence on this hillside."
Umbreon recalls how, when they were ostracized from the group days before, the two of them searched and searched for a suitable area. This spring was the only water source they saw.
"This is a huge advantage for us," Gengar continues. "If they find our spring, we can dispatch them when they're drinking. Otherwise, if they don't find this spring at all, they'll dehydrate and die."
Umbreon is disgusted. "Gengar, you...you can't ... What about the miltank though?"
"You ate the miltank!" Gengar yells abruptly. He reaches into his bag and pulls out his knife, a small army knife that's probably too small to easily kill someone and is more practical for camping out. "This must be done."
Umbreon quivers at the thought of what would happen if they were the last two survivors on the island. He decides not to bring it up and instead continues to whine anxiously. "But Gengar, I...I wouldn't be able to!"
"What a pathetic dark-type you are. You bring shame to us dark-types."
Umbreon looks sincerely hurt. "Gengar, why are you doing this?"
"Keh-heh?"
It then occurres to Umbreon that Gengar is not a dark-type, despite what the voice had said. The voice. Whose voice was that if it wasn't Gengar's? "You didn't say that, did you?"
"Say the thing before, about the dark-types?" the ghost replies innocently. "No, n-no..." He finds himself searching his surroundings warily, fiddling with his thick fingers in a jittery manner.
"And you, Ghost." Again comes the voice, which had done quite a good job impersonating Gengar's before. "You say you're going to kill the other animals, but you're just as scared as the umbreon. Pah!"
From the darkness emerges a white form, casually strolling forward, closing in on the cowering duo. The form, with its keen eyes, focuses on the remnants of Umbreon's dinner. "I see you finished Miltank before I had the chance to," it says, a hint of mock despair in its voice.
"Absol," Gengar hisses. He and umbreon exchange glances, knowing they're both in trouble.
"I heard what you said before, about how this is the only fresh water on the island."
Gengar clutches his knife tightly. He grimaces and nods. "What of it?" he asks bitterly.
"Well," Absol begins, pacing the rocky area while his fur waves about in the ethereal breeze, "seeing as you two are clearly mentally unfit for killing, I'll handle it for you, if you allow me access to the spring." He pauses and raises a brow at the two, waiting for a response. He acknowledges Gengar's doubt and begins to march forward.
"Why should we give you—" the ghost starts but quickly shuts up when Absol, without hesitation, lunges and swipes at Gengar's hand. A discomforting, metallic ring sounds as the army knife becomes airborne and disappears off the edge of the cliff. Gengar wordlessly looks from the cliff to Absol's paw, where a cursory yet apparently effective blade had been annexed onto one of his fingers, making him a huge threat, should he cast any paroxysms upon the two.
"Because I will murder you if you refuse!" Absol blares. "They threw you out and left you to fend for yourselves in the wilderness because of a stupid type-based presumption that all dark and ghost-types are bent on killing." He walks to the edge of the cliff and gazes at the body of the island. After a moment, he says, "They would deserve for that presumption to come true."
#01: Charizard
#02: Alakazam (blown up)
#03: Gengar
#04: Kangaskhan
#05: -
#06: Pichu
#07: Umbreon
#08: Miltank (devoured)
#09: Sceptile
#10: -
#11: Sableye
#12: Manectric
#13: Armaldo
#14: Absol
#15: -
#16: Drifblim (exited perimeters)
#17: -
#18: Lucario
#19: -
#20: Braviary