"This is bad. That's six on one! Talk about unfair! Why don't they take me one on one?" The Absol thought to herself, trying to formulate an escape plan. "Hmmmm. Maybe this will work. Hey! Why don't you cowards face me one on one! Too afraid to die, is that it?" She taunted, attempting to goad them with their ego.

Unfortunately, being used to employing such strategies, the pack was well aware of tactics like that and instead of barking back and accepting her challenge, they merely reeled back and let out a cackling laugh.

The biggest and most scarred Mightyena taunted back. A nasty scar ran down his muzzle and down his flank, a result of some sort of very sharp claw coming far too close. It was clean, almost blade like. "Good attempt, little one. Had you a pack, it would have been wise to accept. But you do not."

Haona winced at the yellowed teeth of the grizzled Mightyena as it bared its teeth.

"Killing blow gets the most meat," the second Mightyena snapped as he stuck his tongue out, licking the air hungrily while staring at the female Absol. "Can we cause her some pain first? How does she yelp? How will she cry?"

"Do what you will with her. She has not even seen her seventh moon yet. Not much food yet, but enough for a night without hunger. What I really want is that little thing behind her." The Alpha responded, whose gaze was fixated on the small form behind the Absol's feet.

"That little human looking thing? Psychic isn't it?" The third mightyena asked, not taking his eyes off of the Absol's pretty white mane. What a shame it had to get ruined.

"Yes. A delicacy. They just taste so delicious and the meat is so tender, full of juices and flavor. You all really need to try it sometime." The Alpha smirked, drool falling from rows of sharp teeth as he pictured the Ralts' meat in his jaws.

The pack began to circle the Absol and the Ralts, slowly advancing onto their position, growling and taunting them, trying to scare them. The hunters had gained a sadistic streak, often playing with their food before finishing them off. This was the second time, however, that the alpha would taste the flesh of a psychic pokemon this week. That little family of psychics had served good enough a meal, maybe this one was an offspring?

He sniffed the air and caught it. Yes, they were quite kin, weren't they? Oh, now he could sense why it was so afraid. The one that got away. Poor, little baby.

The desperate cries of a little Kirlia echoed in the night as she tried to run away, her attacks sliding off the dark types as they stalked her throughout the darkened forest. Blending in with the darkness, the only thing that the psychic type could see of the creatures were their murderous red eyes. The hunters cackled with glee, smelling the fear that radiated from the small pokemon, the scent was delicious and sweet. They loved this.

They stalled, giving the Kirlia a window of opportunity to reach the cave. Safety. Her father, a Gallade, would protect her from the dogs. She nearly stepped into the cave when one of the Mightyena leapt out of the darkness and crunched his jaws closed on the Kirlia's leg. Pain surged up her body, its dark fangs causing more damage to her psychic body as her pale skin began to blacken and bleed. Her face hit the dirt and she was dragged back a few feet away from the cave entrance, rocks cutting her cheeks and scraping her mouth and nose. She glanced up and saw a Gallade emerge from the cave, his face contorted in horror and devastation. The Kirlia smiled, knowing her father would save the day.

Then the alpha male bit down on her neck and twisted, breaking her neck. Laughing maniacally, the Mightyena tossed the Kirlia's lifeless body aside, and prepared for a fight.

The battle lasted thirty minutes. The psychic fighter impaled two of his hunting buddies and beat two others to a bloody pulp with the practiced restraint of a fighter before his pack overwhelmed him. The alpha male stood over the restrained Gallade and with one swift motion, tore its throat out. Spitting it out, he glanced over at the cave and spotted his next target, the mother.

It wasn't long before the remaining Mightyena were able to ground the Gardevoir and bite into her neck, shrugging off her powerful psychic attacks without so much as a scratch. The pack gathered up the three dead psychics and began gorging themselves, savoring the succulent meat. They howled up at the moon with a crazed manic glee.

He would never forget the taste.

Today he'd get another chance.

The pack moved closer, causing the smaller Absol to rear back and growl, trying to prevent them from advancing any further. However, one of the hastier Mightyena pounced and paid dearly for it. The Absol positioned herself under him and turned her head up and to the right, impaling his neck with her sharp horn. She pulled out and flinched as a gush of blood erupted from his neck and stained her white fur a deep crimson. She had slashed through the artery in his neck and he yelped, feeling the damage that the horn caused, backing away weakly due to the massive blood loss from the wound. Leaning against a tree, he slumped onto the floor and passed out. Soon he would be dead.

The alpha male stopped and stared at the gushing wound, rage building up inside of him. Now visibly snarling with anger, he and his pack moved onto the cornered Absol's position, killing intent flashing in his dark red eyes.

He leapt onto the Absol, dodging her sickled horn and pinning her to the ground with a loud thud. Opening his mouth, he was about to strike the final blow when the bushes rustled violently and a large form appeared out of the forest, holding two long shiny pieces of metal in its arms.

A human! What's it doing here and what are those things it's carrying? I've never seen those bef- Pain interrupted his thoughts and he looked down at his left foreleg, which bled from a deep gash that ran across it. The Absol beneath him used this distraction to kick the Mightyena off of her and slash his chest with her sharp horn, retreating back towards the psychic. Positioning herself in preparation for another leap, she waited and growled. Blood dripped from the alpha's wounds but he was too distracted by the sight of the human slaughtering his pack.

The long metallic blade in the human's right arm impaled one of his hunters in between the eyes, instantly killing him. Pulling it out of the fallen Mightyena with ease, he spun around with the blade held in reverse, stabbing another canine sideways as it leapt at him from the side, perforating organs and muscle alike. He brought the dog down with a mighty thud, using his free sword to impale the downed Mightyena through the throat and base of the skull. Having no time to pull out the impaled sword in the mutt's abdomen, he left it there and took a few steps back, eyeing the rest, two hands holding his remaining sword firmly.

The other two Mightyena remaining were the alpha's two best fighters, surely they would kill him.

They both pounced at the same time, but with complete calm, the human sidestepped both of them and with one sharp motion, swung the piece of metal diagonally upward. Nonchalantly looking back at the two Mightyena, the human smirked as he saw one of the dogs fall, its intestines spilling out of the large cut across its stomach. He had disemboweled it with one quick slash. He pointed his bloodied sword at the other Mightyena and taunted it with a garbled rumble from his human throat.

His enraged packmate lunged at the human but instead of stepping aside, the human raised its hand and allowed him to sink his teeth into his arm. The leader of the pack nearly smirked in assurance of victory until he saw that there was no blood seeping out of the human's limb. The man stabbed the alpha's packmate through the center with the blade in his right hand and twisted it, making the dark type yelp in intense pain. He removed his blade from the dying creature and unceremoniously dropped it on the floor like a piece of spoiled meat. Whining in pain, it expired shortly after.

Cleaning the blade on the fur of the dead pokemon, the human stood in place, observing the last remaining hound with an expressionless face. The Mightyena recognized some of the younger humans' expressions, usually those of fear. He'd been driven off by the adults before, using pokemon of their own, but never themselves fighting. This human however, was different... He looked bored, as if this wasn't a challenge. This was unacceptable. A weak human looking down on him?

Seething in rage and drunk with bloodlust, the Mightyena grit its teeth together and snarled viciously, cursing the human while vowing to rip out his throat. "I'll kill you! I'll rip out your disgusting throat and leave your body out to rot! Insolent human scum!"

To the human, however, the hunter appeared to be nothing but a clamoring dog. The Mightyena ground out in a murderous howl and sank its his paws into the soil, ready to pounce. His injuries would limit his strength obviously, but it was more than enough to overpower a weak human, despite the blades. He would have to disable the human and get rid of the metal spikes in its hands.

Plan set and ready in his mind, the Mightyena lunged forward, narrowly missing the blade as he slammed into the human with all of his body weight. Biting savagely into his hand and receiving a pained grunt as teeth tasted metal, the dog released the armored forearm and swiftly changed its focus to the sword in the injured human's hands. Catching the hilt of the blade with his jaws, the alpha threw it backward, disarming the human of its only weapon. Having the man exactly where he wanted him, he attempted to rip out his throat, but was stopped when the human held him back with both hands, struggling to remove himself from such a perilous position. His arms burned and he grunted in exertion against the angry dog's mass and natural strength.

The Mightyena's jaws snapped forward again, missing the human's throat by mere centimeters as he pushed him back once more. Looking at the alpha's injured chest, the young man knew what he had to do. Sticking his index and middle finger outwards, he thrust them into the Mightyena's jagged chest wound, causing the wounded dog to howl in pain. He then swung his elbow outwards with as much force as he could generate, striking it with a deafening crack across its maw. Managing to throw his attacker off, he saw the canine's jaw hanging limply to the side.

Not wasting any time, the man pulled out a dagger from a hidden compartment in his cuirass and jumped onto the injured animal. Now in control, he smashed the side of the Mightyena's head with the hilt of the dagger, stunning it momentarily. Repeating this action, he left the dog bloodied and beaten, barely conscious.

Slowly positioning the dagger over the creature's heart, the human looked into the predator's eyes and saw a plea for mercy. Staring back at the crazed dog, Riven sank the blade into the predator's chest slowly and painfully, watching its legs twitch and its eyes grow wide. He sank the blade all the way to the handle and looked one last time into the creature's red eyes, twisting the blade with both hands, forcing it to exhale its last and final breath of life.

Haona couldn't believe her eyes. A human had killed all of them?

Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, the human lay on the floor to recover his bearings. After a few moments, he crawled back onto the cooling corpse of the Mightyena, taking the dagger out with a wet squelch. Cleaning his knife, Riven stood up and went to retrieve his blades. Something about the Mightyena bothered him.

Those Mightyena were not hunting for food. He thought darkly. They were circling the other two, they could have easily killed them long before I arrived. The white one is smaller, less powerful despite that horn. The leader alone could have overpowered her if it avoided it. The little one would have lasted even less time. They had numbers on their side. What were they doing?

He stared at the dead form of the alpha, then at the bloodied white fur of their intended target and found himself confused.

"Playing with their food? How barbaric. And... strangely human. How odd," he said, surveying the area around him. The ground had splatters of blood everywhere and corpses of dead Mightyena scattered about, contrasting with the forest's grass and soft brown soil. Retrieving his blades, the young man placed them back in the sheathes that clung to his hips, and turned towards the white maned creature and her humanoid friend.

As he approached, the Absol got into a stance and growled lowly, giving a warning to the advancing human not to come any closer. Although she did this out of instinct, she knew there was no way that she would be able to hurt this man, not after seeing him near effortlessly kill all of those Mightyena and in her current state of affairs. An ice beam might work, but if he dodged, that was it.

He seemed to know it, too, because a derisive snort made her decide this particular human was going to irritate her. The black haired human stopped five feet away from the pair and just stood there, eyeing them both. It was a little awkward, standing in the middle of a bloodbath while Taillow chirped away in the forest around them. Suddenly, he reached into his pack and took something out of it.

The Absol was startled, did he mean to catch her like other humans did to her parents? Water vapor frosted beneath her breath for a brief moment just before an object hit her on the nose and fell to the ground with a soft thump. Looking down, she saw it was not one of those capture devices humans were so fond of, but a berry. A sitrus berry that was common in this forest. She blinked in confusion.

A peace offering?

Is he friendly? Should I trust him? The female pokemon asked herself. He did save us from those Mightyena… No, I can't trust them. Humans are evil creatures.

Sensing his friend's apprehension, the small psychic stepped forward, picked up the berry and said, "Haona, you really should eat. It'll heal your wounds! Besides, you can't take him anyways. He'd kill you in less than a second." Spreading his arms, the Ralts simply stated, "You run and pounce the way you are and you're dead in no time flat. I wouldn't do much better, you saw what he did to them."

Grinding her teeth in frustration, she accepted the fact begrudgingly.

She knew she couldn't take the human on, she was only a pup after all, and she could maybe get in a few hits, but those metal weapons of his were dangerous. Hesitantly, she took the berry in her paw and bit down, savoring the berry's flavor as it began to slowly mend the bite wounds she sustained from her fight with the alpha. Forgetting all sense of dignity, she gave the human a wanting look and walked up to him, begging for more fruit. The Ralts, Bib, as she called him, walked alongside her and extended his tiny hands, also wanting some more.

Although Riven had no idea what the creatures were saying, hearing only faint calls and low chimes, he immediately knew what they wanted as they came over to him and looked at him longingly. Laughing to himself, he knelt and placed a hand on the Absol's head, ruffling her fur. She recoiled, bit his finger, and backed off.

"Soft, and thorny it seems. I see," he said, shaking out his bleeding finger with a laugh. Glancing at the small humanoid, he tilted his head, "If it were bigger it'd pass for a small child." Cute. Mentally kicking himself, he knew that if Nemos was here, he would never hear the end of it.

Nemos… He thought, looking at the floor. He really is gone…

Shaking his head, he snapped back to reality and reached out into his pack, pulling out two more berries, handing one to each of the creatures before him. Smiling as he saw their faces light up at the sight of food, he stood up and began to walk away, back towards the road. He walked a few steps until he felt something tug on his trousers. The source was the small human like creature with the red horn sticking out of its head.

"Huh? You want to come with me?" Riven asked, unsure of the creature's response. He pantomimed walking with his fingers then pointed to himself. "Yes?" He nodded. "Or no?" He shook his head.

It responded with a nod and a small smile, looking back at his friend the Absol, waving a hand as a sign of assurance. Turning around, Riven looked at the Absol's face and could not help but smirk. It looked downright annoyed. He snorted, along with the littler one, which also seemed to enjoy poking fun at its strange choice of friend. The Absol huffed in response and looked up with her eyes closed, trotting past them in annoyance.

"Free sustenance," Bib said to himself, as if it was an achievement. He grinned."For all the bad things we all think humans are, free food is not one of them. Doesn't free food sound nice? Doesn't it?"

Haona groaned loudly. That devious little bastard. Does he not see ANY downside to this? At all? He's a human. Humans were bad news. "Great. You trust a human because he fed you once. How shameful."

"I don't see your stomach complaining, do I? Come on, it'll be fun! Free food and protection. What more could we want?"

"More? Bib, he's a human!" Haona huffed exasperatedly. "They're dangerous! He's dangerous! He killed them all!"

"And? Don't humans take pokemon in all the time? Make us stronger? Adult humans make others of our kind kill wild pokemon all the time. What if he's in the forest to do that?"

"The children do! And they carry weird metal balls. This is not a child!"

"Which makes our survival more assured, right? He can defend himself and us. If that means I can get stronger, than I will go with him. It beats dying to Mightyena packs. I… I'm worthless right now. My family died, Haona. I don't have anything left, I'll probably die if I don't find a human to take me, so this one is the one I'm going with. Without our family... Ralts don't live long. I'm not strong like you, Haona. I'm going to see where this takes me."

The Ralts seemed to have made up its mind, making an effort to catch up to the strangely armed human that was scanning the forest with hawk-like focus.

Frowing, the Absol sighed. She trotted up to them, eyeing the human with disdain. "Fine, but this doesn't mean I trust him, yet, Bib."

"You don't have to trust him. Just eat the food and hope he doesn't kill you."

"Very comforting."

The sun was starting to set, illuminating the sky and clouds with hues of orange and red. Riven smiled up at the sunset, genuinely enjoying the transition from day to night and the cooling air that came with a retreating sun.

Earlier in the day he had managed to find and kill a Stantler, taking two well placed arrows to kill the buck. Placing it on the floor he began setting up a fire and on which to cook it on. Once the brush and logs had caught fire, he took out his dagger and started to skin the animal and take out the unwanted parts, leaving only the edible parts behind. Slicing some of the meat off with his dagger, he impaled it on a stick and stuck it over the fire to cook. Waiting for the food to cook, he bandaged up his arm where the Mightyena bit him, not wanting the bite to fester. Once he was done, he looked over to the Absol sitting next to him, watching the fire.

The two odd creatures had followed him since he last fed them, probably seeing him as a lucrative source of food they didn't have to work for. They'd been particularly chatty to one another earlier. Shame he didn't understand a word. Now, though, the white furred one was staring at his rough meal with large, pleading eyes. What to him was standard, tasteless wild meat was probably the best thing she'd ever had the pleasure of tasting. Life in the wild was harsh.

Looking at the succulent piece of meat, Haona's mouth began to water. The human laughed loudly, muttering something to himself, clearly finding it amusing. This rather annoyed her.

She only had Stantler once before in her life but she knew that it would be delicious. Bib, however, was a little uneasy. He had never eaten meat before, instead choosing to eat berries and the like.

Well, he has to try something new some day. Can't get strong on just berries. Time to be forward, like he said.

Sniffing up the scent of the cooking meat, she sauntered forward, right next to the evil, distrustful human. Her senses were completely focused on the food and not on the human. Sweet, delicious meat. She stared at it like an impatient little puppy and attempted to sneak a nibble when the human pulled it out of the fire.

Then demanded it with a regal turn of her horn and a huff.

Seeing her impatience, Riven found the gesture rather endearing and gave her the first piece to observe her reaction. Blowing slightly on the cooked meat, the Absol devoured the haunch and smiled in delight, savoring the explosion of flavor in her mouth. This was Riven's first time seeing the stubborn little Absol actually have something other than a depressing frown plastered on her face. It was a nice change. Especially after she tried biting his finger off when he attempted to pet her. She was immensely stubborn and proud, a trait that most woman have too much of an abundance of. She didn't quite trust him yet, judging by the wary glances she took whenever she got close to him.

The other one was far more agreeable than the 'Absol'. He didn't know the name of the creature because it did not speak its name whenever it spoke. At least he assumed that was its name? Calling it creature seemed to anger it, prompting it to go off on a small tirade of what Riven believe to be insults in growls, snaps, and more utterings of ab's and sol's.

The child looking one let off low chimes instead of repeating the same sounds that the horned one did. Nonetheless, it opened up to him much more than the Absol did, sitting close to him and hiding in his pack. He was a hungry fellow that seemed to have a pit in his stomach because he could not stop eating. In just thirty minutes, the creature managed to devour nearly all of the berries in Riven's pack, startling him as to how such a small thing could consume so much food.

It seemed that the little "child" also seemed fascinated by Riven's blades, looking at the sheathes with awe and wonder.

Huh. Creatures usually have no interest in human weapons. Maybe killing those dogs inspired him? Riven pondered, perplexed by the creature's strange behavior.

He had never encountered them in his life, so he had no clue what they would become or if they could grow at all. Shrugging, he figured he'd found out later if they still stuck around.

Enjoying a nice meal from the now fully cooked Stantler, the three prepared to go to sleep. It took a bit of prodding from the Absol to get the Ralts to stick the meat into his mouth, bickering and growling in frustration as he refused to eat it. It was a comical sight for Riven, watching the Absol bury her head in her paws before muttering something and trotting away to go to sleep under a tree. The display almost made him forget about his own strange situation.

Thinking about it just made his head hurt in the long run, and he decided it was time to find a comfortable spot, hope nothing decided to murder him in his sleep, and find some rest. Laying down on the soft grass next to the fire pit, he must've been more tired than he thought, seeing as how he fell asleep nearly instantly.

Haona watched the human go lights out.

"Huh. Out like a Volbeat. Do they usually go to sleep that easily?" She asked Bib, taking cautious sniffs around the human. "Do they not worry about attacks?"

"I don't think so. He might be tired from all that wood gathering, hunting, and carrying a heavy deer around," Bib responded. "It looked tiring. Humans are big."

"That's only because you're tiny."

"I won't be when I become a Gallade," the little psychic declared. "We should watch him, see if humans sleepwalk like the rumors. I want to see."

Sounding reasonable, she simply nodded her head and continued watching the sleeping human. After a five minutes of looking at his chest rise and fall, she began to nod off. However, she was awoken when the human started to move about restlessly, cold sweat breaking out on his skin. It was a nightmare of some kind. Silent tears slid out of his eyes and his fists clenched tightly, whatever it was it was bad. The last time she saw this was the day after she found Bib, shivering and crying in his sleep.

His parents and sister were murdered in front of him. He still didn't feel comfortable talking about it. Just what could humans live through to experience nightmares that intense? Didn't they live in giant forests of metal and stone, where it was safe?

Slightly worried, she stood up and walked over to him, nudging him lightly, trying to wake him.

I know this place. It's my home. How can that be? I was in the forest, far from here.

Looking around, he saw all the wooden and stone buildings with one huge manor in the distance. This was his home. It was his home, yet everything about it felt…..wrong.

No people or creatures. No laughter of children or murmuring of shoppers in the market stalls. No chimecho hanging from the porches of houses, no wind, no sounds. There was no life. Empty.

Walking for what seemed like ages, he reached the large building. Surprised to see that the doors were unlocked, he stepped inside.

Not a soul in sight, everything inside was still and nothing looked out of the ordinary. However, he could not shake the eerie feeling in his spine. Something was waiting for him. He climbed up the stairs to the second floor, passing suits of armor and mounted weapons until he reached his room. Hesitating, he opened the door and a foul odor assaulted his nostrils. The smell was a stench of rotting and burned flesh.

Turning on a candle, he held it up and his eyes widened in horror.

In the room, he saw his entire family dead. Some were horribly disfigured, others burned, and some beginning to decompose. This was wrong. When his family died, he never even got the chance to see them. And he only had a mother and father. No siblings to speak of. No uncles, no aunts. So, who were the others? This… this didn't make sense. The town outside was not ashen and immolated, there were no charred remains on the streets, just empty houses devoid of life.

This was not real. Not how it happened at all. A dream, caused by his own conflicted mind, and yet… it felt horrifyingly authentic.

"Riven."

Turning around instantly, he saw Nemos standing behind him, his eyes filled with the same sadness as the day he died.

Nemos stared into Riven's eyes," I am sorry. So sorry. So sorry…".

Riven ran. Ran towards his friend, trying to embrace him, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him into a hug. Almost believing that he was not dead, that he was right there with him again.

His friend only smiled with a heavy sadness. "So sorry…I could not protect…you. That I failed to ensure you lived to bring our people back..." Saying these words he turned to ash in Riven's arms. Soon the world around him faded away into nothingness just like Nemos had, leaving Riven stranded in a place of endless black space.

This is your life. Empty. There is nothing for you. There is nothing left. Your world is but a husk. Wake up. All you will taste is ashes in your mouth. You will find nothing but pain and despair, you pathetic shell. Disappear.

Hearing those words, Riven fell to his knees and barred his teeth, holding his head in his hands in a fit of cold rage, the words creeping into his mind like drips of poison.

He jolted himself awake, sweating profusely, skin as cold as ice. He saw two worried looking creatures staring back at him, concerned for his well being. Bolting himself upright, he fumbled onto the riverbank, splashing his face with ice cold water, trying to forget the images he saw.

Your world is but a husk. You will find nothing but pain and despair. Disappear.

Someone's words? But whose? And why? He growled madly, trying to force those torturous words out his mind. Pounding the floor until his knuckles were red, he looked at his reflection in the water.

A man with shaggy black hair stared back at him, his eyes cold and menacing, one black with the darkness of the water and the other a dark blue the color of the deep sea. Then the image changed and he saw himself, pale and gaunt, stiff with fear.

Standing up, his head swam until he could barely stay balanced from the migraine. Grunting with the strain of the pain, he screamed into the night.

Chapter Revised to make more logistical sense. Date: 8/14/2020.