Pokegirls: Emerald

by Izcariot

Hoenn League is a tropical country teetering on the brink of civil war. Both sides are sliding towards a bloody conflict with an ancient conspiracy pulling their strings. In a world already broken, what will be left?

13. The First Fall of Emerald

Chapter: The First Fall of Emerald

Lemon at the bottom.

XXXXX

In the center of Oldale, I stood staring into an alley. The concrete bunker that was the pokémart was on the left and the right was dominated by the store I had ruined. I rubbed at my eyes to fight the pain the back of them. Above the street, the roof had a large hole in it that looked to be about my size. The dirt of the alley, packed down like the road I was standing on, had spots of blood drying in it.

I had lost control and done something very bad. Despicable even. The dreams, similar to the ones in my memory, had started when I was about ten years old. But I had kept them in control for the most part. I had acted out a little. Maybe I enjoyed leaving little love bite on a girlfriend's neck and hearing her grunt in pain, maybe I enjoyed seeing a pretty girl look absolutely terrified, and maybe I took some pleasure in watching people be embarrassed. However, I had never done anything really bad. At least until that first night with Ruri. Even then it was nothing compared to me doing that.

The answer had to be in the missing chunk of memories between me falling off of the roof of the store and me shooting the psychic. That wasn't like me, I wasn't actually that person. The chunks started coming back to me in glimpses of imagined ghosts. I could see the alley from where I had been standing the night before. I moved further in until I was in the same spot. Kneeling down the glimpses became clearer.

I was face first on the dirt and my bad eye hurt even worse. I pushed my head into the dirt until a sharp rock was gouging at my skin and making the pain dissipate. I just wanted the pain to stop; was it too much to ask for just a second of numbness? Most of all though, I wanted to fucking sleep; to not have to do anything and just stop moving for the rest of eternity. But I had to get to Ruri and Savanna.

I slammed my head on the sharp rock and scanned the street in front of me. The faint sounds of combat were floating ahead like a lullaby. I fumbled to my right until finally my hands closed around the butt of a rifle. A crack in the wood pinched my palm. It only made me angrier. A new face stopped at the head of the alley, a little yellow girl with a flat chest and little antennae on her head.

We stared at each other, a trail of blood irritated my cheek. She reminded me of that bitch in Littleroot who fucked with my head. With all the shit I had put up with blowing that bitch away felt like it would be very cathartic. For that she had to die. I pulled the rifle under me and aimed it at her face. I pulled the trigger.

Pop.

Her eyes became saucers but not a single wound appeared on her body. I closed my eyes several times and the distortions in my vision became apparent. I had to move the gun to the left. Hesitantly, I poked around my eyes until the pain became too much. It didn't feel like there was much left of it; not even the orb felt completely there. I pulled back my hand to see the fresh blood on my fingertips. I was still bleeding. She looked over her shoulder then ran towards me, I moved the rifle back up to my eyes and aimed at her chest.

I was teleported somewhere else.

The truck rocked as it hit a pothole. Pulling my head off the window, I licked my lips and swallowed the bad taste in my mouth. The cracked dashboard in front of me led to a stretch of forested road. Rubbing at my eyes, I fixed the creak in my neck as the radio blared country music. My study of the ugly blue interior of the truck was stopped short when something grabbed my shoulder and rocked me. "Damn, that was easy."

It had been a week since I woke up from that coma. I still hadn't returned to school, there was no point when I had missed over three months and most of my class would graduate in a week. I'd have to return next year or do summer school or something. I rubbed my right eye to get the crust out of it. The hand shook me again. I batted it away. "Yeah, just fell asleep."

My Dad laughed and returned his hand to the steering wheel. "You're going to help me."

I turned to him, stunned. "You didn't call her when I went into a coma?"

"Maybe you'll help yourself too," Dad said. He broke into laughter.

I rolled my eyes again then glanced out the window to stare at the trees as they zoomed past. Why did the car smell like blood? Did he let some deer meat spill?

"Dammit stop fight me! Why won't you just cooperate?" he asked.

I laughed dryly. "Like Thanksgiving."

Dad actually looked at me surprised. "There we go! Just fall into the illusion!"

I fell into the illusion of that truck. Oldale vanished and even the voice of the psychic disappeared. My mind was completely gone even as I saw myself actually walking out of the alley like a zombie. The psychic fell in step behind me and used me as a shield. I only fought her control once my mind transitioned to the home made range my father and I had built.

He slapped me on the shoulder again. "Defend me before that bitch attacks!"

I looked up, stunned at the sudden change in scenery. The truck had pulled off the road and settled into the dirt parking lot of a farm. I trudged after my father down to the range deep in the woods. I stepped on the line and let the familiar sight sink in.

"Did you miss me?" I asked him.

"Yeah. Seth doesn't like to shoot nearly as much as you do." He stopped pulling the gun out of the bag. "You know, we've come out here almost every weekend since you were a kid. I think these few months are the longest we've gone without shooting."

I nodded.

He held out his AR-15. However, I was actually reloading the Garand."Dammit shoot them already!"

I juggled the gun in my hands. "This feels heavier then I remember."

Dad didn't look at me, he kept loading another magazine on the beat-up table. "It shouldn't, I only put six in a clip. That way we can save ammo. Stuff's getting expensive with that fucking nigger in office."

I rolled my eyes. No point in talking about something so stupid. I rested my check on the stock.

"Range Hot!" I yelled.

The closest target was deliberately small to simulate a much larger distance. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, leaned into the gun and centered the iron sight over the target. My heart beat became audible in my ears. Ba-dum. Ba- I started pulling the trigger.

"Hey!"

My finger flew off the trigger and I yanked off ear protection. "What!"

My Dad walked over to me completely ignoring that I was already in mid-shot before he interrupted me.

"Dammit, your eye is fucked up! Switch hands!" he shouted over his own ear protection. That was my own mind telling me that I couldn't see anything.

"Uh," I said staring at him. "Isn't that a little awkward? What with the hot casings being inches from my face?"

He physically took the AR-15 out of my hands and reseated it so that I was shooting southpaw. "God dammit! Kill them! I don't care about you!"

I stared at him. "Yeah. With a bolt action."

"Now!" he said and shook the gun to emphasize his point.

Trepidation colored my every move, I complied and rested my head on the stock. Shifting several times, I finally found a comfortable spot and relaxed slightly.

The paper targets morphed into shapes in the dark.

"Left," my Dad's voice said. A whole host of women were running at me. The closest target was a furry girl with dog ears coming up from the left. I leveled the Garand so that it was in the center of her chest.

Pop. The moon light caught the explosion of red crystals perfectly illuminating her dark fur. The target behind her stumbled in surprise. Pop. Another fire work of illumination. My center was collapsing; a reptilian girl was closing in on me. Pop. Then the right. Pop. The final girl was too close and closing on the left, I aimed the rifle to the center of her chest. I could see her green eyes clearly in the moonlight, she was following my eyes as she ran. She juked to her left, I followed her. Panic was coloring my movements and I pulled the trigger too soon. Pop. I missed and she juked further to the right. Her thick black hair was flying behind her as she juked erratically and got closer and closer. I couldn't keep her in my sights long enough to pull the trigger. She planted her foot and pulled her hand back, a shadow followed it. My eyes vaguely saw the tendril slithering through the air. Pop. Ping.

"Reload," my Dad finished.

Her arm went limp, the ground behind her was full of red moonlight. Her legs wavered and she collapsed back. As I stared down at her, I felt the need to reload but couldn't get myself to move.

I was staring at the range again. The light breeze of the night had become the sharp sting of a summer sun. Every target had bright new neon wounds in them. I ejected the empty clip with my thumb. Dad handed me another. Something was stopping me from actually putting the clip in, I squinted several times and shook my head, trying to focus on the rifle but something wasn't clicking. My mind rejected any attempt to reload the Garand because it kept trying to stuff the clip into the bottom of the gun.

He grabbed my shoulder. "You feeling okay? Sean? Sean?"

His hand twisted on my shoulder as he walked in front of me. Instead of my Dad's greying face, it was the brightly lit smile of the yellow psychic girl. She danced around the range gloating over every little neon wound on the paper targets. She stopped in front of the closest one on the right.

"How does that feel bitch!"She demanded of the fluttering object.

It all glitched in my mind. The moonlight flickered between the trees above becoming sunlight one moment and reverting the next. The trees themselves seemed blurry and the targets sputtered between paper and the corpses of women. Below the right target, a body appeared. She was covered in leather, from the crude sandals that curled around her legs to the ankle length skirt and even the sleeveless vest. A bullwhip was in her hand, laid out like a trail of blood.

The bald girl kicked her. "Can't belittle me anymore! Now, I'm going to play with you!"

My eyes locked with the target's soft green ones. They had ribbons of hazel in them. The range completely submerged beneath Oldale. I reached into the bandolier and pulled out another clip. No longer was I holding the strangely heavy AR-15 but the modified Garand. I stopped and the memories of the room in Littleroot played past my eyes. The bald girl had the same antennae as that woman. I had to kill her before she fucked with my head. Somehow sensing my movement, she twisted on her heels. Her face was twisted into a snarl. She stomped the girl's face blocking her from my view.

"You," she accused me with a snarl. I was back on the range, feeling the sun on my face and staring at the three targets each with two neon wounds each. Dad slapped me on the shoulder with a smile. "Walk forward!"

I nodded numbly and let the AR-15 hang in my hands. It would be good to see how bad I was after three months of lying in a bed.

"See? I can even beat one of that bitch's daughters! A mighty fucking domina! Now you can feel my pain!" Dad screamed in a whisper behind me.

I was standing in the middle of a town clutching the Garand instead of the AR-15. I was about to do something horrible.

XXX

"What the hell are you doing?" a female asked. I looked up from the alley into Angie's fierce gaze. She only vaguely resembled her daughter with her black hair and sharp features. Maybe if Savanna suddenly went through a Goth phase and lost about ten pounds, they would look alike. I blinked a few times and experimentally reached up to see if my eye had healed. There was a piece of gauze there but as I pressed I could feel the orb of my eye. Angie was still glaring at me disapprovingly as I collected myself.

A faint pair of shoe imprints led out of the alley with smaller pair of bare feet following behind them. More memories flashed inside my head including the one where I had shot the yellow girl and that worm thing. She waved her hand in front of me again.

"I'm talking to you!" she said again.

"Sorry," I mindlessly intoned out of reflex. The sun had finally set and the town was cloaked in twilight. Had it really been only a day since I stumbled into this town? It felt like months. "Ah, are you done talking to your daughter?"

Her eye twitched.

"Let me see your wound," she said. Without waiting for a reply, she ripped the piece of fabric off. The medical tape looted a few hairs off my cheek and left me rubbing it sorely. The world returned to 3-D while the warm breeze caressed my sweaty cheek. What little freedom I enjoyed was stolen when she grabbed my chin and hauled me off of the ground. The world faded into a mess of black spots, without her holding onto my chin, I would have fallen over. She kept me upright but she was more focused on my wound then my being tipsy. She pressed her rough palm to it and the same good feelings that accompanied her and her daughter's healing technique spread over my face. She spoke mostly to herself. "I have to admit Savanna probably wouldn't have been able to heal your eye. They're perfect, she probably would have malformed the lens."

I nodded my head absently, the last time I was tested I had 20/9 vision. My baseball coach was beside himself when he found out how bad I was at swinging a bat. I could tell if it was a fastball or a curveball instantly, I just couldn't hit them. Ever. Angie narrowed her eyes quizzically and the green glow of her hand trailed down my neck until she was hovering above the new tattoo on my chest. Without hesitation, she pulled the two halves of my shirt apart. Drinking in the entire design her gaze got harder with every subtle twitch of her eyes. She put a second hand up to it and the empty feeling that had plagued me since the tattoo was applied faded under her combined assault. I let loose a soothed breath, it was like a shower after a long day's work. As I relaxed, she became increasingly worried.

"How can you be so stupid," she accused still scrunching her nose in a snarl.

I barely registered her voice, my eyes were weighed down by lead and the weight of the world was slipping off my shoulders. My response left my mouth before I could check it. "Practice."

"When did you get this tattoo?" She kept clenching her jaw, getting angrier and angrier.

"Today," I said.

"That's impossible," said the woman capable of summoning armor, wings and using magical healing energy. She physically pressed her hands to my chest and the suddenly the warmth that usually accompanied her healing intensified into a searing heat. It tunneled beneath my skin like a forced IV shooting a constant geyser through my chest. I pressed myself into her hands so I wouldn't step away and she responded by keeping me steady without comment. The wrinkles on her forehead deepened. "You almost killed yourself."

I straightened. Nothing like an implied death threat to get my attention. The tattooed woman ran through my mind.

"You idiot! Did you think a magic tattoo wouldn't do anything to you? Where does that energy come from?" She demanded.

"Magic?" I said slowly.

You'd think she was summoning a herculean effort to explain physics to a kindergartner. "But you're not a mage! You're pure-blood human. You're body doesn't produce mana. Unless you came here in some Hild-level teleportation magic then your body can't support a tattoo!"

"So what's the problem?" I asked, careful not to take a concrete position.

"You're calorie requirement just tripled. Granted, you could fuck a whorizard without a problem. But, if any part of your body temperature gets too high the tattoo will activate and automatically cool you. The problem is that we live on the equator, where the sun will try to burn your white ass to a crisp. It will always be on!"

So Tiffany was trying to kill me. Did Dan Green work for Norman as some kind of assassin? It was an insidious way to kill someone. Looking into her hard expression, I decided against explaining what had happened. If she thought Savanna was in danger then she'd immediately try to take her daughter back.

"How do I fix this?" I asked and rubbed my chest. The barren feeling once again returned to the top of my priorities.

"You can't. Another ar-tits has to fix this mess. If you can't meet the requirements to power it then you'll start using this." She pinched the thin layer of fat on my stomach and said the next part in a matter-of-fact voice that almost made me chuckle at the irony. "When you run out of that, your body will start breaking down. Coarse hair and dry skin will be just the start. Normally, you'd notice that it was getting unbearably hot but with this tattoo you won't even notice that. Eventually, you'll die of heart failure. Just another pile of meat and bones to feed the ferals."

I felt my lips threatening to curl into a smile, it was just nature's way of keeping meat fresh. She crossed her arms. The weight of it hit me as we stood in silence. Then I started to really think about my predicament. Should Savanna leave? Ruri would definitely say no but I had a responsibility to both of them. Should I drag Savanna into this? The question taunted me. I needed a healer for the team and I had one; but as a member of the team I also had a responsibility to her. My mind ran in circles. There wasn't a good answer that I could make. I was going to have to ask Savanna for her answer, and I did not like that.

"I was hoping you'd be healed, so I could punch you," Angie said, finally.

"Why!" I demanded. Dealing with Angie made me feel like a red-headed step-child and it was finally seeping into my voice.

"Why?" she demanded right back. "You come into our home. You eat our food. You think real turkey meat is easy to come by? This isn't like wherever you're from. Animals are rare here. We had to save up to buy that. And how do you repay us? By lying to our faces! The only reason Savanna left with you, that you are even breathing, is because of Jasmine."

There was that name again.

"Who's Jasmine? And you can't just assume I'm a strider or what-ever you said!" I said.

"Oh please, at that press conference? You said the conversion rate wrong; 600 to 60,000? You had to convert it from an old currency didn't you? You also said the date wrong when you first woke up. September Second is wrong, everyone in Hoenn says it day then month then year because of the language reforms!" Her face twisted in disgust. "And there is just something creepy about you. I can't place it but you just-"

She growled, unable to articulate her thought. At the mention of something creepy, the memory of the domina slithered into my mind. It was hard to argue with her.

"So yes, I don't like you. Based on all of the evidence I'd say that the rumors are true and people from other dimensions or times or whatever are coming into this world. So you're a strider or time-traveler or something." She poked me in the chest. "I'm barely able to tolerate you. The only reason I haven't beat you black and blue is because you are still technically my patient."

We glared at each other in silence. Finally, all the air escaped my lungs and I hung my head. "I'm trying."

Pain exploded in my cheek. I was bent over a second punch to my stomach. Angie took a step back as I fell to my knees. Suddenly, two wings grew out of her back until they dominated the alley. They were jagged and metallic like a stealth bomber. They heaved against gravity and lifted her into the sky until she blocked out the rising moon. "It isn't good enough. Don't make me do this again."

Her shadow vanished over the edge of the building. Pressing my head against the dirt, I clutched at my stomach and tried to ignore the pain in my cheekbone. "I guess calling her Mom is out of the question."

XXX

In the safety of an alley way, everything I currently owned was spread out in the dirt in front of me. Perhaps I was being paranoid but I had been unconscious for a while. Cops were all around me and I had directly challenged a government official. After Angie had left me in the alley, I realized that I had left my bag alone and unguarded. Which lead me to the only anomaly: an almost normal looking pokeball but with an extra ring around the release button and what looked like spider webs decorating it. My paranoia had been justified.

I smashed it against to metal dumpster and kept stomping on the remains that escaped the dumpster. Just to be sure, I spread the chunks among all the dumpsters in the alley.

That resolved, I finally walked towards the pokecenter to meet Savanna again. Two police officers in the same blue fatigues stood guarding the door to the pokecenter: a bulky man with large birth control glasses and his officer jenny. They straightened their backs when I approached and their eyes glowed with recognition. I hated being right.

However, I was not concerned when they asked me to stop. I wasn't even concerned when they identified me as Sean Iscariot without me presenting an ID. They explained that a tamer in the area had been sighted using a loveball. They both narrowed their eyes at me when they said it. My bag was searched in the most callous way possible. It was thrown all over the ground. I pulled up my shirt and showed them my belt. I didn't act hostile. When the police are dumping your belongings on the ground, all you can do is smile and wish them luck. So the two officers could keep throwing my things around and getting dirt all over my possessions.

I didn't know who Dan Green was. I didn't know who Tiffany was. I didn't know what Norman's plans were. I had a vague sense of how he operated though. The tattoo on my chest was a wonderful reminder of his cunning. He knew the limitations of the world and I did not. I was already starting to feel the hunger and the fatigue. I hoped that Tiffany had accomplished whatever she wanted to do in life. She had tried to frame me, she had tried to kill me and she had taken my gun. If I ever saw her again, she was dead. I took a deep breath and banished Tiffany from the forefront of my mind. I had a more urgent problem to deal with.

My mood improved slightly when the officer jenny was nice enough to help me put it all back in. Even the man was acting politely sheepish. But he didn't help. He probably didn't want to demean himself. I put the pot back in my bag and folded up the tent with her help and stood up. All the while, I smiled and wished them luck as they went back to 'protecting the citizenry.'

It was back to the same center I had entered the night before. There were only two people sitting in the lobby at such a late hour. A nurse joy was standing at the counter with a smile on her face and a second nurse joy was watching TV. I walked past the one on the couch and took a swipe at the two chopstick that held her bun in place.

"Hey!" she yelled clutching at the bun on the back of her head. "Don't tou-! Oh."

She was so surprised; I was able to pluck them out of her hair. It devolved into a long ponytail. Once I was past her, I handed them back and collapsed on the opposite end of the couch. She grabbed them out of my hand and hurriedly put her hair back up. With how tired I was, it felt like ages since I had sat down. A heavy silence fell as I waited for her to put her hair back up by watching the TV.

A Simpson's episode was on with baby Bart sleeping in a demonic clown bed. It must have been an early episode because the quality had markedly fell. It felt weird seeing The Simpsons when almost everything about the culture I was in was different. She patted her hair once it was back in place. Sheepishly, she turned to me.

"You must think I'm an idiot," she said.

"I did explicitly tell you that Wanc had a dimensional machine," I said, "and that I wasn't from here."

She hung her head in shame, "When you hear wings, you think of pidgy not dragoness. Who would have thought you would actually be from another dimension?"

"So instead, you thought I had an overactive imagination and mental issues?" I asked. A little anger slipping into my voice. I was feeling cranky from the lack of food and sleep. My day long nap hadn't been enough. "Is that why you came along? Because I was going to be easily malleable?"

"You were admitted with a head injury, Sean," she said sternly. Savanna was getting defensive too. We both stared at each other until we quickly realized that we were both feeling tired. She panicked for a small second. Her voice quickly fell into deferential fear and she diverted her eyes to her lap. "I'm sorry."

I signaled my retreat by rubbing my eyes. Though I wasn't entirely ready to let Savanna off the hook for hiding something from me. I had told her why I was doing the gym challenge, and I wanted her to tell me why she had come along. Though, even if she only gave me a half-answer I was okay with letting it drop. Ruri had hidden even more than she had.

"Don't be. I'm sorry I snapped at you. That was partly my fault too. It's been a long day," I said. "What did you and your mother talk about?"

"Do you have any siblings?" she said out of the blue. It was a sad, desperate attempt to avoid the topic. I stared at her for a moment. She was already trying to escape talking about what had happened between her and Angie. Something I had already been assaulted for twice. I pulled myself back up into the seat but it felt like I was pulling a truck with me. If she at least owned up to the new half-sibling thing, I would have been satisfied with letting it drop for the night.

"Six, you?" I answered completely calm.

"There are not any," she lied. She was consciously shaking her head when she said it. Lying was surprisingly hard.

I smiled.

"Actually, I lied. Three of them are half-siblings. Different mother," I said, lying about and emphasizing the right words to get my point across.

She dipped her head, locked her ankles and pulled her arms closer to herself. Most damningly, her hand came up to cover the dip between her collarbones. It was one of the most obvious stress responses I had ever seen.

I sighed. "Listen, I want to go back to bed. It's been a long day. Just tell me a little bit about you."

She wrung her hands debating with herself until she finally shrugged her shoulders and sighed as well. "My Dad came into possession of my mother when she was on the cusp of her second puberty. He was 17 and a promising young tamer. However, Mom became pregnant. So he took his entire harem and settled down in Littleroot. When I was growing up, I felt like I had somehow ruined their lives."

She had to stop because her voice was wavering. I wasn't feeling sympathetic enough to stop her from continuing.

"Olivia was the worst. She was never around and when she was, she completely ignored me and went out of her way to avoid me. She spent most of her time in the taming park acting as a warden and only coming in to be tamed. As a kid, I thought she hated me the most." She cleared her throat and wiped at her eyes. "I was twelve when the urges started. Almost immediately Olivia came back and walked me through it. She helped me fend off the urges for the next three years. The woman who I thought had hated me the most, had sacrificed the most for me."

She rubbed at her eyes extra hard.

I filled in the silence. "She separated herself from her family. For you. All so that you wouldn't feel a familial attachment to her when she helped you. But she became pregnant."

She nodded. "The morning sickness started about a month ago. She didn't realize it at the time. She thought she had a flu but I knew."

It was nothing I hadn't guessed. All I really wanted was for her to confirm it. Her eyes were puffy and red. I was torn between a feeling of success and guilt at pushing her that far. There was also a trace of guilt from the feeling of satisfaction I had. She was vulnerable sitting there in front of me.

"You're very strong. I guess I was the first one who peeked your curiosity," I lied. I wanted her to lie to me one more time so that I could prove her wrong again. "Or maybe I was the first one who got past your Dad."

"Yeah, you were the only one," she parroted back. "That is why I wanted to go with you."

She really was a horrible liar. I got up off the couch and towered over her. "It's funny that you think you can still lie to me."

"I'm not lying!" She said, pushing herself forward.

"Half-truths and lying by omission are still lying," I said sternly. We stared at each other. With the light behind me, her eyes were sparkling red and I could see the doubt and contemplation clearly. Finally, I sighed. "I'm tired Savanna. Let's just go to bed. You are a part of my team. I have a responsibility to you and Ruri is hiding something even more damning from the both of us."

I offered my hand but she continued staring into my eyes. She said, "A megami-sama is a very powerful pokegirl. They're a force for good. Jasmine just wants what is best for the largest amount of people."

That could mean a lot of things. I helped her up and rubbed her shoulders then I said what was becoming my most used lie, "Okay, I trust you."

XXX

I walked up to the nurse joy manning the counter with Savanna. I pulled out my pokédex and put my ID on the screen.

"Can I help you?" she asked. She had a huge volume of pink hair that flowed past her shoulders. When she talked, I could see a small gap in her front teeth. It was actually kind of cute. Kind of.

I held up my pokédex. "I need a room and a healing plus cleaning cycle for these two."

"Okay, sir." She glanced at the screen before typing on her own computer behind the counter. She smiled at me after a second and a printer went off under the counter. The joy retrieved a card and a tray with six indentions for pokéballs. She cracked it out of a plastic cut out and put it on the counter. "We've also upgraded you to the main suite."

"Why?" I asked. Given the police still standing at the door, I was suspicious of free gifts.

"It is a gift from those of us in the center. Usually, we are to hold the room in case any children of high-ranking politicians check in. However, we are always happy to help a local hero." Her polite smile became flirtatious. "I would also like to remind you that part of a tamer's duties are helping the public servants stave off feraldom."

She said it with such a straight face that I almost didn't comprehend her. It took her winking at me but even then it took a further moment to process what she had just said. I glanced over at Savanna who was still hanging on to my arm. Happy to get my mind off Jasmine, she smirked. I looked between her and the suddenly smiling pokégirl.

"I'm kind of tired, I'm just going to go to bed after this. Maybe tomorrow?" I said, unsure of how to react to such a blatant proposal.

The joy shook her head but retained her polite grin and repeated herself. "We always welcome the help of a local hero."

She put the tray on the counter and I picked up the card. I had gotten room 07. I put Ruri's and the domina's ball in the tray. Or tried to.

"What's this?" Savanna asked and stopped me from putting it on the tray. The blood had coagulated into a hazy outline of three fingers. She glanced down at my belt and found that her ball, the second on my belt, was still there. "You mean you caught someone else?"

The joy behind the counter was still waiting for the pokéball. I took it from Savanna and put it on the tray so that the she could leave. Once she was gone, I turned to Savanna and said, "I caught a domina."

XXX

"You what!" Ruri demanded.

It was the next morning and I was sitting on the couch in room 07 with my feet on the tiny coffee table. Room 07 was much larger than room 04 and more luxurious. Whereas room 04 only had a bed and bathroom, room 07 had a living room with a small kitchen and TV.

Ruri was pacing and Savanna was laying on the couch beside me. She was calm enough that I had avoided the conversation entirely by collapsing on the bed last night. However, Ruri's response was louder and I couldn't sleep forever. Savanna took the opportunity to open our breakfast conversation with how I had caught a domina.

"This is a stupid idea! Get rid of her!" Ever since Ruri had learned about the newest addition she had been raving at me. The word 'stupid' was used a lot. However, she hadn't gotten past voicing her displeasure. "I get Pinkie. That makes sense and she wasn't a feral, it's not like you had to actually put her into line. She's house broken."

"Hey!" Savanna interrupted her with a cry of indignation.

I kept eating my breakfast cereal and pulled up the pokedex entry. An image of a blond woman wearing a leather bikini, wielding a whip made of a plant and leaning on a flat chested red head like a slave owner greeted me when I entered 'domina' into the search function.

"But a domina is in a different league. Advanced, knowledgeable, tamers have problems with dominas. You have to be strong-willed and show them who is boss and I don't think you can do it. You've never even dealt with a feral before. Do you know what that entails? Sex, Sean, Sex. It means sex with an angry, domineering whore who will be trying to hurt you," she said.

I stared up at her chewing my cereal like a cow.

She narrowed her eyes. "Not in the 'ow-my-back' way. The 'yes-mistress-piss-in-my-mouth-you-are-so-pretty' way! You should just get rid of her!"

With that sanitary image, I read the entry.

DOMINA, the Aggressive Pokégirl
Type: Very Near Human
Element: Plant/Poison
Frequency: Uncommon
Diet: Human comparable diet
Role: Fetish wear crafters, taming aids
Libido: High
Strong Vs: Electric, Plant, Rock, Water, Fighting
Weak Vs: Fire Flying, Ice, Psychic
Attacks: Rose Whip, Poison Lash, Anti-Cheer, Cheer, Smirk, Vine Bondage, Vine Whip, Exhausting Venom, Love Sting, Call Me Queen, Dominate
Enhancements: Enhanced Durability (x3), Enhanced Endurance (x2), Enhanced Strength (x2), Enhanced Agility (x4), Fast Healing, Intuitive Aptitude (lashing weapons, leather fashion)
Evolves: dominatrix (normal), dragonQueen (Dragon E-Medal)
Evolves From: nymph (Dark Stone)

As a very near human breed, nearly all Domina could pass as normal human women, though some possess vibrantly colored hair with colors ranging from greens, reds, and violets most commonly. All varieties tend to appear very fit and sensual in their builds, and most strive to appear attractive in mature and provocative ways rather than seeming cute or playful. The line is notorious for absolutely adoring any kind of leather clothes, ranging from being absolutely covered in it to seemingly impractical fetish gear that they often craft themselves. Though most can be convinced by their tamers to wear more normal clothing instead or over top of the more provocative costumes. They do tend to, in most situations, carry themselves with a haughty, though sometimes undeserved, confidence.

Nymphs are already an extremely sexual race of Pokégirls, enjoying practically anything thrown at them. When exposed to a Dark Stone, they become something very similar, but with a slightly demented twist. They lose their power over pheromones, but instead gain the ability to use poisons and various plant abilities. Their sexual appetite changes from loving virtually everything, to loving two specific things: Pain and domination.

Personality wise, dominas are difficult to control and not recommended for beginning Tamers. They have some minor psychic talents, mainly their ability to use a gaze/voice attack called Dominate. Tamers that do not have a strong enough will often find themselves at odds with a domina, constantly having to prove their dominance over them or using their other Pokégirls to do so. Tamers such as these are encouraged to either trade her away or evolve her to a Dominatrix, where she will mellow out a little bit.

To have a willing and submissive domina, a tamer must show that they are the dominate one in the relationship. This can be carried out either through being forceful during sex, somehow being able to 'project' there will onto her, most likely through a blood gift, or just generally resisting her sexual advances and showing it doesn't affect them. Even then, sometimes a domina will still believe she is the one in charge, or just won't be as loyal as a Pokégirl should be. There is one way to get a very loving and loyal domina. Control is something they love more than anything, and giving it up is something they almost never do. If a tamer can show that they are the dominate one, and then give up some of that control back to her, she will do almost anything for him/her.

Their method of attack fits perfectly with their name. They strive to cause pain and to dominate her opponent. Their Rose Whip technique is a layered ability, forming a whip-like tendril out of a common plant, which they can then use for a variety of attacks, with the multitude of thorns on it, it is perfect for the amount of pain they love to inflict. They can also use Poison Lash to coat her whip in poison to further break down her opponent. They are also resistant to pain and physical damage, and they heal faster than normal.

Domina are surprisingly capable battlers given their perceived non-combat roles. They do specialize in the use of whips and other lashing weapons. More than that though, they are very capable of manipulating plants they either provide or are naturally a part of the battlefield to bind their opponents and restrict their movement with their vine techniques. They also use many poison attacks to sap the strength and will of their enemies. Many get a rush if they can have combat end with the establishment of dominance, so if they can force an opponent to willingly yield to them, it's even a sweeter victory than by incapacitating. This does mean they can be prone to risking victory in favor of their domination / submission antics though, but proper discipline when training will rid them of this behavior in all but skirmishes and other combat that could be seen as more frivolous.

It's often overlooked that the Domina is in some ways just as capable of producing clothing as the Seamstress is, at least very specific types of clothing. They excel at working with leather and latex like materials; creating outfits that fit the wearer like a second skin. And they're capable of producing these materials by utilizing a rather remarkable plant they cultivate that's become known as the Governess Frond. Its sap is very similar to that of the Hevea Brasiliensis tree, more commonly known as rubber trees. Even when feral Domina can use the sap to create natural latex sheets. And the large fronds the plant grows fascinatingly enough can be treated just like leather, supplementing the natural leather supply that mostly comes from KATTLE. While the Domina cannot command the Governess Frond to grow like Elves and other plant types can, the plant is remarkably hardy, grows quickly, and can be found just as commonly as Berry plants

Domina are not an uncommon threshold result by any means, though definitely not common. It's really only seen in families with strong history of the line and rarely crops up in mixed heritages. Domina pokewomen can give birth to whatever their base breed may have been and they're not known to give any specific blood traits to human offspring commonly.

I put the pokédex down with a plan already forming in my mind. I looked up at Ruri nonchalantly. "It's very simple. It says here that all I have to do is take away her control and then give some back to her."

She laughed bitterly. "By making them the alpha and I refuse to let a domina rule over me!"

She even physically put her foot down.

"I don't think this is a good idea either, Sean," Savanna added. "Taming a feral is very different from taming a domestic. Ferals aren't in their right mind. They might hurt you. Actually, a domina will definitely hurt you. Even an alpha bond won't stop them from trying to assert authority."

The "right mind" bit struck a chord in me. For some reason, it made me stop in my tracks. Much more than the books had, my mind finally understood. I hadn't even spared it a second thought until that moment. Now, it was actually expected of me to do it, and I actually was going to do it. It was; ho boy. I couldn't even say it. It all came crashing down on me. I was on the cusp of something very bad. I sat forward.

Perhaps I was crossing a line. Did I really need a domina? Was I getting ahead of myself? Certainly, my mental security was important. I had legal ownership of the two people in front of me. They depended on me completely because they had no rights of their own. Which meant that my only real use was my mind. I needed a way to increase my defenses and the most obvious and currently easiest way required the domina. However, I had done a lot to her already. Maybe there was a third option.

"What are the chances that we will find another plant type?" I asked.

Ruri was visibly relieved. "Petalburg forest is in between Rustboro and Petalburg. There are plenty of feral plant types in there. We can take one of the elves from the elf-court."

"But they are still ferals. Is that the only way we are going to be able to recruit new members?" I asked.

She suddenly looked at me funny. The gears in her head started turning. Tilting her head, she seemed to look right through me. I stared up at her blue eyes and waited for her to figure it out. I knew she would and I was not disappointed. Silently and to herself, she mouthed out: you think she's human. Her expression quickly became one of outrage.

"Oh! Come on!" she demanded, exceptionally loud and outraged. "It's not a fucking a human! You can't rape a fucking feral Sean! Urgh! I can't believe you would even; I can't even! Urgh! I don't want to even!"

She stomped off into the other room. I had just broken her. She screamed and fabric started ripping. Savanna was equally stunned, leaning back and blinking as if she was in shock. Something white flew past the corridor of the kitchen and Ruri began murmuring to herself. I couldn't make out what she was saying but it wasn't positive.

Savanna moved over to my side of the couch and took her hands in mine. She was treating me as if I was some kind of innocent child who had just asked where babies came from.

"Sean, that is a very liberal thing to say. Like exceptionally. Almost suicidal," she said after some difficulty. She had floundered several times trying to find the right words. Being called a liberal was still very new to me, and it was not being helped by her tone. It was almost surreal. "Sean, you have to understand that pokégirls are not like humans. When feraldom kicks in, we lose a part of ourselves. The only way to get it back is to have sexual intercourse."

"Could you stop talking to me like I'm five? It's a little annoying," I said.

She pulled her hands back, embarrassed. "I'm not talking to you like you're five."

"Yeah, yeah you are," I said. "Are you going to tell me what a blowjob is mommy or do I have to use google?"

"Okay." She admitted defeat. "It's just that I've never heard anyone other than young children ask that. I think very liberal people ask that as a rhetorical, philosophical question but that's it. Right now, I have all the mental processes of a human. But I'm not. When a pokégirl becomes a feral, they want sex. They want it more than food and as a tamer your job is to bring them back to civilization."

"With my penis," I said.

Ruri banged her head on the wall and yelled into the room. "It's like listening to a history video!"

"Or your vagina, it actually doesn't matter what gender the tamer is. Only the amount of pokégirl blood in them," Savanna said as an afterthought. A light bulb suddenly went off in her head. "Do you know about the Epic of Gilgamesh?"

I thought about it for a moment. She was talking about Gilgamesh's best friend, Enkidu. The plot of the epic really began with the introduction of the artificially-made, super-human, wild man. Enkidu lived out in the wilderness among the animals annoying farmers and hunters. One of them convinced a temple harlot, Shamhat, to make a civilized man out of him. So she slept with him for a week. After his first taste of sex, Shamhat convinced Enkidu to come back with her to the temple and learn how to live like a civilized human.

It actually did make me feel better. My situation was a gender-swapped version of the very first story of mankind. The Babylonians meant that as an allegory for something very different though.

"So I'm the whore in this example?" I asked. Once again, I was the woman in the relationship.

"Yes!" Savanna smiled then didn't. "No. Sean, she's going to enjoy it. You won't be hurting her. In fact, most ferals will accidently kill the human because she doesn't know her own strength. You're not going to be raping her."

"Because she'll enjoy it?" I asked. "It's all good then."

"Yes!" she said happily and completely missing the point. "Wait. No. Sean. She is going to want sex. She is going to be stronger than you and she has mind control powers. If anything you are at a higher risk of being raped."

I should have just put a fucking pink bow in my hair that first day in Wanc's lab.

"I swear I've heard this conversation in a history class!" Ruri screamed from around the corner again. "I think it was like an UN summit thing from before the leagues were made."

She stomped back into the room.

"Give me the pokéball!" She held out her hand but I just stared at it. I looked at her hand then to her face then back again. She eventually got the point. "Sean. You just asked a stupid ass question. You couldn't even tame a fucking damsel at this point. Do you know what that makes you? Less than a damsel! That is fucking low. No way in hell are you trying to tame a domina!"

I glanced over at Savanna. I had to choose. I sighed and reached back to pull the pokéball off my belt but didn't put it in Ruri's hand. "A plant type would be helpful. I'm taking a wild guess here but I doubt the first gym uses pokémon who are weak to fire or normal types."

"It's pokégirls but no. Roxanne uses rock types," Ruri said.

Oops.

"So apparently, the chance of us finding another person to join willingly is slim before Rustboro. I figure with Norman in Petalburg we'll have to run right through it without stopping. That means that we'll have to find a feral in Petalburg forest. Which means that we will have this conversation all over again. We need a plant type to beat Roxanne, we have one," I said.

"The elf would be easier to tame," Ruri said and flexed her fingers again.

"I would feel better with the domina," I said.

"That's stupid," she said.

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," I said.

"Not when the bird is pecking your eyes out! I don't know what kind of antiquated, old-school, chivalrous bullshit they shoved down your throat in your dimension but it doesn't fly here!" She reached behind my back for the ball. "Give me the domina!"

"No!" I kicked off the couch and escaped to the far end of the room.

Ruri growled. "A domina is going to be harmful to us. What happened to doing what was best for the group? How does having to fear a domina mind controlling you make us stronger? You don't have the best record with mind-control."

"Which is why I am recruiting the domina," I said. "I need her to help me with my mental defenses."

Ruri was absolutely flabbergasted. She turned to Savanna. "Help me out here, Pinkie"

"Sean," Savanna said, adding her own calming tone to the mix. "You don't learn to swim by being dropped into the middle of the ocean."

I narrowed my eyes at both of them and stood up. I took a deep breath and calmly explained myself. "We are all a team. I have a responsibility to both of you. However, I also have to weigh our goals into my decision making. I have come to the conclusion that having a domina would benefit us in two ways. The first is that it would increase my mental fortitude so that I will be able to better resist psychic intrusion. This would help ensure that no one can manipulate me into doing something to harm either of you. The second is that the domina would be useful in my goal of becoming the league champion. Which will get us out from under Wanc's debt. Who could pressure me into doing something that would harm either of you."

I also felt a bit of a kinship to the girl. According to the pokedex, they were best described as having very loose morals and didn't mind doing whatever it took to have their fun with someone. I could sympathize. It was probably the same drive that made Ruri so interesting to me. She promptly demonstrated the other thing that I liked about her.

"And we have calmly explained why that is a stupid fucking plan," she said back.

"I have listened to your opinions but I disagree with both of you. Ultimately, the decision is mine to make. My first plan to bring the domina into the fold is to be civil and offer her the same thing I offered both of you. We can join together to accomplish all of our goals," I said.

Ruri rubbed her eyes, feeling tired of arguing with a dead end.

Savanna took the chance to speak. "She won't accept that. She won't even be able to speak English. Her only goal is to have sex and inflict pain."

"I can do this. I need you to trust me on this. Have some faith, all of my plans have been sound so far," I said.

"Does that explain how I got shot in the Magma Camp?" Ruri asked.

"Savanna was there to heal you," I said. "As per my preparations."

"How about the killer queen out flanking us?" Ruri asked.

"Unforeseen variables that I could not have known about. I shut the gates and stopped the plans that I could, didn't I?" I asked.

Ruri kept massaging her temples.

Savanna held her hands up to her lips. "Can we at least help you?"

"He'll have to do it alone," Ruri said, speaking into her hands. "Otherwise, the domina won't respect him."

"You can wait outside. If I come out mind controlled, you can bust in and kill the domina. You can chuck fireballs and you can heal any permanent damage she'll do to me. Just trust me," I said.

Ruri and Savanna looked at one another.

"I'm going to let you suffer if it goes wrong," Ruri said.

"That's fair," I said.

XXX

I opened my pokédex and clicked on 'harem.' A screen with six bars running horizontal came up on screen. The first three bars were green: [Charamanda level: 13 Nickname: Ruri] [NurseJoy level: 11 Nickname: Savanna] and [Domina level: 5 Nickname: N/A] the last three bars were a blank white. I clicked on the third bar: Domina.

Nickname: N/A

Species: Domina

Level: 5

Element: Plant/Poison

Enhancements: Enhanced Durability (x3), Enhanced Endurance (x2), Enhanced Strength (x2), Enhanced Agility (x4), Fast Healing, Intuitive Aptitude (lashing weapons, leather fashion)

Status effects: None

Health: Perfect

I put it into my pocket and took a deep breath. The pokédex said that there was one way to get a very loving and loyal domina. Control is something they love more than anything, and giving it up is something they almost never do. If a tamer can show that they are the dominate one, and then give up some of that control back to her, she will do almost anything for him/her.

The question was how much control could I really give her? The pokédex didn't answer was how much control was enough. If I gave her a dirty sock would she be forever grateful? I erred on the side of caution. My plan was to take everything from her. Her sight, her clothes, her right to eat, she wouldn't even defecate without my permission. I would control everything that made her a sentient being and she would have to earn it all back. If it worked then she'd happy just to be able to eat without my approval. It was the same logic as boot camp. If I controlled her environment enough, she'd be happy being able to eat without a tray.

Of course, first I had to restrain her.

I had cleared the room of the tiny plants used for decoration. She wouldn't be able to summon a whip from them. I had a general idea of how the fight would go and prepared my battle space. The shower in the bathroom was running extremely hot water already. Steam was wafting out of the room and making the walls sweat. The only lights in the room came from a lamp behind me and the bathroom. The room actually had an entire drawer dedicated to all kinds of toys and gadgets to use. I didn't trust the dildos to be sanitary but the handcuffs I did. I stood, stretched and felt them sitting in my back pocket. All that was left was to spring the trap.

I had done a bad thing to this woman and I was about to do an even worse thing. But that was on my conscious. Now, I needed her to unite Ruri and Savanna. Something, she was already doing and the weariness she caused in them would increase her isolation. Which in turn would make any kindness on my part stand out more. At least with the domina, she would have a greater chance of fighting back. Which made me feel a little better. I did what had to be done, I was Iscariot but that also meant that I also had to take the punishment.

I pulled the pokéball off my belt and released the girl.

In a flash of red, she materialized. As the red light faded, I had just enough time to look at her wounds. Bent low, I charged forward intent on taking the advantage early. Her skin was once again unblemished and she smelled of cinnamon. I could see as much through the hole still in her leather vest. It was a bulky thing that looked like a flak jacket and was comprehensive enough that it didn't even expose her cleavage. She whipped her long black hair out of her face just in time for her eyes to widen.

Digging my shoulder in, I slammed into her stomach. Unprepared for the blow, she collapsed and slammed into the ground. Immediately, my hands were around her throat and my knees were pinning her arms. After the initial shock, her eyes quickly adjusted and rage colored her face. I bashed her head against the ground and violently shook her to induce loss of consciousness quicker.

The fight had resumed right where we had left off in the middle of the street the night before. Only she was no longer weighed down by a bullet wound. Pain erupted in my back and it became hard to breath. She had kneed me again. All of the air left my lungs. The domina took the moment and kicked me again.

I had to get a better position.

Spitting a gob of phlegm into her eyes, I escaped over her. She would be too busy wiping off her face and gasping for air to catch me before I vanished into the bathroom. The steam was still escaping but I only felt the sauna like temperature for a moment. Once I was in the safety of the bathroom, I bent over the counter and tried to suck in some more air. My back was still thumping with pain but the domina was in the same position.

I couldn't hear much over the rush of wind in my ears and the din of the shower. Moving into the tub, I closed the curtain back and waited under the shower head. Immediately, a powerful force suddenly came alive in my chest. It was a localized feeling of runners' high. The scalding water mostly passed over my shoulder. My hand was resting on the blistering showerhead that I couldn't feel. As the seconds ticked by I started to feel the tug of fatigue. It was the all-encompassing kind that drew from my entire body and fed that feeling in my chest.

Finally, the shadow of the domina darkened the door of the bathroom. Moving side to side outside the door, she surveyed the room before entering. It was a move that the SF guys had called 'slicing the pie.' She finally took a step in and immediately yanked back the curtain.

She got a stream of boiling water in her face for the troubles. Recoiling, she clutched at her face but bounced off the doorframe before she could escape. I closed again, running under the stream of water and elbowing her in the face. I felt her nose crunch and saw blood spray over my sleeve. Grabbing her arm, I twisted her into an elbow lock. Instead of folding as planned, she pushed us both towards the counter. I finally got her arm in the right shape and put all my weight into keeping her in place.

"Give! Give the right the fuck now!" I screamed.

She grunted in pain but curled her feet under the counter and kicked up. Her hips slammed into mine and I grunted in pain. Placing my knee against the back of hers, I stopped her from extending her knee again. Her elbow slammed into my arm. She did it again and again until finally I had to drag her off the counter. I smeared her face across it until I could use my hips and threw her like a hay bale towards the toilet.

She cracked the ceramic bowl with her head. It was enough to concuss her again and I started drowning her. She splashed and fought against me but I was in a better position. Flailing her arms and struggling to find any way to save herself, she kept trying to push her head out of the bowl. She had no idea about the flushing handle on the side of the tank even as her arm kept getting in range of it. I kept a knot of her thick black hair in my hands and pressed my knee to the back of her head to keep her down. Her panicked attempts only continued for a few harried moments until she suddenly stopped kicking. She pressed her hands down on the floor and tried to push herself up but I had my full weight on her back and keeping her head in the bowl. She was hyperventilating and her torso was heaving rapidly as her body struggled for air. I could hear the toilet starting to bubble up as she kept inhaling water. Finally, her form went limp.

I pulled her head out of the bowl and sprayed water all over the place. She was out cold. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my twitching hand. I kept a close eye on her and waited for another surprise. It wasn't one I expected.

Her chest wasn't moving. Moving my ear next to her mouth, I tried to find some mention of breathing. There wasn't one. I pressed my finger to her throat and didn't feel a pulse. She had probably inhaled the toilet water but I only had TV to tell me what to do. I picked up her head and tried mouth to mouth resuscitation. Plugging her nose, I took a deep breath and forced it all into her mouth. I did that several times.

It didn't occur to me at the time why I was doing it. It was mostly reflex. However, something was replaying in my mind. It was the little killer queen demanding that I hand over her daughter. Then I connected her facial features with that of the woman in the store. In all likely hood, I had killed her mother and her sister then enslaved her. A dark thought crossed my mind: should I just let her die?

Once again, the domina answered for me. As I tried to clear her breathing for the fourth time, her chest convulsed. A flood of water came back up her throat. I didn't pull back fast enough and some of it got into my mouth. It tasted like watered down acidic juice. I spit the toilet vomit out over the bathroom floor as the domina continued to spasm. She had enough sense to roll over and splatter the clear liquid over the floor. I raked my tongue and tried to spit out the bad taste in my mouth. Hoenn had not been very sanitary for me.

XXX

The taste lingered for several more minutes. Even as I sat on the bed I could still remember it. The domina was now safely breathing again after she had almost died. Before she had a chance to fully regain consciousness, I cuffed her. She had been out for a while. I had enough time to brush my teeth and get rid of the actual acidic taste. The domina, however, did not have that luxury. She had been propped up against the dresser completely out of it. Just to make sure that her gaze attacks didn't work, I also had a towel tied around her face.

I waited for her to wake back up on her own. It was a silent moment that condemned me to return to my head. Doubt welled up back inside of me. The memories led me back to one line. "Give me back my daughter."

How could Savanna so easily say that what I was about to do was okay? I understood Ruri, she couldn't have given less of a crap about others. However, Savanna was supposed to be more moral than either of us. Even the group's conscious said it was fine. Perhaps, it was easier if you didn't know that the feral had a mother and a life before meeting her. After all, if she was like Ruri back in the hospital she would come on to me. However, that didn't make what happened in the hospital right either. Ruri may have initiated but she wasn't in her right mind. I was. Which meant that I had already technically raped Ruri. However, that was in response to her own movements. What I was about to do was a deliberate act that I planned out in advance against an unwilling person.

Did we really need a plant type? Roxanne apparently used rock types. Water would have worked just as well. I went back to the quarry and repeated the line that would have spared me. "For a titfuck, ask for Ariel."

It was Ariel from earlier. She was staring up in horror at something behind the cart; frozen in place as the feet got closer and closer. She couldn't even look away. Brrrrrr. I saw the tip of the sword pierce her chest. Frame by frame, I could see every second of her skin compress under the force then rebound like a ball. Her flesh bulged, stretching like rubber until she popped into a shower of red dust. Her body twisted as the light cut her open and swept away. Her head landed back on the dirt, mud splashed over her hair tinting it red and her lifeless teal-green eyes looked into mine, endlessly frozen in fear.

I rubbed my eyes. No use in thinking about the past too hard.

According to Ruri and Savanna, even attempting to have sex with the domina wasn't safe. She wasn't sane enough to consent to the act either. There was only one way to get the domina's consent, and in a bitter catch twenty-two that was to fuck her back into sanity. It all felt like a bad thing to do. Especially after what I had done to her in the first place. However, my own moral complications weren't the only thing to consider. What were the chances of finding another willing pokégirl to join? Petalburg forest would be the only place before Rustboro to find a suitable pokégirl Ruri had said. Would I end up doing all of it again? Except, instead of the domina sitting across from me, it would be someone else. Someone's whose parents I hadn't killed?

Suddenly, the phone rang in the other room. It was Wanc.

"Hello, Zean," he said.

"What?" I was in no mood for him.

"Tell me about ze domina you capzured," he said as if talking to a reluctant child.

"Why?"

"You capzured a feral Zean. I am curious what you are think about. I know a little about the history of the world Mr. Weztland. I know about your time," Wanc couldn't keep the giddiness out of his voice. Even over the phone. "I know how they coped with pokégirlz for the first time."

"And how did they do that?" I asked.

"No one in those days enjoyed the zought. Zome were ztill angry and they simply did it out of revenge. Perpetuated cruelty for cruelty'z zake. However, ze people learned to evenzually empazize. I will tell you more but you muzt tell me what you are zinking. Itz a fair trade, yez?"

"People have to consent. To consent they must be informed. She cannot make decisions for herself in this state," I said.

"Your charamanda is right. You do zound like a hiztory book." Wanc giggled. "Zean, when Zukebe destroyed, and rebuilt, ze world he made it zo zat pokégirlz went feral. He pushed it on ze world. We are merely reacting to a world gone mad. Ze early liberalz, zoze who wanted pokegirlz to be treated like humanz, zey had to razionalize the new wayz of ze world."

"What is your point?" I asked.

"Evenzually, zey zettled on calling it a medical prozedure," Wanc said. "You cannot deny medizine that will make you better. When a pazient cannot make dezizions for zemzelves razionally, zey have given ze healz care worker implied conzent to go ahead and ezecute appropriate care."

"With my penis," I repeated.

Wanc giggled again. "Zenator Linda McKenzie zaid ze zame zing."

"Who?" I asked.

"A ztupid woman who expozed Zukebe. Zhe paid ze prize zough." Wanc's tone changed. "Zean, let me encourage you. You are in debt to me now. I have ze offizial document in my hand. I aczually filed a complaint againzt ze new hero of Oldale today for debtz unpaid. I am not prezzing ze izzue yet zough. I'm zure you'll be notified at zome point. Zo you bezt hurry or I will zeize your property."

I straightened my back. "I don't like what you are implying."

"Ze next EverGrand City Tournament is in August. Az you zaid, you need her for ze gym challenge. Hurry or I might ztart zeizing azzets."

Wanc hung up. Whatever his intentions. He hadn't made me feel better. As I stared at the domina, I realized that what Wanc had said was all meaningless. I was still going to sacrifice that domina for my own objectives.

Her neck twitched and she finally struggled her way to consciousness. She was slow to come to but she eventually picked her neck up and struggled against the cuffs. In her flurry of activity, she bashed her head against the drawer.

"Stop," I barked. She immediately complied and fell into a tense hunting posture. I took a deep breath, it was time.

Moving over to her, I brushed her face with the palm of my hand. She didn't back away but she didn't appreciate the feeling either. It tested my resolve to continue but I kept going, continuing to run my hand down her neck until I crossed over her shoulder and found the strings on the side of her vest. They kept it closed and snug against her. As I plucked away at the taught strings of leather, her body began to relax. Eventually, the last string was undone and I slipped it over her head. She still hadn't moved, not even when I gingerly pulled it over the towel. Her dark brown skin ended in a tan line but she still had an olive skin tone underneath her clothes. Her breathing started to increase.

Swallowing a lump in my throat, I grabbed her waist and steadied her. My eyes drifted up her body, past her breasts and to the familiar sight of finger marks on her neck. Her figure was curvier than I expected, and complemented her face. She didn't have a bra on under it but she made no move to even offer token resistance or consent. Next was her skirt. It went down to her knees but a large slit up the side revealed her entire left leg. It was held up by a belt that she had to tie shut. Stripping it off, she stayed completely still.

I ran my hand up the inside of her thigh, almost laughing when she shuddered and nearly crushed it between her legs. It was a genuine reaction, and I found it cute. She had very long legs but they were emaciated, a sign that she hadn't had a steady diet. It reminding me of a wolf: lanky but very dangerous.

Freeing my hand from her thighs, a heavy weight hit me once again. Cute reactions? What was I thinking? Shaking my head, I tried one more thing to alleviate the guilty feelings in my mind. I could feel her becoming rigid with nervousness, which I started to feel as well. I felt so tense that every time I moved, it felt painfully mechanical.

Finally, I couldn't take anymore. I ripped the towel off her head.

She was quiet in her rebellion and slowly blinked. Her head twisted and she locked me in her gaze. I studied her eyes intently; they were in pain, much too much pain. In that moment, I should have let go and tried another way. It was too much. My guilty conscious apparently couldn't take actually looking my victim in the eyes. It was a good thing too. I was about to do something wrong. My hand was on her bindings when my mind finally processed what I was doing.

The killer queen's voice appeared in my head. "Kneel!"

She was obviously traumatized somehow, she needed to be supported. I took a knee so I could communicate with her on her level.

Rage bubbled up in my chest. She was in my head just like that killer queen had been. How dare she use my own compassion against me? I growled in my throat.

A flash of disappointment crossed her eyes but she reined it in. She wasn't discouraged though and arched her back presenting her breasts. I took that as an invitation to continue. I pinched her nipple between my nails to ensure that she got the message. It wasn't for her pleasure it was to show that I could cause her pain whenever I wanted. She grit her teeth and finally spoke. "It would feel better with your tongue."

"So you know English?" I asked and got no response. She flinched a when I repeated the treatment to the other nipple. It induced another sexy grunt which excited my erection to full mast. I bent down to her level and took one of her nipples in my mouth. When I ran my tongue over her nipple, she moaned in agreement. Which sounded like too much pleasure without some pain; I started to just barely brush her nipples with my teeth. She gasped the first time I did it and braced herself for the inevitable. I gave her a light kiss instead and started on the next nipple switching between my massaging her with my free hand and sucking on her breasts.

"Yes," she said. "Good."

I caught her nipple in my teeth and applied a sliver of pressure to her soft flesh. She jolted in shock and then stared at me a little fearfully. I leaned down and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, "Why so scared, I thought domina's liked BDSM?"

She smirked and squirmed on the floor. "Why did you stop?"

She moaned when I pinched her nipple forcefully. When she cried out, I took the initiative and pulled her onto the carpet. She smiled up me seductively, the pain from a moment ago forgotten. I made sure not to smile and slammed my palms just beside her head. She didn't waver in her intent stare, her iron will from the night before was untouched. She was thinking, her eyes betrayed her making plans, plans I might like, plans that would temper the pleasure with pain. All I would have to do was let her hands free of the cuffs.

More mind games, but I was learning and she was getting worse. Her desperation was clouding her abilities. I smiled to hide the anger and ran my hands up her legs to give her ass a firm squeeze. The cuffs brushed against my finger when she tried to grab my hand.

"I just need my hands to help. Then you can feel wonderful too," she said seductively and leaned up to kiss me, her tongue demanding entrance into my mouth. She tasted like toilet vomit. I pulled back but she struck like a snake and bit my lip. I hissed and tried to pull back but she refused to let go. She locked lips with me again and pressed her chest against mine. I put my hand around her throat and squeezed. She finally let go of my lip with pout. It looked strange the way she didn't break our intense eye contact while she tried to play the demure card. "So you still want to fight me. I can show you a world of pain and pleasure."

It was her eyes. They were the source of her mind powers. It was just as the pokédex had said. I entertained the thought of simply removing them. Still smiling, I moved my hand up her cheek and then dug my fingers into the soft flesh. I started pressing my thumb past the bone and felt her eyeball recoil. It was slowly retreating back from my nail but it took a small eternity for her to finally close her eyes. I could feel just how easily it would have been to blind her. The harder I pressed, the more I smiled. "I won't mind if you're blind. It might be fun to just have a fuck toy."

I pulled my hand back though, that wasn't the plan.

Tired of her little games, I flipped her on her stomach. To get her ass in the air, I pulled on the handcuffs. Even with how rough I had been, she was still wet. I was doing something right to the bitch. Except, such a process was entirely involuntary and out of her control. It was the body responding to stimuli not the mind. A part of me was desperately trying to convince myself to stop.

When she was sufficiently rubbing her face against the rough carpet, I gave her a few experimental slaps on the ass. It was a very nice ass. She wiggled it seductively, "I can't teach you if I'm tied up, baby."

I moved my left hand up her back and traced her spinal column, she shivered and I slowly grabbed the chunk of hair from my right hand. I brushed a few strands of hair out of her eyes and got a better look at them. It was to show her that her dominate attacks didn't work on me. I even smiled softly down at her. There was too much pain in her green pools.

"You act like you don't want me to show you my secrets." She pressed her ass onto my contained member.

She just had to ruin it with a line like that.

I grabbed her hair, it was surprisingly thick and silky, well maintained for someone who had been living in the wild before that moment. I dug my hand into the mess and then grabbed a handful close to her scalp, twisting and enjoying the feeling of it. It felt nice and silky. I gave it sharp tug and jerked her head up. Her eyes were a little too unfocused with pain though so I torqued her hair some more until they were focused on me completely.

"Listen bitch, you're going to learn not to mess with my head." By the time I finished my statement I was growling in her ear. I pushed the domina's face back into the carpet. A smile reached my face as I saw her tense up. It only increased when I rubbed her cheek against the rough carpet until it was red. If she wanted to fuck with my head then she was going to pay the price. With a few more experimental slaps, I flicked the domina's puckered asshole. That elicited an even better sound, panic. She torqued her head on the carpet and strained my hold on her hair.

A manic and excited laugh escaped me. All she accomplished was a few strand of her hair ripping out. I dropped my boxers and lined up against her pussy. As soon as I pushed the head of my cock further in, she dared to try and bob her head no.

I stopped and took a deep breath. What the hell was I doing? I was crossing a line. I couldn't pretend that it was for her own benefit. There was no way I could do it. Not even for something as stupid as a gym challenge, there had to be another way. I let go of her hair and she sighed in relief.

It was going to have to stop. Moving my hand to her back, I fumbled to find the lock on the handcuffs.

"I can't teach you if I'm tied up, baby."

"Kneel!"

My hand stopped.

What if this was a ploy? I couldn't trust my own thoughts anymore. Not with her. She was not trustworthy. Ruthless pragmatism was the only answer.

She clenched her eyes shut. I slapped her ass so hard my hand stung. She was fucking with my fucking head! Making me feel guilty! I ignored the little bitch's attempt at manipulation and lined up her pussy. I started off with deep thrust all the way to the hilt, and throwing her hips back into mine. Her supple ass cheeks made a nice slapping sound against my groin as I started fucking her harder. She was already wet and as I moved her into a better position, she finally moved, pressing herself against me.

Hearing her moans, I sped up and found a rhythm. Blood was pounded in my ears like the beating of a drum, until I could barely hear. I wished she would start doing something. Her moans were so quiet and stifled that I had trouble hearing them and her body was tense. That made me question whether my decision was the right one. I was really starting to doubt it. Despite that, the hot, slick tightness around my member made me keep going. Eventually, she and I tensed up in orgasm.

It took her a minute to separate herself from me. It gave me an opportunity to see her body fully, her olive skin flushed and dabbed with sweat. I felt cold and the haze was receding around my mind. I couldn't hear anything but the sound of my own breathing. I stood there for a moment, letting the air return to my lungs, feeling her moving beneath me.

A small eternity passed.

I had gotten caught up in it.

It was like coming out of a coma, almost, but the worst part was that I could vividly remember everything that had happened within it. In my memories, it felt like I was a spectator watching a dream version of myself. There was no yellow psychic to blame that time.

Separating myself, I moved over to the bed and put distance between myself and her. Her eyes were closed and she had finally collapsed fully to the floor.

The air conditioning finally kicked in and the room started to become even colder. It roused her slightly from her sleep and she huddled up in a fetal position to get more warmth. Spurned into action, I stripped off the top of the bed and draped it over her. It only made her look like more of a victim.

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