Author notes: Hello everyone again! Here's chapter 14. I warn you, this chapter is not for the faint of heart. So yeah… I don't have much to say. I will keep the rest for my blog (point at my homepage link in my profile again). Have fun and enjoy this chapter!

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Chapter 14: Living Nightmare

Night was strong over the vast forests surrounding Mt. Moon, the sun still shy about showing itself. In less than an hour, its light would come and announce the beginning of a new day. For some, whose luck had failed them, this day would never come, and for others, it had already begun. The latter was the daily reality of a small group of individuals. As soon night came, they began scouting the woods tirelessly in search of their targets. To anyone giving even only a short glance at them, deducing that these people were not your usual hikers would be painfully easy. Geared in forest themed camouflage uniforms, complete with heavy-duty boots, they were quite intimidating. Had this been the only thing they were wearing though, one could have said they were only strange men practicing some kind of action sport. A closer look at the rest of their equipment immediately disproved this theory. On their belts were clinched a few gas grenades and a handgun, on their torso were two lines of darts and bullets, and on their backs, rested a large tranquilizer gun, equipped with a sniper scope and a silencer. Obviously, these men were not tourists. By looking at the Kanto army emblem marked at several spots on their uniform, there could be no more doubt about who they were.

Of course, you wouldn't have seen this particular group. Not that they were especially secret as a group, but they acted strategically and only during the night. During that time of the day, travelers were a rare sight, and those entering the area had already been identified and avoided. None of them had been, after all, their target. The regiment, composed of twenty soldiers, was split into two groups. The first group, the scouts, was made of roughly fifteen soldiers, positioned at strategic positions all around the perimeter. From their hidden spots, they were in charge of looking for any intruder, of identifying them and alerting the second group about their position and the actions to take against them, if necessary. This second division, made of three groups of five persons, was the tactical intervention team. Equipped with more communication and high-tech exploration tools than their scouting counterparts, they searched every inch inside the designated area each night, looking for their target. The eyes of the scouts and the tools of the tactical teams made them almost invisible, free to work toward completing their mission. They weren't any closer to achieving that goal though, as they were still here every night, wasting their time and sleep, again and again.

"I swear this is the last night we spend in this bloody forest. It's been one week already and there's been no sign of the targets. Command should come up with a better tactic than this." said Sergent Stemper, head of the regiment and a member of the one of the intervention teams. A long experienced soldier and leading figure in many important missions and wars though the years in the name of Kanto, the older man was still trying to figure out the reasons for their presence here in the first place. Sure, Command had been insistent on the importance of capturing this girl and her Pikachu, and was paying them a hefty bonus to compensate them for their trouble, but there was no real reason to. Their leader had been silent on the subject. All they knew was that this girl was potentially dangerous and had to be intercepted when she crossed this area. At the same time, according to the research he had done on the girl's past, she was no wanted criminal and had never done anything wrong, other than exploring a few ruins that were classified as hazardous. Not that the latter was a crime in itself, per se, as it was just a plain stupid thing to do. If each idiot in the region had a regiment assigned to check on them, there wouldn't be anyone to protect the region. To Stemper, this mission was highly illogical and was a huge waste of his time and his men. This opinion, as valid it was, wasn't shared by everyone, especially not the man next to him.

"Sergent, you know it's our duty to obey orders from Command. If they have a reason to believe our targets may be dangerous, they're probably right. Besides, it's possible that these are just people with information that might interest the higher-ups. The girl's explored ruins, hasn't she? I'd bet you fifty bucks that she has something to hide." replied the taller and feebler looking man. It was a well known fact among the team that this man would do anything to defend the army's interests, no matter what; a behavior that mostly explained his presence on this special team, despite his young age. He wasn't in any way perfect, though. Like everyone else, he was tired of this mission that never seemed to end, but he preferred to stay positive about it and tell himself that they might unexpectedly find their targets by turning around the next corner. Coincidently enough, the man couldn't be more right.

As they made their way though the dense vegetation, each person was wearing night vision goggles, permitting stealthy searches without the use of light, effectively keeping them hidden. It was with these pricy tools that they reached a familiar open area. By far the largest field within their search perimeter, it was the ideal place to set up a tent for the night. And, as it turned out, there happened to be tent in the middle of the field, about fifty feet away from them. Upon seeing this, the tall man smiled weakly, turning to Stemper again as he pointed the tent with his arm. "See? There's something after all. Didn't I tell you yesterday that today would be our lucky day, Sergent? You owe me twenty bucks." snickered the young man. He was an avid gambler and, after a few days in the woods, he had successfully convinced Stemper to play this little game out of boredom. It was far from acceptable, but this mission was a joke anyway. Their bonus had to have some use. "Don't get your hopes too high, Mr. I-bet-more-often-than-I-please-my-wife. We don't even know who's in there, but I intend to change that." he whispered jokingly to the man, his tone more serious toward the end. At last, they might finally get to do what they were paid for, and complete their objective, and be done with this ridiculous mission. The latter was the only real thing motivating Stemper, though.

With a faintly hidden eagerness, the higher graded soldier quickly traded his night vision goggles for a different pair. This new one, using red tinted lenses and a sensitive filtering and computing system, was designed to make visible a specific range of electromagnetic waves, those in the infrared bands. Since every living creature emitted infrared radiation, as a result of the energy use and dissipation inside their bodies, their outline would clearly contrast with their cold environment. From there, identifying the species of the creatures was a piece of cake. Even if the outlines didn't tell you much for some reason, the differences in energy production between species made a good replacement indicator. It was these differences that the Sergeant was looking for.

At first sight, there was nothing particularly strange about this tent. It contained four living creatures, one human and three Pokémon. However, one of the Pokémon was emitting an abnormal level of infrared, catching the attention of the man. Examining the Pokémon more closely, he noticed an increasing amount of energy coming from the opposite sides of what seemed to be the Pokémon's head. His doubts were confirmed when this building energy was released around it, its sudden movements displaying the trademark lightning-bolt shaped tail momentarily. "Wait a sec..." he whispered slowly, looking at the person again. This higher amount of heat near the person's midsection and chest were obvious signs that this person was a girl. "A Pikachu and a girl... oh, damn it! We may have just found them, at last!" he shouted with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, receiving curious and mildly annoyed glares from the four other men. Stemper wasn't fazed though, taking a straight and commanding pose. "Team, the time for subtlety is over. It's time to put an end to this ridiculous mission."

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Resting against a tree, Sparktail was having the best time of his life. Everywhere around him were piled incredible amounts of berries, apples and other delicacies of every size and kind. The sun was shining, keeping the air warm, but not too much so it would become uncomfortable, thanks to a good dose of wind blowing through his fur. The tree, serving both as something as a great surface to rest on and protection against the blinding light of the sun, was simply perfect. The best thing about all of this was that even with all that food far away from him, he didn't need to move to eat it, because he had Jen to take care of that. She was sitting in front of him, feeding him everything he asked for like a servant or a slave. He only had to stay there and keep eating non-stop, which was what he had been doing for a good thirty minutes already. As if to add to his pleasure, Sunny and Kagai were tied to a tree and forced to watch him eat without being able to reach the small mountain of fresh meat he had placed only inches away from their grasp. They had begged him to give them some food, but all they got in the end was to be muzzled by Jen, on his orders. This perfect world was only a dream made up of his most selfish thoughts, but at the moment, Sparktail didn't care. It was his world, his universe, his fantasy, and nothing could get in the way. Or so he thought.

Midway through an apple, the hungry mouse noticed a strange shape flickering in and out of existence near the vixens. Since he had no idea what this thing was, he ordered Jen to explain it to him, but she gently replied that she didn't know. It was with a childish pout that he shrugged if off, going back to his enjoyable feeding. The event had seemed to be a thing of the past, but it returned thirty seconds later, the strange shape flickering again, stronger this time. In addition, the distortion had bent space around it, giving off the impression that something was trying to destroy the fabric of his universe. He asked Jen again about it, his voice more hasty and pressing, but she remained mute. It wasn't that she didn't want to answer, but the girl was now frozen in time, as was the world around her, making any talk impossible. Taking notice of the bad state his world had entered, the Pikachu angrily stared at the deformation. He had no choice now; he had to fix the problem by himself and make that… thing… understand that his world was not a plaything to be toyed with.

Lazily, the pikachu rose from a seat made of his own fat, slowly and painfully. In his dream, he had eaten so much that there was literally an unhealthy mountain of fat around him. However, since the mechanics of his perfect universe weren't yet affected by the strange distortion, his fat weighed almost nothing, but it still impaired his motions. With slow steps, the chubby little Pikachu walked to the immaterial disturbance, which was now shaped like a gaping hole tearing his world apart and threatening to swallow it whole as it grew stronger. Confident that his power over his world would be sufficient to make this being bow down to his will, Sparktail stopped a few inches from it, and pointing an accusing finger at it, he gave it his angriest stare. "Hey! Whatever you are! Stop breaking my world! Get your own!" he shouted at it, receiving no response. Only more annoyed by the tendencies of this hole to ignore him, the mouse growled loudly, trying in vain to scare the dimensional hole away. Eventually realizing that his words were reaching deaf ears, he tried a more direct approach. His cheeks lit up, sparking flying between them at an increasing rate, until they were numerous enough to form a single flow of energy that shook the hole with power, but it did very little to destroy it. Very much the opposite, the electrons mixed with it in perfect unison, resulting in a blinding explosion of light and chaos growing from the hole and expanding around him. When the sound resulting from the explosion had toned down and the light had diminished, a normal looking Sparktail was left alone in the black void of his mind with a hole still taunting him with its presence, though it looked differently now. Instead of flickering, it was now solidifying, becoming the form of an unknown human. Its striking features, or rather the complete lack of them on what seemed to be a basic template of a man, made recognition impossible. "Capture. Pikachu. Girl. Mission. Boring. Capture. Pikachu. Girl. Mission. Boring..." it said, using a voice as robotic and cold as its body was. The man was repeating himself, but the more Sparktail listened to the words, the less sense it seemed to make. Before Sparktail could ask it to explain what it was trying to say, the world faded away in a burst, his consciousness transported to another place, another world.

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Panting heavily, cheeks sparking, Sparktail sat up quickly and glanced around nervously. It was still dark around him, but the comforting scents of Jen, Kagai and Sunny nearby told him that he was back in the safety of his tent, away from that horrible nightmare. His body was safe, at least, but his mind was still boggling around with the fresh memories of his nightmare. The shadow that he'd seen wasn't natural. It was a strange presence, something uncanny that hadn't really had a name or a shape. It appeared in his dream, true, but the rodent couldn't shake away the feeling that, no matter what dream he had been having, that thing would have been there. That strange deformation had later became a man, one that didn't really represent a specific individual. At best, it was a shape that basically represented what a human male would look like, with a voice that couldn't be associated with anyone either. It had sounded robotic, like an old record. The weirdest thing about it was its words, talking about capturing a Pikachu and a girl, and a mission. It just... it made no sense!

Frustrated, the Pikachu tried to forget about that dream. Strangely, it was easier than he'd thought it'd be, because his mind was apparently focused on something more pressing and dangerous. In the back of his mind, a voice was telling him to flee. That voice, running around his head since he had woken up, was screaming in panic, alerting him to a great threat that would soon fall upon him if he didn't run away immediately. Tired and feeling like dealing with imaginary voices and surrealist dreams would just be too much work, Sparktail concluded that taking a short walk outside might as well do him some good and satisfy that annoying voice. Beside, going back to sleep seemed impossible at the moment.

Stretching himself, Sparktail glanced around and tried to remember where everyone else was sleeping. The last thing he wanted was to wake one of them up and be scolded about being awake in the middle of the night, so he had to be careful. If nobody had moved since the last time he was awake (which was unlikely in Jen's case), then he had roughtly good idea of where everyone was. Kagai would be sleeping near the right side of the entrance, Sunny would be sleeping near the Umbreon and Jen, if she hadn't moved all around the tent in her sleep, should be still be behind him, unless his nose was betraying him. So, logically, all he had to do to get out safely was to move toward the left side of the entrance, push the zipper up and slip through the opening.

After he looked behind him once to make sure that Jen was still sleeping, the Pikachu nervously went back on two paws. In the dark, he could easily discern the entrance as being the only thing he could see, since his vision in the dark was pretty poor (as were most aspects of his vision). Making his move, Sparktail waddled toward the left part of the tent. He looked a bit stupid, moving cautiously like a teenager trying to walk out of his house unnoticed to go to a party while being grounded; but he managed to reach the thin door separating him from freedom of mind without any trouble. Upon reaching the door, he started to fiddle with the zipper, moving it up very slowly.

Despite the fact that he had tried to walk carefully and move the zipper slowly, his steps on the plastic floor and the friction of the zipper on the metallic teeth had still produced some noticeable sounds. While they were of no concern for most of the tent's occupants, they didn't go unnoticed by the sensitive ears of the Umbreon sleeping near the entrance, though this wasn't the only reason she picked up on them. The dark nocturnal Pokémon wasn't really in a deep slumber, since she was still forcing herself to sleep during the time of the day her senses were at their maximum efficiency. Those combined factors affected the predator during her nap, changing things a bit in her current dream, as well as bringing her a tad closer to consciousness. "Hmm... Sparky... stop being so annoying..." she muttered, half-sleeping.

The Pikachu froze right where he was, shuddering at hearing the voice. Anxiously, he turned around to face this newest obstacle between him and the outdoors. In the darkness of the tent, he couldn't see Kagai, but he heard her slow-paced, regular breathing. She looked to be sleeping, but with her, he knew better than to believe the first thing his senses told him. Too many times, only in the past week, had this Umbreon said something, only to switch sides later and do the exact opposite, resulting in him being annoyed greatly. He wouldn't run into that trap this time. If he had to suffer consequences for his acts, it would be his doing, not hers. "Err... Kagai... I'm just taking a walk outside. I will be back soon, I promise. Please don't tell Jen." he pleaded to the beast he believed to be awake and toying with him. She wasn't, of course, but his voice had been just what was needed to make Sparktail's hypothesis a reality. Annoyed by the squeaky sounds of his voice, the vixen lifted her head slowly, glancing intently at the mouse in a tired fashion. "Sparky... where are you going? I don't see the ball of light. Go back to sleep. Jen wouldn't like it." she ordered to Sparky, using a tone of voice which, while obviously reflecting her tiredness, left no doubt about the consequences there would be, should he refuse to comply.

In response, the mouse took a step back, feeling trapped and betrayed. How stupid could he be? By acting like Kagai had been playing a trick on him, he had woken her up and made things worse. Whereas he could have just slipped outside and avoided explaining his motives. At least, the first time he had spoken, Kagai's voice had seemed relaxed, which made him come out with a simple explanation that would have worked, had she really been awake. This time, her tone of voice wasn't exactly friendly and he would need a really good explanation to get away with it. There was just a little flaw with that plan: he had no way to explain himself. The real reason behind his actions, he couldn't really talk about, as he himself didn't understand why there was that voice in his head telling him to flee. If he was to tell Kagai that, she would call him crazy and prevent him from leaving. Maybe it was true that he was crazy or sleep deprived at the very least, but this Umbreon wouldn't decide what was good for him. If he had to lower himself to looking pitiful to leave… so be it. "I'm going outside because I don't feel well and I need to breathe some fresh air; it stinks in here. I'm not going far, just outside the nest's wall. Everything is going to be fine. So… can you keep that a secret between us, please?" he asked her in a pleading tone, forcing out a smile on his nervously shaking face. Even after he had spent a few days at her side, he couldn't completely shake away that instinctual fear of her, especially not in a precarious situation like this one.

Kagai, however, didn't care much about his explanations. She was tired and she wanted to get back to sleep. Arguing with the rodent wasn't something fun to do and, if he didn't want to listen to common sense, he could just do whatever he wanted, as long it meant she could sleep again. "Oh Sparky, just go ahead, be stupid and go outside alone. If you happen to get eaten, don't forget to shout my name so I can come help with the eating." she told Sparktail half-jokingly, closing her eyes again. In her own special way, she was wishing him good luck, but Sparktail had his own flawed interpretation. To him, Kagai was once again making fun of him with one of her usual nasty remarks. And as per usual, he ignored her and shrugged it off. As long she wasn't going to tell Jen about him running of in the middle of the night, he didn't care much about what she said about him. In the end, neither of them cared much about what the other thought or did, as long it didn't get in the way of their actions. It wasn't the best of relationship, but could it really be any different between a mouse and a vixen? Maybe, but Sparktail didn't care about that either. His focus was all on going through the opening he had made.

The zipper might be out of the way, but he still had to slip through a hole barely large enough to contain him and surrounded by a lot of rough little metallic teeth; it was no easy task. Bending down, he placed his forepaws outside the tent and tried to push himself out. His head got through easily, but it became trickier for his shoulders. The teeth rubbed against them, offering a resistance resulting in a few whimpers of pain. Wiggling against the metal, his body squirmed toward freedom, not without a few bruises and cuts, but it was worth it. That uncomfortable plastic ground was finally gone and replaced by a much softer grass bed. He was already feeling a bit better, as if being back in an environment his body preferred soothed his mind and freed it from some of its stress. It wouldn't suffice, unfortunately. The voice in his head hadn't yet shut up and was still giving off the impression that the farther from the tent he was, the safer it would become.

Statistically, it was within the tent that he had the highest chances of survival; not here, where danger was everywhere. This unusual contradiction between his logic and his guts was unseen. He was used to having feelings that defied logic, but they more than often pointed to the right logical answer, even if it didn't seem that way at first. This time, it was a feeling so powerful that he couldn't keep it from corrupting the logic of his brain. In short, the feeling was becoming a law of logic. It wanted him to run away from the tent, on the assumption that it was where safety was, and that was exactly what he'd do. By knowing how far he'd have to go, maybe it'd give him some insight on what was happening to him. The first hypothesis on the top of his list was that it was related to his skill that enabled him to feel other's emotions, but it had never manifested itself in a dream before. He'd woken up shooting a few sparks, but it could also have been caused by having been surprised by the nightmare; so it could be completely unrelated. But then again, if it wasn't that, what could it be? He couldn't have another secret impossible skill, could he?

Sitting up on two paws, the Pikachu looked around the clearing. Ahead, he barely acknowledged the presence of a darker area: the beginning of the woods. Actually, he was afraid of leaving the clearing since walking into the woods would mean avoiding trees, which would turn his straight line trajectory into a twisted one that would make him lose the way back to the nest. In a survivalist point of view, Sparktail could also say that he really didn't want to go to a place where predators were lurking in a greater amount, and where the light was even dimmer than it was here. Taking into consideration all of these facts, he decided that the darker area would be the first and last destination on his nocturnal trip. If he didn't find there what he was looking for, he would simply wait there until he had calmed down. If that didn't work … he rather didn't want to have to think about what he would have to do.

His eyes set on his destination, the Pikachu went back down to four paws and began to rush forward, accelerating until he reached a moderate speed. Keeping this speed, he ran across the field, only slowing down to tackle the more irregular portions of ground. It was really a unique feeling, the one of blindly running ahead into the unknown. With each step he made, the outcome could be vastly different from the preceding one. He could run into a rock or a tree, he could suddenly be going uphill, downhill or on rough terrain, or he could find himself reaching the darker area unexpectantly. So many outcomes, good and bad, but no way to know which kind would come next; his fate was decided by a throw of dices. This incertitude was both a source of worry and excitement, concepts that weren't compatible in the mind of the Pikachu. The love for extreme sensations and risks is a matter only the human mind can comprehend; in the state of mind Sparktail was finding himself in moments like this, where he left control of his body to his Pikachu instincts, those concepts lost all significant. In his head, the Pikachu was asking himself why putting his body at risk was fun, but he didn't try anything to prevent it. He was a driver with orders but no choice, a slave to higher orders from an unknown entity. This was, in a way, a good thing. Behind the cold and primitive logic of a Pikachu, Rick was still giving orders and the Pikachu was obeying without complaint. Granted, the human had less and less control every day, but for now, he could still be felt in some of the Pikachu's actions, which bothered the Pokémon. The human's presence in his mind wasn't something he understood and he was working hard on eliminating it. But each time the unknown presence resurfaced, he was greatly confused.

Fortunately, it didn't last much longer. The world around him quickly lost one shade of intensity, indicating that he'd reached his target. As he slowed down, human desires faded away with the speed, his mind returning to its Pikachu mindset with the gift of knowledge and intelligence, a Pikachu once again focused on finding the solution to his mental voice problem. Sparktail closed his eyes and tried to locate this horrible sick feeling inside of him again, but it was nowhere to be found this time. It was like he wasn't in danger anymore, as if moving to this particular point in space had solved the problem. Yet probing the grass around with his paw revealed that there wasn't anything different about this place. There was no reason that--

Almost as sudden as the apparition of a disturbance in his dream, the sound of a deflagration behind took him by surprise and forced him to hide behind the nearest tree. Something scary was happening and he had to flee from it. It wasn't long after that he realized that the sound was coming from behind him, and that behind him was… the nest! Worried about the safety of his nest, Sparktail poked his head from behind the tree to look at the nest. And what he saw... was something that he would have preferred to never have seen...

Surrounding the tent were five large creatures with green eyes that made light. Two of those creatures entered the tent and three new burst of sound came to his ears, barely audible. PSSST! PSSST! PSSST! If things weren't weird enough already, two rays of red light appeared momentarily in the darkness then vanished. Soon after that, the two creatures came out of the nest, dragging something he couldn't quite identify in the dark. Too scared to do anything, the Pikachu waited until the creatures spoke.

"Target identified and captured. There were an Umbreon and a Vulpix with her, but no trace of the Pikachu, Sergent." said one of the creatures in a language he knew well. "No Pikachu? " replied another one, in a cold voice. "Nonsense! He was here two minutes ago! Everyone search the area to find him!"

Sparktail kept staring at the scene, frozen by fear. Those creatures had done something to his friends and now they were trying to catch him too! He had to flee! He had to avoid capture! His friends were gone, but he was still there! He could still survive! This message in his head… it had been there to save him. Without it, he would have been captured too. The voices had wanted him to flee, as far away from the nest as he could. It made sense, now. His friends and his nest didn't matter. He would find new ones. At least he was still free, still kicking and alive. It was a sad thought to leave his friends behind, but if he survived, it would easily compensate for what he had lost. It was the voices that brought him here, that wanted him to survive… he wouldn't let their efforts be in vain. He had to run away in the dark until he couldn't run anymore. He had to move until he couldn't hear, smell or see the creatures. He had to hide in a hole and wait for things to be safe. Then, he would have to find a new nest. It was the perfect plan.

Acting only on instinct, the panicked rodent made his way across the woods slowly, barely avoiding trees and rocks on the way. As he tried to escape his invisible opponents, a strange feeling of deja-vu began to form in his mind. He had lived something similar to that before. It was a dream he had long ago, a dream he had almost forgotten about, but that seemed clear as crystal today. It wasn't exactly like this, but there were a lot of similarities. First of all, Jen wasn't in the dream. She had been gone and he had been looking for her. Secondly, he was in a situation where he had to survive and find his own food. This would probably be the same here. Finally, there had been the same kind of darkness. In his dream, it was the dark void he had appeared in while he was talking with Psywave. He wasn't exactly in a void here, but it was as if it was. But most importantly, there had been something else, something Psywave had said. He had shown him life as a wild Pikachu. Hadn't he taught him how to survive without a master? There were the berries, there was the water, there was... something else... if only he could remember what it was...

Eventually, it didn't even matter. He was in the middle of nowhere and lost. His friends were gone. He had no place to live anymore. The only good thing was that the creatures weren't around anymore. On the other paw, he now had no energy to spare. He was already tired from waking up in the night, but running for so long had drained the last of his energy. He had to proceed to the next part of his plan and find a hole to hide in. His survival depended on it. Slowing down to almost a complete halt, the Pikachu probed the trees around, searching for specific signs. On the third tree he explored, he found them. It was a small depression at the base of the tree, only deep enough for him to cuddle in a tight ball and lay there until morning. It would only hide half of his body into the ground, but the roots would help in hiding the rest. He had no time to find something better, anyway. His reserve of energy was empty and he didn't want to move anymore. He was emotionally and physically exhausted. The rodent layed down in the hole and closed his eyes to be brought to a world of rest once again. Another page had been turned in Sparktail's life. When he woke up, everything would begin anew. For better… or for worse.