After the implementation of that new kill-three-per-day rule, it was clear that, despite their dispositions of cowardice, the animals were partaking in the game.
For some, this need for survival is merely a subconscious reflex that has yet to be recognised by its owner. True, survival instincts are comprised of both fight and flight, but at some point, each individual animal has tried to detriment another, having succumb to desperate selfishness. Drifblim flew away. Absol ran away. Manectric ran away. But now, flight can no longer possibly apply.
It has come to be an important question of several psychologists. Is everyone capable of killing? Well, why not? It's a known fact that each species is born with an identical duty, and that is to survive (and maybe reproduce as well). If being assertive is imperative to one's survival, one shall be assertive lest he or she dies off! The need for survival is a built-in mechanism found in all animals. If running away is appropriate, then one runs away. If fighting is appropriate, like if someone is cornered, then it is only natural for them to chew his or her way out of that situation.
This is a situation that relies on fighting now. There's no more running. The animals must confront each other.
Drifblim abandoned everyone. Absol is now one of the most aggressive animals on the island. Manectric, well—he's on his way to becoming the most psychotic animal on the island; his violent, erratic, and oddly schizophrenic behavior is his contributing detriment to the community. It's best to avoid this canine, as his will to survive has been kicked into turbo drive. Of course, there are other animals who are evidently hostile. Lucario's plan is to disarm as many opponents as she can. Kangaskhan and several others will do anything, anything for water. As for Umbreon and Gengar, they'd presumably be plotting to somehow override Absol's tyranny—provided the two of them are still currently alive.
Ah, but the children, Pichu, Eevee, and #13: Whismur ... They could hold the last remaining innocence. After all, they aren't developed enough to even comprehend this predicament yet. Unfortunately, this fact may be disadvantageous to them.
Though all the animals are becoming more violent and feral, the most heinous creatures are the ones looking down on them, several thousand miles away. These creatures watch the island of Okishima, displayed on various screens from the safety of a technological base on Quinalasag Island. Currently, only two creatures monitor the screens, as it is quite late at night.
These creatures are known formally as humans. They're two-legged beings who dominated the planet with their overwhelming power and intelligence. Unlike the animals, these two humans glued to the screens have patterned skins that they shed and replace with skins of a different pattern each day. Apparently, it is "indecent" of them to expose their bodies without these skins like animals do, even though their bodies aren't usually concealed in their entirety. Under their skins is a fleshy and moldable membrane that can be found in different colors, depending on the human's endemic pigment default based on locations the human is raised in. The membrane protects the internal organs whose only purpose is to protect and sustain the human's nervous system, rendering the human one of the most unnecessary wastes of space and resource consumption, whereas most animals benefit the earth.
One of the humans is male, while the other is female. Much like most animals, the male has dangling reproductive organs while the female's are hidden within the body. However, the female's breasts are clearly visible and protrusive, serving not only as nourishers for infants but "sexual appeal" to grown males.
Humans are odd creatures, but they usually don't interact much with animals nowadays. They mostly keep to themselves, staying put on their islands while animals are free to roam on islands known by the humans as "animal sanctuaries." Thus, many humans have never seen an animal before.
These two humans seem to be fascinated by them, though. Having been involved in the project where the animals were shipped to the island of Okishima, they had a chance to see animals up close, and now they're involved in the animal experiment.
The male stretches tiredly and says, "I think it'd be a good time to notify the animals how many of them have died since the day started."
The female replies, "How would we do that? Send another Fat Man over?"
Another thing that humans have in contrast to animals is their form of individual specification. Each human has a name accompanying their unique appearance. The male's name is Jack. The female's is Nat.
Jack turns around in his chair. "Well, that's the only option we have, seeing as we've lost communication with the original Fat Man—not to mention I kill..." he lets out a short, interrupting sob, "I killed the only one with telepathy."
"Jack! You killed the alakazam? You're costing this organization money!" Nat promptly gets out of her chair, sighing. She glides gracefully towards the telephone by the room's door.
Jack watches her lift the phone to her ear. He turns back to the screen and holds his head in his hands, brooding. "Why'd I do that to the alakazam?" he asks himself. "Why'd I do that?" It was an impulse. Jack knew, though, that once this experiment was over, he'd live the rest of his life feeling guilty and remorseful. He'd be a rich man however, and he'd be safe too, safe from being prosecuted by his highly powerful supervisors.
"Hello? It's Nat. We need another communications unit deployed pronto ... Actually, can you get it to me first and I deploy it...? That's fine, thanks."
Jack watches the map screen intently. On the screen, there are sixteen red dots scattered around within the outline of Okishima. None of them are moving. On the screen above, the sound pulses of each animal are displayed, being transmitted directly from the collars on their necks. "They must all be asleep," Jack says quietly, a faint smile on his face. When he looks at the map screen again, he notices one of the dots moving rapidly. It speeds up the west coast and towards the northern mountain range where is meets up with a pack of dots near the peak of one mountain. The dot comes to a stop. "What the hell is going on?" Jack says, noting that for an animal to move that fast it must have wings. After an uneventful minute, Jack notices the pulses above. Three of them are sped up three times as fast as they were. Back on the map screen, Jack watches as the dot briskly overlaps the three presumable owners of the rapid pulses and speeds off away from the mountain. Just like that, three dots are gone.
"What's happening?" Nat asks, returning to her station.
"I don't know," Jack replies. "Some of the animals just disappeared."
"Which animals? Give me their details."
"Uh, L3-09"
Nat taps the keyboard in front of her. She gasps. "That one's the pichu. Who else?" She blinks uncontrollably.
"Erm, L3-10," Jack says, his voice shaky.
"That's...the whismur."
"I think one of them just kidnapped all the young ones. I saw it," Jack claims, gesturing to the screen somewhat excitedly. "It kind of swooped down and absorbed all three of the dots." He frowns slightly, giving Nat a compassionate glance before looking at the floor. "Didn't you like the pichu?"
"I—well I sort of raised her since she hatched," Nat replies, her hair falling in front of her face. "She took a liking to me, something that all the others did not." She grows pale as a flurry of vivid memories overwhelm her. "I was hoping she'd be the one to survive," she admits after a minute of silently sulking. "But now it doesn't look like that'll happen."
A man in teal uniform appears in the doorway. "Fat man," he calls before wheeling an open crate into the room. He sets it down with the wheeler still underneath it. Inside, a capsule identical to the capsule on the island is mostly submerged in styrofoam packing. The man in uniform exits the room nonchalantly.
"What are you planning to do with it?" Jack questions suspiciously.
"I'm putting food and water in."
Jack leaps up and grabs Nat by the shoulders before she can move. With a stern glare, he asserts, "Now, we've talked about this already, Natalie. You cannot mess this up for us. Our new bosses will have us by the balls if you try to interfere with the experiment in anyway."
"Get off me, please," Nat says, wiggling free from Jack's grasp. "I...I don't know why I let them turn this once peaceful organization into something as horrible and murderous as this. It's disgusting how you feel no sense of resentment after you've worked to help these animals for the better of two years, and now you're just allowing people to overtake our organization and change its purpose."
"It's not like that, though. Don't be stu—"
"Jack. You're disgusting."
Jack is quiet for a moment. "Fine," he says eventually. "Do what you want, but I have nothing to do with it." He swiftly leaves the room, leaving an odd tension in the air. In the hallway, Nat hears him bump into the hardware administrator. "Er, 'scuse me," he mutters. Lightening up slightly, he says, "Oh, did you have the thing programmed?"
"Yes, Jack. It's ready to go, and the communications mechanism has been modified, according to the programmers. Hopefully we won't lose touch with this one."
Nat tunes them out as she gets to work unscrewing the tip of the capsule. Feeling shameful, she takes the uneaten food which she and Jack were provided with for their late night shift, wraps it up in a table cloth, and stuffs it inside the capsule. Attached to the inner wall of the capsule is a small modding box that controls communications and capsule presets, one preset being the "deploy mechanism." Nat turns on the preset and sighs. With this set, the contents of the capsule will shoot out upon contact with the ground.
Outside, the two men still drone about the capsule.
Nat figures they'll be talking for quite some time, as men do, so she pulls a polaroid from her pocket and looks at it morosely.
"See you around."
"Right."
Nat's face flushes as she hears the administrator approaching. Finished talking already? Without thinking, Nat drops the picture into the capsule and slams the tip back on.
"Hey, Nat?" The man appears in the doorway. He gives a questioning look as the woman hides behind her hair, continuing to screw the tip back on. "Uh, you okay?"
"Uh, I-I'm fine, thanks for asking."
The administrator, without moving from the doorway, tries to peer inside the crate. "Why did you open it?"
"Making sure everything was set and ready to go…"
" 'Kay. Nat, why don't you let me take it and I'll send it off. You've got to monitor the island while Jack's gone." He moves to the handles of the wheeler, urging Nat further away.
"Oh, o-okay."
"Okay? You alright, Nat?"
"Yes. I'm fine."
"You sure? You seem exhausted. Didn't you eat any food?"
Nat tenses up. "Yes," she states simply.
The administrator begins to turn his head towards the food table. Seeing this, Nat clutches his shoulder opposite to the table and says, "You should get this thing to the island soon."
"Oh, right! It's nearly twelve!" He wheels the crate out of the room in a hurry, mumbling about the crate's missing top.
Nat sighs, returns to her desk, and collapses in her chair phlegmatically. "Uhhh! I chose the worst time to have nostalgia," she moans, thinking about the polaroid she dropped into the capsule. "…I'm so fired."
#01: Charizard
#02: Alakazam (blown up)
#03: Gengar
#04: Kangaskhan
#05: Eevee (?)
#06: Pichu (?)
#07: Umbreon
#08: Miltank (devoured)
#09: Sceptile
#10: Whismur (?)
#11: Sableye
#12: Manectric
#13: Armaldo
#14: Absol
#15: -
#16: Drifblim (exited perimeters)
#17: -
#18: Lucario
#19: -
#20: Braviary (neck snapped)