Chapter revision made 8/19/2018
... I'm going to ask you again... and I want you to look me in the eyes when you answer...
You've listened to all of this hard and sad stuff from me. You know it's not going to lighten up for a while... This is, perhaps, the worst parts of my past and something I can never go back on. And if I'm telling you the truth, I don't think I'll ever want that forgiveness... This probably makes me pretty horrible... Do you still want me to keep going? I want a definite yes or an absolute no... Either way... Nothing calls you to hear this anymore...
...You might... well end up regretting that answer...
xXx xXx xXx
... I don't know how long I was hugging my mother. Everything is wrong when you involve time with dreams...
The breath I took next was slow, but steady. In and out. In and out... My eyes... My true eyes crack open as my vision returned to me. My hearing is close behind as I register a near silent weening sound around me... I am back in that stupid lab's grey walls. I look down as my feet come to rest on the cold metal of the pod, standing there while the liquid around my body quickly drains down into a filtering outlet in the middle. Sense was slowly returning to me. Very slowly. You humans call that jet-lag, I think... Or maybe I don't know.
I could make out the scientists from before, but... none that I had personally associated with, anymore. Gundsar Croff and the woman were not among them, but the guards that had been nowhere to be found when I first went under were either in the hallway or in the corners of the room opposing me. That man that I remembered from waking up in the pod that one time... Yeah, he was there, too, smiling that skin crawling smile of his... There was just something very wrong about that smile... His eyes still had barely anything to them. Hardly light enough for a soul, at any rate.
Looking at him now, I realized he was about average height for an adult human male. His clothing looked more same-ly to every other scientist in that room. He wore a blue shirt under his white coat and tan long pants with heavy, brown shoes. As he was slipping on black, latex gloves, I noticed they were larger than what I was used to by a bit with long fingers.
When the capsule finally drained entirely, I reached up to my face with my free hand and lifted the breathing mask off, the band slipping from my head as my hair fell free, long enough to reach my backside and straight as straw. As I thought before, all of that length made it quite a bit heavier, especially wet. I swept my bangs away from my eyes and over my shoulder, the fluids in my hair flying against the glass, just in time. After a -clack- from the locks releasing, the glass began to rise up from around me. That stupid weening final stopped.
I looked at the other arm. I didn't want to humor the thought of this man pulling it out, so I did it myself, hissing through the sharp pain that followed before opening my eyes to the smallest puncture hole in my wrist, bleeding ever so slightly.
Dropping the... you know what... to the side, I listened to it clatter right from the edge of the base as the glass finished rising from around me.
The man walked over to me, seeming to admire what I was as he looked me up and down. As he arrived in front of me, he subtly grasped my jaw line, much to my grunting discomfort while I glared him down, even as he forcefully turned my head to look it over. [Hmm... The subject seems to have taken very nicely to the changes.] As he released my jaw, I rubbed the soreness his grip left in my skin...
His mind was a steel cage. I couldn't get a thing off of him, even though his fellow scientists were all too giddy to share theirs. I looked at all of them to see what they all thought of this. Some were transparent with a clear discomfort about his roughness. Others were reserved in face alone.
{He'd better not damage Croff's work.} {I hope this means that all this is over.} {Does he have to be an sicko even now? What the hell was that?!} {Is this guy just gonna stand around poking this thing all day?} Those were their thoughts.
He'd done just about the same sort of thing with my arm, side and leg, making me feel incredibly uncomfortable as he either firmly squeezed, moved or rubbed these parts... Mgh... Just.. thinking about it makes me nauseous.
At that point, I was trying to grit my teeth and bare it, so he would let us go- Me, Aria and mom.
He turned back to face his colleagues and grinned wide, crossing his arms behind himself. [We've done it. The first of many to come is a complete success without flaw. You can all gain pride from your pain-staking work. It has finally paid off with the bountiful fruit of your labors.]
Despite the conflicted feelings each had from before, now it was a resounding applause of claps from each of them.
... It was all very wrong to me, standing there with a very uncertain glare directed at the entire scene, my mouth pursed open and at a loss for words, because I couldn't understand a thing. I looked into their thoughts again to see what was going on.
{It's over! It's finally succeeded!} {A pokemon- nay! A creature which carries both sets of DNA...! This is a remarkable day, indeed!} {What should we even call this...!} {Disease may truly one day be nothing but a minor inconvenience... I can hardly believe this. It must be fate that I'm here, today.} ... It was incredible for me to even understand that I'd indeed been through all that heartache and it wasn't for nothing...
My disapproval turned into the slightest bit of pride when I realized that. I grinned ever so slightly. It was strange, really. Why was I happy then? For them...? Or was I happy because it might all actually be over?
Then... it hit me again as I looked around. Two faces were missing from this picture that I'd sort of counted on seeing again as my grin ebbed away. I was now standing there in a confused blankness... Gundsar and that woman should have been there. They were the only ones I actually half cared about. With all that concern the woman showed me and Aria, she wouldn't have just quit and gone home before seeing me out of that tube. That and more could be said about the good doctor, who was the one human I might have started to like in there...
As much as I didn't want to, I looked over to that man again. {H-... Hey. You.}
His head seemed to perk. "Hm?" He turned back to face me with that smile of his, brows raised while those soulless eyes seemed every bit as wrong as ever. [Was that you? I don't believe we've been introduced, you and I.] Not a word did I understand.
Rolling my eyes, I thought back to him. {Yeah. I didn't understand a word of that. I can only understand your thoughts, just like every other human here.}
With a wide smirk, his eyes grew bored. {I know. I was only teasing you. I remember the doctor telling me of this mental connection you and your mother formed with him.}
He had just started making sense to me and already I didn't want to "talk" to him. I narrowed my eyes as I refused to respond.
With a smiled huff of laughter, he pat my shoulder. {There's no need to be so passive. I apologize for my joke. There. Now, do tell me, my little subject. Whatever could you need?}
... I shook my head, unable to make sense of that guy's weird way of thinking. I couldn't tell then if he was being condescending or actually communicating. I'm very certain now about which of the two he was... I asked, {I was wondering where Gundsar and the woman he's usually with are. I don't see them.}
And that rid him of his smile as he seemed to look disappointed. {Ah... I see. This is born of their absence. Well, you need not concern yourself with Gundsar Croff and Mariss Aklin. They have both retired due to overwhelming stress and fatigue from too many years of the same endeavors.}
{R-retired...?!} I just stood there with a betrayed and outraged glare on my face.
He nodded as that creepy smile returned, as if thinking what he did next filled him with a sense of joy... {Yes. Truly a shame. Such incredible intellectuals eventually broke under the pressures a job like this force upon the mind. I don't claim to understand it, but dear Gundsar said he couldn't handle it if you turned out to be a failure, too. After the scare you gave us 2 years ago, he feared that outcome even more. Such a foolish man. Maybe the death of his daughter was much more of a toll on his psyche than we thought. And, well, Mariss couldn't go on with the job without the one she'd enlisted to help. Luckily for you, it appears they were unneeded to finish the job.}
... What he was telling me had to be the basest of lies, but then I hardly knew either of them. What proof did I have that he was lying to me? Of course I didn't believe him, but I didn't think back to him about it. Instead, I kept my thoughts to myself on that part...
Then, something struck me as I thought about what he said... Had hereally just said two years ago...? My eyes grew wide with the implications of that statement. My gaze snapped back to him as he was turning away. {Hold on a second!}
... He turned back around to me with an honestly confused look on his mug. {Yes? What now?}
I didn't really try to pretty it up. I jumped from off of the machine, finally landing on the cold floor as that seemed to alert the guards, then squinted into him in disbelief. {... Two.. years? How long did you people keep me in here?!}
Obviously, the guards had begun to enclose, but a simple stopping gesture from this man's hand froze them in their tracks. They looked at each other, then backed themselves back into place.
With a sigh, the man grinned and looked into my eyes. {It has been... 5 years.} ... It felt like someone just stabbed me in the gut...
My head rung as my eyes grew wide and my mouth drifted open... I dropped my unblinking gaze to the floor and tried to take deep breaths, just to keep myself from losing it as I shook.
He saw that and wasn't impressed, I suppose. He turned to one of the guards and spoke. [Inform Joy. There may have just been mental scarring. It won't do for the first living subject's mind to break.] The guard saluted with a fist over his heart, then jogged his way down the hall as the man's eyes returned to me...
I was just trying to keep my head from rolling right off of my shoulders and onto the floor. Five whole years had passed since I'd been outside of that tube... I figured my mental time was messed up... but it felt like it couldn't have been more than a week's time... My horror didn't end with that... I truly wish it did. I wish I was talking about some nightmare I was having... It was the one thing I couldn't take seeing in the many cluttered thoughts going on in this room...
{It's a relief things turned out the way they did. It could have ended the same way it had with her mother...}
... My eyes were already as wide as they could be, but now, it was like sound just cancelled out... My eyes drifted to the one that thought it, this woman with red hair and blue eyes that was smiling, before she suddenly lost that smile, realizing where I was looking. {H-hey... Is she looking at.. me?}
{... What was that thought...? Why did you just have that thought...? My mother... What happened to my mother?}
Her eyes widened as she gasped and everything suddenly grew very quiet for everyone else as well as they turned to look at her. {Y-you... you saw what I-I was... Oh... oh no... Th-that wasn't...!} [I-I didn't mean to...! She...]
The man seemed to realize what was going on as he both saw my face and heard her speak. He turned and looked at her with a glare. [What did you just do? What happened?! Did she read your mind?!]
{What happened to my mother...?!} He froze and turned to look at me again. He was unnerved and sweating to see me looking directly at him like that... He swallowed the collecting lump in his throat.
The guards ignored his wishes and gathered around me, whipping out small guns from plastic shells hooked up to their legs.
With hands held up, he closed his eyes and sighed through a frown... Why was he frowning, I remember thinking... {I guess that would have happened before long, anyway. I'm the only one clever enough to keep his thoughts to himself...} With a shrug as if it didn't even matter, he turned away from me and shook his head. {You see... that idiot, Gundsar Croff, and his assistant... had already failed the earlier subject's conversion long ago... That subject was your mother, of whom told him that she wouldn't allow him to use you or that Meloetta friend of yours, so she begged him to take her as his next subject instead of the Meloetta, whom he originally intended to use first. You see, she had hands, an uncommon train in Meloettas... One that might reveal a latent genomic reason for being there. Hidden human DNA strands mixed in with the rest... But, your mother insisted we use herself first... It seemed to be going smoothly, but like with you, her breathing suddenly faltered and soon her heart rate as she began to relapse... However, unlike you, she was not able to recover from the relapse... She died shortly after. And how utterly confounding... and yet somewhat ironic that her brood, whom she was protecting so stubbornly with that little friend, lived when she, a well developed adult, died. No defects, no DNA strands negative. No unmatched genetics.} I could feel his grin as he thought up his next words... {Please, don't try to do anything. You will only hurt or kill yourself trying to act thanks to the power capper... and that... will only lead to us needing to repeat this successful process, now that we know it works. Only now, we know it works only on child stage pokemon. That certainly makes things quite a bit... easier, really."
...Can you imagine the rage I was feeling in that moment...? I'll help you...
Something, somewhere in the hall just let of the loudest electrical -zzzzit!- as the lights suddenly flickered, half of them popping and gaining the yelping alarm of every man and woman in that room.
Even that despicable man had been taken off whatever high horse he was on, looking around the ceiling at the busted lights as his grin ebbed away... {... Wh-what did...? H-how could it have...?!} He looked back to me with increasing horror as his eyes grew wide.
My power spiked enough to overload and bust that "power capper", as he called it, that kept us from using moves... I could have teleported away in that very moment, but I had a... better idea... I focused a mental attack on the guards surrounding me with Confusion as they all started groaning out in pain, shuddering and dropping their guns as they clutched their hands to their heads and started screaming. They tried to back away and they shivered and writhed, but it was a bit too late for that...
Each of the scientists, the man I'd been speaking to included, either began to back away or run out of the room, frightened by what they could not comprehend.
I clenched my hands into fist as the screaming suddenly went silent from the guards and these low -plop- noises could be heard... Their arms dropped to their sides like jelly before they all fell to the floor like sacks of potatoes... I'd killed them by literally crushing their brains inside of their own heads...
... It felt... I can't lie... It felt very satisfying to finally kill some of the people that took us from our home...
The man saw them just lying there and not moving. He was sweating and he knew that I wanted him next.
I was looking right at him with a hating scowl on my face. I didn't waste words or thoughts. That part of me was just... gone. I only wanted what he could give me... His life. I figured out how I wanted to take what I wanted, too...
Sharp points suddenly materialized out of thin air, dark pink in color as they spun in place, misshapen and lopsided maybe... But they would do...
He gasped and tried to turn and run, only for me to throw a hand forward as the points shot him in the back, stabbing straight through clothing, skin and muscle! He screamed out loudly through intense pain, falling over and bleeding through his coat. The white article of clothing was quickly stained red in spreading areas before long as he immediately grew still... and then, silence... Every remaining scientist in the room had long since ran away, leaving me in an eerily quiet lab with a dead man...
The move I just used was Psyshock. I... think my kind can learn it, yes, but not naturally...
There was no way that I'd just leave that there, so I turned myself around to look at all the machinery that helped to make me into... well, what you see before you... and materialized many more of the same sharp points, this time shaped a bit better than before. They floated there before the machines as I turned and walked into the hallway, then turned back to take one last look at the room... I wanted it all GONE...
I thrust my arms forward, sending countless points through each of the machines and filling them with holes. As the capsule was torn apart, I watched in a particular satisfaction. It's glass casing utterly shattered and the hole-riddled base burst into flames, catching every other short circuiting machine on fire in the process. The room had been turned into a raging inferno before long.
Dropping my hands back to my sides, I turned and left, hearing more blasts behind me from exploding machinery, some metal bits even flying out ahead of me before clattering the floor and coming to rest.
For what I did next, I thought to every creature in that building, excluding the humans, and told them this. {To every pokemon trapped in cells, I've broken the machine that was keeping us from using our powers. Do as you please. You're free. Just be aware that I am going to burn this place to the ground and bury the humans with their toys.}
{R-Ralina?!}
I stopped in my tracks and stood there for a moment... Aria... At least she was okay. That's what I remembered thinking... I tried to remain silent from her as I continued to walk. A human guard ran right out in front of me from the crossing hallway with a loaded gun and -BANG! He fired at me... only for the bullet he tried to fire to get stuck in the gun, much to his confusion.
He tried to fire again! -BRANG!- As the gun went off again, the barrel blew apart with the gun in his hands as he cursed and threw what was left of the gun away. And just like that, I lifted him into the air with Confusion as he screamed and tried to squirm out of it. I whipped my hand aside and threw him at the corner formed by the intersecting walls, his back landing first as he slammed the wall, spinning limply and soundlessly into one of the halls before hitting the floor and rolling a ways...
I continued to walk down the hall, remembering my mother's face... How had I been talking to her all this time after she'd been dead...? Had she been speaking to me from beyond...? Had I just gotten her mixed up with another gardevoir who had a daughter in here? Was that even a possibility? Those were my thoughts, even as I had gotten done possibly breaking a man's back against a corner wall.
{Ralina, I know you're out there! Why won't you let me in?!}
... I kept walking as tears streamed down my cheeks. My expression was still a glare, but the more I thought about the pokemon I knew five years ago, the more I recalled... My mother's been dead for five whole years and I've been talking to her in my own head...
When I thought of it that way, I felt like I was making her up in those moments. I felt like I was crazy. I could have well be with how I was right then... I kept replaying everything in my head over and over, just trying to spot inconsistencies... She hesitated once out of it all... She hesitated when she was telling me that her mind reading powers allowed her to act upon my dreams... Did that mean she lied or that I just rationalized it...? But... then what about the point when I was so disgusted with myself that I thought I was a monster...? She comforted me instead of shunning me like I would have... Did I just want to be comforted like that...?
I held my head as I continued to MAKE my feet move. My breathing became erratic...
{Ralina... I'm just worried about you... Please answer-}
A scream of pure rage erupts out of me long and hard. I threw my hands away from my head, running down the hall at full speed with those awkward legs, psychic power radiating right from off of my body in a pink aura. I was in a full-blown blood haze.
One human scientist rounded the corner of the hall at the wrong time. They gasped and tried to turn back, only for me to tackle into them head first in their stomach and slam them against the wall as they coughed out in pain, winded. hopping back from them, I landed on my feet and thrust an arm forward as Psyshock shot out from my aura and stabbed into them time after time after time. They let out a gurgling moan and before long, they began to slide down the wall, smearing it with blood and revealing entry holes. They were just about sitting on the floor, only to be caught in my Confusion and lifted into the air.
I snapped my head to the side as I heard the clatter of booted feet coming toward me, armored guards becoming visible after only a moment. With the flick of my wrist, I quickly threw the dying human from my Confusion as it slammed into both guards and sent them falling back onto the floor. Before either could react fast enough to get up, A Psyshock crystal shot into both of their masks, shattering them into their faces and right through the back of their helms. They went limp. It was an instant death...
... Upon a slightly closer inspection, I realized that one of the guards wore the same green mask one of my original captors wore... I couldn't have smiled, even if it felt good... Honestly, that it felt this good to do something this incredibly horrible... was nauseating in it's own right...
-Tack!-
Something smacked me on the back of the head as my eyes grew wide. A red aura suddenly overtook mine as whatever it was shocked me as I grunt out and groaned throughout the duration of it... until it just vanished, leaving me extremely irritated and growling as my anger welled up again, my aura flaring back up. I suddenly whirled around and scowled distantly up at the red-headed woman from before, who shook the second her blue eyes found my reds. Her hand had been outstretched... as if it had thrown something...
[Error!]
When I heard the human-sounding word, my eyes instantly flicked down to... a pokeball. Red and white. The most common form they come in, kind of like your's.
The ball's button was blinking red every half second as it went on to... speak... just like your's did. And using the exact same words, though back then I didn't know what they meant. [Unable to retrieve! Target must be a pokemon! Please, do not use this Pokeball on humans! Thank you!] And then, it just stopped flashing, sitting there...
I glared backup at the woman, just as she then raised her hands above her head and dropped to her knees in a heap. She had her head hung and was sniffling like a pathetic little child. [P-please, don't ...! I want to go home!]
... I could have done it. It would have been easy... But... I don't know why right then... I just... I thought back to that boy I met when I was very young. What would he think of me if I killed this woman? ... Would he fear me...? My eyes softened from their glare and a frown took it's place for a moment. My aura even died away... I think it was maybe then that I realized I still had a heart... ... I bit back my sympathy and growled with grit teeth as I glared again.
I brought a leg up and though I didn't step on it when I stomped, the pokeball utterly and violently shattered to bit under my psychic power's pressure, much to the woman's agasp shriek. She covers her head and whimpers... As I glared her down, I only had one word for her. {RUN...}
When she saw that word in her head, she suddenly lifted it from her arms and looked at me, scared for her life as she started to shiver back up onto her feet. She took a step back as she furrowed her brows. Shaking her head, she both thought and said, {Wha...?]
I lost my temper and materialized a few Psyshock point, giving her the sickest glare as I screamed, "RUN AWAY!"
Even if she didn't understand what I said, she still gasped and took off running away from me as I shot point after point at the floor right behind her ankles, ridding it with dents, holes and the like. One even sliced along an ankle as she shrieked and stumbled, but she caught herself and continued to run, vanishing around a corner wall as my last Psyshock point flew through her hair and pierced through the metal wall, leaving a gnarly hole...
I huffed and puffed at how much anger and frustration I let out at once, sweating while the remaining pink points slowly dissolving into pink smoke. shaking my head and decidedly turned away from the hall she disappeared down, my eyes fell back down to the green-masked man... Glaring again through the hate I felt for these people, I stormed over until I was right beside him, then swiftly delivered a hard, roar-exciting kick to his head and off his mask flew from what was left of his face, clattering into a wall with a -clang!- ... I was still scowling into it the whole time; the face of one of the men that kidnapped us... There is nothing worth recounting about it... I don't think you'd want me to, anyways... It was not exactly pretty...
... I turned away from him and just stood there for a moment... and ran down the hall, passed the broken bodies of humans I myself hadn't left behind. It looked like some pokemon wanted to use their freedom to give their captors justice. I eventually came to the cells, door after door left busted open and in terrible shape and room after room empty, unless the crumpled body of a human or two were inside.
I slowed myself down to a stop once I spotted the one door out of all the rest that hadn't been opened... It had been my cell, I remembered.
I walked up to the door as I stared up at the bar one might use to pull it open and lock it. It was too far up to reach with my hands... losing my scowl quickly as I looked off to the side, my eyes softened with furrowed brows. I still didn't know what I might look like to Aria... Shaking my head, I narrowed my eyes and decided that it didn't matter. She needed to get out of here... I held out my hand to the door as my Confusion's grasp took hold of the metal hunk, creaking it idly. I swiped my arm to the side quickly and incidentally ripped the door from the slide hinges and doorway, throwing it skidding noisily down the hall with metal screeching against metal.
... And there she was. Aria was against the far wall, eyes and mouth gaping wide. She... looked no different. I guess it's about right she didn't. Meloetta and other legendaries had long lives, just like us of the ralts family... Though, I'm not sure if I still counted... She immediately stood up and stared at me as her mouth closed... "R-Ralina...?!" The tone in her voice was disbelief. She was definitely shocked.
I didn't blame her, looking away while I closed my eyes and idly shrugged. "... Yeah..." My voice... The first time I had noticed it since waking up. It was more matured, even if not by much. I couldn't help but stare down in the direction of my throat as my hand felt it's fingers to it. I looked back up at her to see that she'd closed the gap between the two of us... looking up at me... It felt wrong to me that she was now much shorter than me when I started off a single foot tall before all of this, but she was smiling after the longest time... I didn't comprehend it, shaking my head. "I don't understand how you can stand there, smiling at this..."
It took her a moment to respond, blinking into a confused, cocked brow. "...I've honestly seen worse on pokemon who were naturally strange looking. You can't compare to the UG that is Venusaur."
Sighing off to the side, I couldn't stop a smile from creeping up on me. "...Well... thanks... I think... But with all due respect, I can't really count myself a pokemon anymore..." ... Funny. If I had known what that pokeball said, I might have been even more convinced I wasn't one, back then. No use thinking about what I didn't know... Anyways, then Aria said...
"Oh, shut up~."
I recoiled a bit from her rebuttal, blinking my eyes a bit wide down at her just in time to find her hugging me around my waist. I really didn't know how to respond to this... I just gave in and shook my head, reluctantly resting a single hand to her back... We couldn't stay here, I reminded myself, furrowing my brows.
I gently pried her from me and stepped back while looking at her, seeing how she seemed confused. "What's up? Why are you acting... weird?"
I shook my head and sighed through my new nose. "It's really not the time for any of this..." I walked away from the door way and further down the hall as she followed, using levitation to keep up.
Aria spoke up while a frown took hold of her face. "Ralina, I want to help. Any way I can, please. Just let me."
... Why hadn't I been reading her mind? Simple. I didn't want to get weak knees then of all times. And how I was able to do it was actually simpler than I thought it would be. I just focused on my own thoughts. What I wanted to do naturally took up all the thinking space I had...
Whatever the case... I stopped and paused for a moment, just listening to that name in my head. Ralina... It felt incredibly wrong for me to be using that name, then... "Stop calling me Ralina..."
She was taken aback by the statement, frowning as she floated in front of me. "But... I don't understand. Why? There's nothing wrong with your name..."
I had a deep grimace on my face as I tilted my head down and closed my eyes. "... I just spent the last few minutes killing humans that either took us here or turned me into this... The old "Ralina" didn't believe in killing, until she figured out her mother was killed by these same humans."
The part about my mother being dead made her face turn paler, if that was even possible. She frowned and furrowed her brows, trying to reach for me, but I gently pushed her hand away, then walked a ways passed her, leaving her to close her eyes and shake her head. "I'm so sorry..."
I walked a small ways more, before stopping and considering what to call myself then... One human used the word "Fate" when describing the force responsible for himself being there that specific day... I was definitely no force, but it was better than what I had, now. "Call me Fate from now on. Until I feel comfortable with myself again, I'm not using Ralina, so just get used to that one."
She hesitated for a moment... but turned to me and quickly levitated to my side. "Please, let me come with you! I don't want to leave you alone like this..."
I shut my eyes and shook my head. "That would be nice, but no." Opening them once more, I looked at her with my eyes alone, not turning to face her directly. "I want you as far away from this place as possible. You and every other pokemon here... I'm about to go and find a way to erase it from the face of the planet. It is never getting used for what they did to me, ever again."
"No!" She narrowed her eyes into me and grabbed me by the shoulders. "I can't let you! I WON'T! Five years of thinking you died in that room. Five! I didn't know what to do with myself or what to tell your mother! And now I know why she never yelled at me and I can't let you go knowing you might die! Ralina, I-"
My patience wore thin. I used confusion to grab her, much to her gasping fright, then whipped my arm up and back as she was sent flying behind me! She eventually thud against the floor and roll a ways, which was painful for me to hear...
My brows furrowed and I bit my lip, but I eventually started walking away while she was picking herself off the floor. I know for a fact she could have persisted, but I think... maybe I got through to her in some small measure, even though I'm pretty sure by the feeling of her emotions that she was hurt in more ways than just physically...
... ... ... Do I regret that? ... I do and don't... It was the hardest thing I had to do, that day... even with what comes next being far more dangerous. I'd hurt one of the people that cared about me the most in my time there... At least she listened to me afterwards... Hah... To a certain extent, I mean...
I continued to comb the facility over, looking for a way to blow it sky-high. All the while, I encountered human resistance... I left the bodies of that resistance to the wayside, searching ceaselessly. It didn't matter how many got in my way. I could tear them apart like paper. And tear them apart, I did...
I eventually came to a hallway that looked brighter than the others with a blue, flickering glow coming from the corridor leading me left. Following the light, I traveled the hall to it's end. Finding the source was relatively easy. The Light came through via a window looking in on a room blocked off by a metal door with yellow and black lining top and bottom. I dealt with the door the same as before. I used Confusion to rip it from the railing, unconcerned with the scraping sounds it caused to echo the halls.
Stepping inside the room, my eyes grew wide as they observed what laid inside. These great, massive machines- four in all- acted as supercharged lightning rods for one another, constantly sparking electricity between themselves as they illuminated the room in a bath of blue light. It was so bright after a while that the image had imprinted in my vision, but I never though to cover my eyes with a hand. I was in shear awe of the powerful machinery. Narrowing my eyes, I squinted to see a fifth machine, smaller than the rest, in the center... though, it was smoking. It looked badly damaged. That's when I realized that it must have been the machine I overloaded that kept us pacified. It DID look different than the others. More like a box with wired antennas. I glared at it, then turned my attention back to the larger machines all around it. I nodded to myself. "If anything can blow this place apart, I'm gonna bet it's making these things explode."
{As easy as before, it seems,} came a thought with ill intent from behind me. I gasped as I spun around and froze at the sight of a gun- a very familiar one- pointed at my face... I carefully looked beyond it to see a very unwelcome person. The red masked man that was among those that brought us here in the first place.
I couldn't see his face, but somehow it felt like he was smiling. [We met again.]
Funny how every human thought that I could understand them. Who started that rumor? ... ... ... Professor Oak? Really? Another science-y type?
I used Teleport to surround myself in a pink aura and vanish as he fired into the floor, scarring it's surface with a mass of puncture holes. I reappeared from a flash of pink to one side of the room as the masked man spotted me before long, walking into the room with careful, yet confident steps. He aimed his gun at me again, cocking this special sliding mechanism on the bottom as the gun ejected a small, smoking cylinder. It dropped to the ground, steaming from a hole blown in it.
We stared each other down for the longest time. Something warned me that this man was nothing like his hapless friends. He knew how to fight, but he didn't start anything just yet.
I glared him down, the electrical sparks crackling beside us both. I thought to him in his mind. {You know, I find you humans funny how you actually think I can even understand a thing you're saying. Actually, no. That's not true, because that would be a compliment. I think you're all idiots.}
With a humph, he shook his head and thought back. {I suppose that this what that man was going on about. A pokemon that spoke into our minds. Then, you must know that I came here to protect what little remains.}
I scoffed and rolled my eyes. {Protect? This place? And just why? As you can see, it made a freak of me. And you are just gonna stand there and tell me you want to protect this place?!} ... I laughed, mocking the very idea, before scowling more furiously into him. {Oh, but right. You're one of the humans that brought us here, so I guess that it's your fault my mother died, too...}
He seemed to turn his head down slightly... before he faced me again and lowered his gun. {... I do regret letting that happen. Your mother was never meant to be a subject at all, according to what Croff and Aklin's orders were for me.}
I remained silent while I closed my eyes and read what he had to say.
{The orders that were handed down to my team and I were to specifically capture humanoid pokemon, but to prioritize a child evolution of the same make-up. This was never told to the other scientists until it was too late. And so, Tayner, the man whom took over control of the project from Croff, used your mother. On the basis that she was the most humanoid of all subjects present, he assumed this would give him a desired result. It's none of my business, but some scientists thought he was being short-sighted concerning the Meloetta..." Turning his head a bit, he suggested, "Or disingenuous..." ... Shrugging, he turned his head back to me. "It was never an order from the director, but that was the pretense...}
... I seethed and shook. I knew it felt wrong, but at that point, I was thankful that I killed him. My mother's direct murderer was dead... I opened my eyes and scowled into the masked man's mask. {... So, he's the one who did it... I knew he was lying... I'm glad I killed him, then. That man deserved worse, but I'm glad he's gone.}
{...} He said nothing, then shook his head. After a pause, he spoke. {We both know that only one of us can leave this room alive, potentially. You undoubtedly hate me. And I have reason to kill you myself, even if not as substantial.} He pointed his gun at me again. {I saw what you did to Carlon and other members of my Guardians. You and the other beasts. Dis-functional as we are, I consider each member family and I've killed some of your fellow pokemon to make that point, so I see no reason not to kill you."
That wiped away quite a lot of... whatever slight forgiveness I was starting to feel for him. My eyes grew in realization. Scowling at him, I grit my teeth. "You...! You had better not of hurt Aria! She didn't hurt anyone!"
He was very silent for a bit, considering what he would say. I could practically see him hiding thoughts from me... He then shrugged. "So, what if I did? I won't feel sorry for it. And I didn't even know your kind used names. Didn't think you were smart enough."
...The unclear answer made me irritated. He was playing with me. And I didn't appreciate that...
"You let them out. And you killed a few humans yourself. I killed quite a few pokemon moments ago to get revenge. But I won't be satisfied 'till your little body is riddled with holes. You aren't innocent and neither am I, so let's not pretend. I won't show forgiveness, as is the same for you. I know well that you may be stronger than I am now that you've been given a new body, so I may have no chance what-so-ever... I'm still going to try my damnedest to kill you, so you had better kill me if you can, brat, so speak some last words and let's get down to it!}
I could feel my blood boiling as he threaten my life, recalling that it was because of that man that we ended up here in the first place. My eyes were sharp like daggers with hate. {You're very right. I won't settle for things as they are between us if you live. You're also right about something else. I can kill you. Just remember this...} Arrow heads of dark pink shimmered into being as raised a hand and stepped forward. I was getting better at using Psyshock. {You helped make me a monster.}
The gun went off and I was ready for it. I moved my opposing hand up and used confusion to stop whatever was fired coming toward my circle, stilling a spread of tiny, black, marble projectiles. I heard the remaining spread clank and clang against the wall and floor behind me.
After he cocked the gun, he fired again, but again the same happened as the black marbles collected in another layer. I figured the attack out quickly as I realized the gun had a delay time of 1 second. Thrusting both arms forward with a grunt, I sent both my Psyshock arrows and the caught pellets flying at him.
With any other, that would have been the end, but he'd already begun to spin out of the way in a dodge as everything rushed passed him and instead littered the wall behind him with dents and holes. He had reloaded the gun during that time and shot for where I was, only for pellets to sail the open and empty air. I had teleported.
I materialized behind him as I summoned Psyshock arrows to all sides, again. As I was about to send them flying directly into him, I suddenly found his foot in my stomach as he kicked me away and sent me rolling!
... I was expecting to be shot at that point, but it never came. I groaned as I looked up to see that he was in the middle of sliding more of those cylinders into a port in his gun as he approached me in a storm. Suddenly alert, I rolled into a running sprint as he took aim for me just as I got myself behind one of the large machines generating power, but made sure I wasn't too near it that I got struck or shocked.
He didn't fire at me after that. I used the moment to catch my breath, quietly breathing to myself while I tried to think of a plan. I was definitely not the skill nor experience in this fight. I was the power. Directly, skill trumped power. I was starting to figure that out. We were both smart, but one of us was limited to depending on physical force and a weapon... I needed to break one. And I figured out a how. His gun could only fire 4 times before he needed to reload it.
I used my teleportation to switch my position to the opposite side of the room, over on the other side of a machine.
Reforming from the pink mist, I nearly got very unlucky when a bolt of stray electricity zapped the floor in front of me, making me go stiff and nearly let out a gasp. I narrowed my eyes at the sound of the masked man's voice as I calmed myself and focused on where the sound was coming from.
[I know you're not gone! Come out, girl! I'm going to ring your little throat for the face job you gave Carlon! I know it was that damn move that did it, so don't deny it, either!] It was all noise to me and he was keeping me out of his mind as far as what he was up to... or at least, he had been. What I HEARD from his mind next was probably a quieter thought. {...can't let this runt get away... Damn. She must have used Teleport. The kid loves that move, seems to me. ...Not anywhere on the left...} I could also tell where the feeling of alertness was coming from, much to my surprise. He was coming down the middle... but that seemed stupid to me. I remember thinking he'd definitely get fried.
I carefully moved around the... I guess it could just be called a generator for convenience... I moved with slow and quiet steps in the opposite direction from the man. I could hear him pretty well enough with how his boots didn't make it very quiet when he stepped at all...
Looking into the path down the middle, I was careful not to show myself as I spotted him getting shocked by the electricity... but just moving right through without minding it! Electricity didn't affect him at all. I figured it must have been his armor. It seemed like it was capable before, but right then it just seemed incredibly handy.
He stopped as he went stiff, then turned my way... only to see nothing. I had ducked back into cover and moved back the way I'd come, back around to the other side of the generator. I held up a hand and summoned Psyshock's arrow heads. Stopping shy of the open walk way, I thought for a moment, then gently pushed my arrowheads into the path and potentially his line of sight... I thrust my hand out as they shot forward toward him, making him gasp as I heard metal clanks.
... A moment passed as silence reigned. I knew he was still there... Suddenly, I felt his presence getting closer as he rushed down the middle, his boots hammering the metal floor. Gasping through my surprise, I quickly jumped back and readied Confusion just in time as he rounded the generator and took quick aim, firing the second he saw me as a spray littered my Confusion's barrier. Then he cocked the gun and fired another round as he drew closer and exitted the middle of the generators, me catching everything with the barrier as he kept firing and drawing in. Electricity stopped clinging to him as he got out of range and kept his gun focused on me.
I kept backing away as I waited for the last round... but it never came, which had me sweating. He already figured out I would try that and was waiting for me.
I grew unnerved as he drew dangerously close to me. Then, I began to summon Psyshock's arrow heads. Having to keep Confusion up in case of return fire made it harder to focus and make them, but I soon had a few arrows to work with.
I let the arrows fly as he drew in to close, only for him to dodge aside and toward my open flank, blocking me off from running anywhere as he spun around for an attempt at kicking me! I just barely dodged out of the way of it as I smacked into the corner wall of the room, accidentally dropping my confusion much to my horror as all of those pellets fell to the floor like tiny marbles.
[Hah! Open!] He immediately spun back around from the kick and took aim as I gasped and raised my hand up, using Confusion right as his finger near squeezed the trigger...
... ... ...
I was gasping for air from just how close to death I was just then. The barrel of that gun was in my face and the only thing that saved me was a quick and lucky snare with Confusion used on the masked man himself. He groaned as he kept attempting to squeeze the trigger, finger quivering and tapping weakly against the metal lever...
I took a moment to absorb the situation... then scowled through sheer malice and thrust my arm forward, sending him flying and screaming! He slammed into one of the far walls with a loud -CLANG!- as his weapon went flying from his hands and skidding away from him, right at the foot of the generator!
With an exasperated sigh, I released confusion, still catching my breath from my near death experience as he fell to the floor and clanged against the metal surface in a heap...
I began to walk toward him while I saw him writhe for a moment as he groaned... Then, he began to quickly scramble for his gun, reaching out for it before long.
I gasped and quickly lifted a hand, forming an arrow head from psyshock as he pulled his gun into his hands and attempted to take aim from his laid down position! I quickly let my arrow head fly and shoot into the gun's chamber, bursting it open as the man gasped! He looked at his damaged weapon, then at me... I could feel warmth drain from him through his emotions.
I began walking toward him again as he dropped the gun and attempted to pick himself up, groaning all the while like he was seriously injured, but I ended that effort by exerting Confusion over him again and thrusting my arm down. It slammed him flat to the floor head first with a loud -TANG!- as he shrieked from pain, his mask having become a broken and cracked up mess.
I glared down at him as he groaned again before using his remaining strength to flip himself clumsily onto his back. The mask broke apart like glass on one side, then fell off of his head entirely, bounding to the floor, rolling around on it's in tact side in a circle before it came to a halt, rocking back and forth.
His face was finally revealed. He was a man of at least 30 years old, face tough looking with a strong, diamond jawline. His hair was jet black, messy and short. His hardened, down-turned eyes were a dark yellow. On his forehead was a scar right across and over his cheekbone was a smaller one. He had a roughly trimmed, thin beard along his entire jaw...
He opened his mouth to speak... But he must have remembered that I can't understand him that way, because he closed it soon after. {Well? Are you going to have me beg to be spared? You'll be waiting for nothing, if that's the case. I already told you. One of us couldn't make it out of here alive. My men can survive without me, as well, so go ahead. End what you started if you have the guts.}
... I paused there for a moment, just glaring at him. {...Not before you answer one thing.}
He loosened his glare, closing his eyes. {...Fine.}
I did the same, taking a breath. {Why?}
His brow twitched with a slight grunt as her opened his eyes. {... Why?}
{... Why did you have to take my mother when Aria was the one you wanted most of all? And why hurt my sister? What was even the point after you had someone like Aria...}
... He didn't think anything for the longest time, staring off from me. {... ... ... Yeah. You're right. I could have just left with... I'm gonna guess Aria is the Meloetta... Irony.} Shrugging, he thought on. {One was probably enough, but I don't take chances. I take consideration. And even though the Meloetta was a humanoid, the doctor said if I found a ralts... I was to bring it back, no questions asked. I can only think he had a good reason for wanting one, so I made sure I caught you... Whatever means necessary... Got rewarded handsomely for it, too. Even hired us long-term with great pay because of it...} He glared into nothing in particular. {I knew how despicable I was for taking a little girl and her mother from their home, but like I said. My men come first. I don't care what's asked of me, if they get something good.} Smirked weakly, he coughed out a few laughs and stared me on the face. {Shoulda known it was a deal too good to be true... Big money usually means deep shit...}
... At the same time, I felt angry... and sympathetic... I didn't know what money was or what it meant to people at the time, but it sounded like he was a decent guy just trying to provide for his people... I still hated him, but I wasn't glaring down at him... I was just staring...
Losing his smile, he let his head fall back as he seemed to relax in an awkward way. {Go ahead, then. Kill me. Doesn't matter if you don't at this point, because... I can't feel my legs. Can't get out, so I'd rather you killed me instead of my men seeing me like this...}
That demand was less welcome than I thought it would be as I silently stared at him, tilting my head... {...Most normal people beg for their life when they think they'll die. Why aren't you?}
He chuckled a little at that, weary as he set his eyes on me with the same cold stare. {I don't think that really matters. Maybe I'm tired of living this kind of life all together. Maybe I couldn't stomach killing a kid after I already essentially murdered her mother. Maybe finding out pokemon name themselves too is a pretty big pill to swallow. Makes them seem too sentient. T's not like killing beasts...} He looked back over to me with a resolved glare. {Now, get it over with. I am the human that kidnapped you and got your mother killed. I even tried to kill you. That makes us pretty damn clear enemies... Finish what you started...}
... I raised a hand and summoned a single Psyshock arrow. He closed his eyes, even smiling as if he welcomed this...
... There was no way he was getting out of this alive, even if I didn't directly kill him. As soon as I blew this place up, there would be no way he'd escape. He was paralyzed from the waste down and I'm positive he was the last of his men still here at this point, if they weren't all dead... Still... I hesitated for a moment...
... Wordlessly, I thrust my arm straight at his chest as the arrow shot through him, right through his heart as he slumped and laid there flat... Blood ran through the new hole in his armor, coating the floor before long... He was dead...
... Unlike with the other "guardian, I didn't feel any better for this... I felt... confused... On one hand, the man responsible for all of this was dead. On the other, he wasn't the same man I pictured him to be... I didn't think about it for too much longer, because I remembered that I came here to do something...
I turned back to the machines in the room, still somewhat in awe of the power on display. The electrical currents constantly humming out loudly between the four machines. Each machine probably held power on par with Raikou, the very lightning itself. I groaned as I recalled the one time I got shocked full of the very same lightning. A million needles awaited me when I would destroy these... or an even worse pain, since they would be exploding instead of shocking...
I raised a hand, focusing as I summon as many Psyshock arrows as I had remaining energy to use. I didn't know any weak points, so I floated the countless number of arrowheads all around each generator, as if I were about to perform acupuncture.
My eyes shut while I took a moment to myself, remembering mother and Kimmy... I remembered the game of hide and seek as if it happened yesterday... I really wished that all had some elaborate dream, but it never went away...
Opening my eyes into a glare, I clenched my hand into a fist. Every Arrow head converged and shot into the machines, ripping into them or plain sailing through and into nearby walls! Riddled with holes as the currents between the machines became unstable, they all caught on fire first.
At that point, I closed my eyes and waited. I wasn't really thinking of preservation. I remember what was on my mind. {Monsters like me should never exist...}
No!
I gasped as I heard my mother's voice, faintly. "Mom...?!"
The machines finally started to whine out of control as I watched with a renewed terror. I guarded myself by curling inward and crossing my arms in from of my face.
It wasn't me that summoned it, but an encircling field of some kind, pink in color and formed of hexagonal grids suddenly surrounded me as I frantically looked around and began to panic, dropping my guard.
My eyes then caught sight of the generators all going off with a massive, blinding explosion as I screamed and covered my face.
I didn't hardly get hit by it, other than the shier force sending me rocketing back within the barrier with my screams as the walls flew apart all around me! I didn't know how far I traveled or how fast, but everything around me was a fiery blur and an endless white. Closing my eyes didn't help at all. My ears were endlessly assaulted by the mad roars of the explosion all around me. My stomach turned inside out and my sense of direction had long since been lost.
It felt like the world was ending around me while I was being spared, all so I could suffer it burning in front of me.
Soon, there was no longer just white, green rushing by below and to my sides as I lost momentum and fell into the grass. I bounced hard on the barrier wall with a loud grunt of pain as it finally shattered with the impact, leaving me at the landing's mercy.
I skid the grass on my back, forming a brush burn for certain before I hit a small bump in my path and got sent up, flipping wildly without control. I tried to use an arm to correct myself, but I ended up spinning myself sideways as my palm got jammed uncomfortably hard into the ground. My world was now spinning like a baltoy and I couldn't do anything anything about it!
I eventually bounced again on the same arm as I heard and felt a crunch, my eyes wide with the pain. I hit something far too solid and hard. At my elbow, the screaming pain of dislocated bones was incredibly prevalent... and I was still tumbling after that. I rolled over my dislocated elbow so many times that I'm surprised I didn't lose the arm or twist it all the way around. Every tumble, a sharp, crunching pain until I finally slammed back first into a tree as I urked. Falling to the foot of the great, green giant, I laid there...
I can only guess that every part of me was bruised in some way, because it felt like I'd been played around with like a rag-doll. I only gave weak writhes while my mind was filled with nothing but pain from my arm or otherwise. My consciousness was a sliver at best after feeling everything come together like that...
... It took a full five minutes of squirming there on the ground for me to even orient myself enough for any other movement... I tried with my one good arm to slowly rise myself into an unsteady sit, unsuccessfully as I fell right back over onto my sprained arm with a weak scream as pain shot through me. I quickly tossed myself off of it in one instinct driven motion and laid there on my back while I held my breath, holding my arm in the other...
After the pained died down again, I breathed and huffed with every breath as I tried to get a handle of it...
Once again, I tried to sit up. I had more success, now that I could push myself up onto my rear directly. My everything begged for me to stop, but my stubborn mind wouldn't let me...
My fatigue was apparent... With most of my strength, I forced a foot beneath myself and balanced my body with my good arm, careful not to mess up as I began to stand. It was slow, but I finally forced myself onto one knee as I was about to fall again, a quick jerking move from my other leg helped it stand and catch me before I did. Taking a moment, I threw myself up into a stand and slowly rose into a semi-straight posture.
... There was barely enough left in me to hold myself up. Even now, today, there has never been a single time after that in which my body felt more ready to fail me... It was just utter misery...
I held my bad arm gingerly with my other, hissing as the pain flared up, but settled down soon enough. Examining it, I was thankful enough to see it wasn't a twisted mess. It was just a sprain... though, the arm was bleeding from brush burns and small cuts...
Looking around at my surroundings, it became obvious that the explosion threw me into a forest... only it wasn't mine. These trees were different from the ones I knew. Taller. straighter. I turned myself and looked out into the forest, but everything looked the same... I heard something... It was running water and it sounded like it was to my left.
Turning in that direction, I slowly began to walk on with clumsy steps. My arm hurt with every step I took...
As a rustle came from a small thicket to my side, I gasped aloud and alert. Someone was following me. I shook back my exhaustion as I cursed under my breath, doing my best to drag myself away from the scene in a very unsteady, sped up hobble. I remember thinking that I must have been the most unlucky kid on the planet with how things seemed to fall apart around me.
I just had to reach the water... and then... I hadn't thought of anything to follow up with, other than maybe draw them out into the open and attack with whatever I had left.
Nearer and nearer the sound of water grew. I had to be on top of the source of that sound because the trees were starting to thin out as the sunlight shun through.
I stepped out of the trees as I huffed and puffed, eyes adjusting to the light as I spotted what appeared to be the largest lake I'd ever seen...
A massive waterfall that ascended at least two-hundred feet high roared in the distance, west from me. There were two branching rivers that ran off from the lake. One was directly across the river from me and the other was on the eastern end from where I was standing. I don't think I'd ever seen a clean body of water near this massive inland before. Compared to it, I maybe registered as a baby joltik to a wailord... But there was no time to really check that fact in my current situation
I didn't wait to catch my breath, turning around as quickly as my near-crippled body could. My eyes were trained on the rustling bushes that had been along my path. With each second, the unknown that had been following me got to a closer bush, closing in on me. As it emerged from the bushes, I didn't wait to attempt to summon psyshock, but instead of forming anything, a pain shot through my body as I shrieked and shut my eyes tight as I collapsed there on the ground, my exhaustion and pain finally becoming too much! I fell flat to the ground, my bad arm thankfully falling to my side and not beneath me...
I grew tired from it all while laying there, shivering, not even attempting to rise again. I had resigned myself to whatever would happen. My sight grew poor and my hearing blurred while my consciousness faded. I could hear someone talking... Their colors were just barely focused enough to make out. It was pink and light yellow. Then, this second figure rushed out from the bushes and began to yell at the first. This other was white and black...
...And then I sighed and lost consciousness...