Chapter 17: Retribution

Shadow looked at the massive building where he'd tracked Blade's last known whereabouts. The human's memories had served him well, this is where Blade was last seen by him. But that was allegedly days ago, whether Blade was here or not, well for the humans running the facility, they should hope he isn't gone. Shadow hovered along to the facility entrance. He stared at the door for a moment. "Now, how shall I go about this?" He didn't think for long "I don't have time for this." And at his words tried to open the door. It didn't budge, then he glanced over at a glowing panel. Shadow had seen enough of humanity to know that this would open the door. However, in his typical fashion, he went for the more unnecessarily destructive method and simply sprouted legs and kicked the door in. He made his way inside and was immediately greeted with a blaring horn. Within seconds the security force of the facility, a group of people in black clothes with a red R on them, appeared within minutes.

"Sir…." One of the men said as their pokemon materialized "It's….it's the darkrai…"

"But they told me he wouldn't come here…." The leader of the group looked terrified.

Shadow floated forward and to the eyes of the pokemon and humans standing at the other end of the hall everything began to change. The hallway became dark, the only thing visible was the pitch-black pokemon. He too began to change with every edge on his body becoming sharper, his eye seemed to darken to a deeper red, the collar around his face took on a look more similar to large jagged fangs, his cloak-like torso had taken the tail coat shape once more, and his body seemed to drip with pure darkness. He was showing them what he saw in himself, he was showing them a monster, dripping with evil and hatred. They sat stunned in silence watching as he came face to face with Shadow.

He simply glanced between them seeing what had happened through their memories. Blade was here, he had been attacked by a Pangoro, an Infernape, and an Excadrill. Then he'd been taken away by a pink Sneasel. He'd have to check where, but none of these humans seemed to know. So, because they had now outlived their usefulness, he was going to kill them, he didn't have time to waste though. So instead he simply reached out to the leader, lifting him by the neck. The rest of the group were still glued in place with fear. As their eyes locked onto Shadow and the man, the darkrai set himself in motion squeezing the man's throat and crushing it in seconds.

He glanced around the hallway for a few moments. "Feel free to flee in terror, at your earliest convenience." He released his grip watching as the body dropped to the floor leaving his claw dripping with his newest victim's blood. The very moment the body hit the floor and made a thud the goons ran off without a second thought. With his main obstacles out of his way he proceeded forward. Twists and turns led him through the facility, where he soon after found another door. This door opened automatically when he approached. Grass, trees, water, and almost everything you would find in a natural habitat. It was as if the humans built this massive building around miles and miles of forest as well as obviously artificial environmental changes. The moment he went through the door he caught a scent. Faint as it was, it was unmistakably Blade's scent. And without a second thought, he burst himself forward flying forth at full speed.

Even after going full speed it took him several minutes to reach where the scent led. A frozen lake, with a river, and snow capped trees. But the scent grew stronger from here, up river. If he followed that scent he could find where Blade had been. Once more he set off, slower now, but still at a decent speed. The distance didn't surprise Shadow, the river was frozen most of the way so if Blade needed water he would have had to follow the river. Partway up the river the ice melted and Shadow tracked it up to a waterfall. The scent was stronger here, so Blade must have stayed here for a while. 'No, that isn't why' Shadow thought as he lowered to the ground and found a few stains of brown-red upon the grass. 'Blood, Blade's blood. Well someone has a date with Giratina, or they would if I didn't need to find him as fast as possible.'

As if on cue a voice called to him, seemingly looking to give him an opportunity to indulge in his brutal search methods "Hey, who are you, yous on our turf?" It was Pangoro and his two goons.

Shadow lifted himself up fighting the desire to project his nightmarish visage upon them. He maintained an air of tranquility as he spoke to them "I'm looking for a sneasel, male, smaller than normal. Have you seen him?"

"Dunno, I can't says I remember all dat well" Pangoro smirked at Shadow.

Shadow in that moment realized how little patience he had left. He looked into Pangoro's memories. 'What is this tangled mess of rubbish? Does this Pangoro even have a brain, none of these memories are right. I suppose if anyone can make sense of it it's the moron that lives with it.' He glared between the trio. "I don't have time for this, tell me everything you know or I'll rip your teeth out one by one."

Pangoro laughed at Shadow's threat. "Yous don't know who ya dealin wit. Ders three uh us, and only one uh you."

Shadow had moved so fast he had seemingly vanished entirely. Before any of the three bullies could react Shadow had Pangoro on his knees with a claw in his mouth. Pangoro was stunned until he felt the first one torn from his mouth. "Do you remember yet?" Before he could respond Shadow had pulled another out tooth.

"Fuck you!"

Shadow pulled another tooth out. "I certainly hope your memory begins to work again, I'd hate for you to die before you've outlived your usefulness." Then he pulled out another, then another, and then another. Blood poured out flooding the fighting type's mouth. Finally he let up for a moment. "How is your memory now?"

Pangoro spat the flooding blood from his mouth "Okay, okay…..he came through here, we beat him up, and he went with a pink Sneasel, we'll take you where they went. Please just stop!!"

Shadow released him looking into his eyes. "Lead the way. Then you can run along and tend to your wounds." He dropped the teeth on the ground.

Pangoro stood up grabbing the teeth and leading Shadow along. "This….this way…" the blood loss had him in a daze, even so he knew that Shadow could kill them all in seconds if he was so inclined. The way his teeth had been pulled, anyone else would likely have strained themselves greatly and thrown their arm back when doing so. Shadow however, stayed perfectly stable and pulled them out as though they were on the verge of falling out already. The precision and ease was terrifying. Even someone as clearly ignorant as Pangoro knew better than to step into a fight with him, or at least he did now. They stopped at a small clearing. "Dats where dey took him…..oh and he tried to fight us again…but that was a few days or so ago, duh humans took him and I don't know where."

"Your cooperation is very appreciated." He floated away. He'd picked up the scent once again and followed it to the entrance of a small, barely covered hole in the side of a hill. The sight that greeted him was one he wasn't anticipating. Two Sneasel poked their heads out the hole and stared at him for a moment. Then they disappeared inside.

He leaned down toward the hole as another head popped out momentarily, this time a sableye. Despite the obviously terrified look on his face, he stepped out all the way gazing directly into the darkrai's single crimson eye. "I'm looking for a sneasel named Blade, have you seen him?"

The ghost type seemed to relax quite a bit. "Oh yes, he was here not too long ago, I can't say exactly what happened while he was here aside from when I helped him recover after those bullies pummelled him." He walked inside the den "please follow me, my mate can tell you more."

Shadow silently followed behind floating through the cramped structure. A few turns and twists later and he came to a rather comfortably sized opening in the den, and in the center was a pink Sneasel. She was sickly, barely clinging to life, and yet she still smiled. Her smile only seemed to grow wider at the sight of Shadow. "So it's you?" She coughed as she looked him over "You're the one my son is so smitten with?" She hadn't even introduced herself, but she addressed Shadow like they knew each other. "Shadow, right? He said you were handsome and scary at the same time so you certainly fit the description."

"Yes, and if you are his mother, that makes you Shard, correct?" He asked, giving her a slight bow out of respect.

"Yeah, that's me." She coughed again causing blood to be spit up from her mouth. "Getting worse…"

Shadow disregarded her illness and simply continued the conversation. "What happened to Blade?"

After managing to slowly lay up now off of her side, she began telling him everything that had happened, with Blade, the bullies, and her new family.

*Meanwhile*

Blade stalked around to the window of a large building. He had followed his captors here in an attempt to discover the reason for his constant state of danger.

"Let me get this straight, you don't have my Sneasel?" A man in a suit spoke.

His back was to Blade, so despite him not wearing a mask he still couldn't see the man. He did however recognize the frowning man beside him. Spiked, deep blue hair, a long white lab coat, and an unhappy face. He didn't know the young man's name, but he knew him, and that slight itch in his ankle just confirmed it. He's the one human he met before everything happened. He looked unhappy then too, as though he didn't want to do what he was doing.

"Sir please understand, we don't know how he got a hold of a laser cutter." One man spoke up.

"I told you how important that Sneasel was to my work and you left it unguarded?!" The man shouted furiously as he stepped to the grunt that spoke.

"Sir, we were just" a loud bang was heard and he dropped. The man in the suit was holding a strange device, its end smoking from whatever it had just done. The other grunts staggered back.

The man spoke again. "Understand this, you are to retrieve that Sneasel by any means necessary, failure will not be tolerated in the slightest, failure is now punishable by death. Now bring me my Sneasel." The goons stared for a moment as blood oozed from the wound in their friend's head. The blood soaked the floor and with a rushed salute they ran out without a second thought. He turned to the blue haired man. "You look sick Lyte, did watching a man die really break you."

"Of course not, it was just so wasteful." He played it off as though he wasn't fighting the urge to vomit. He distracted himself for a moment. "What am I to do when they bring the Sneasel to me sir?"

"Oh it's very simple, dissect it."

"I thought you wanted him alive?" Lyte looked even more sickened.

"Oh we'll be doing a little, dna extraction, before we kill him. Keep his bloodline going properly."

"You're going to force him to breed?"

"Precisely, with what he's got inside him, it will all be worth it."

Blade had heard enough. He jumped down from the window and took off in a full sprint to the woodlands nearby.