My head was pounding. I awoke to see the clefairy tapping against the table with its claws in a bored manner, the other Starters huddled together watching it on the other side. The girl sat on a chair next to said table, with her head in her hand as she looked at her phone, seemingly doing something on it. The boy was flipping through what I believe was called a magazine next to her, with a sullen look on his face.

The professor was nowhere in sight.

My muscles felt sore and hurt every time I moved. I noticed something digging into my back and tried to strain my neck to see what it was. My eyes widened when I realized that I was strapped to the table with those seat-belts from the car. "PIKA!" I began struggling frantically, catching the attention of everyone sitting at the other table.

The Starters cowered behind the clefairy, who looked over me with contempt. The girl and boy bore the same looks and I screamed at them. "Let me go! Let me go right now! Or else I'll-"

The boy groaned. "Can you get that stupid thing under control already?"

The girl sighed. "I tried. Believe me. But Clefairy seemed really against me putting it into its Poke Ball for some reason."

My ears twitched at that and I shot a heated glare toward the stupid pink fairy. It simply shrugged at me and turned back to its trainer, who was looking down at it with a funny look.

"So, I did the next best thing I could think of."

"Tying it to a table with seat-belts?" The boy snorted. "That's the best thing you could think of? Where did you even get those seat-belts, anyway?"

"From the basement. Gramps has a whole box filled with 'em."

"Why does Gramps have...?" He shook his head. "Oh, forget it. I don't want to know."

Right at that moment, the professor rushed into the room, running a hand through his hair. He began talking without prompt, addressing the boy and the girl. "Good, you're both here. I need you to stay here while I go run a systems check in the power room. The storm is getting pretty bad really fast, so I need to make sure we won't run the risk of starting a power outage in the town."

"You don't want me to come with you, Gramps?"

"You need to stay here and watch Gary," the professor told the girl sternly. "And the other Starters-" he blinked then narrowed his eyes at the girl. "Daisy May."

"What?" She huffed.

"Why in the world is Pikachu strapped to the table with seat-belts?!"

"Why do you even have seat-belts...?" Gary muttered under his breath.

I stared expectantly at the girl. I couldn't help but smile in pleasure as she squirmed uncomfortably under the professor's gaze. Serves her right.

The professor let out a sigh after she refused to give a response. He ran a hand through his hair. He did that a lot, I noticed. It was yet another stupid thing that he did on a regular basis that pissed me off. I didn't know why it pissed me off, but it did. "Well, go to the basement and get the Starters' Poke Balls. I don't care whether or not your clefairy isn't letting you get them. We're not strapping innocent pokemon to a table."

"Yes, Gramps..." The girl muttered and trudged outside the room. The professor ordered the boy to watch us as he left the room as well, with nary a complaint from the boy. I, meanwhile, continued struggling against my confines. I ignored the whispers of the Starters about how I didn't deserve to be called an "innocent" pokemon and how I deserved to be tied down to the table like the savage beast that I was-

My cheeks sparks and burned with humiliation. I willed them to shut up with my mind. But it didn't work because they just kept on chatting. I hoped they talked until their voices went dry and set on fire. I hoped that their bodies would explode into a million pieces and be put back together again in the form of an ugly statue for everyone to gawk at. I hoped they got their limbs cut off and used for soup. I hoped the spearow used their corpses to clean their beaks. I hoped they fell in a hole and was buried alive. I hoped they-

A loud thunderclap violently snapped me out of my thoughts. The Starters finally shut up and the boy walked towards the window. He frowned as he closed the shutters, dimming the few lights in the room even further. He muttered something to himself under his breath before going to the phone hung on the wall next to what I remember was called a fridge. I wondered what kind of rodent pokemon the professor kept in there. Maybe I knew one of them. I knew that one of the members of the rattata tribe in the forest had gone missing quite some time ago. He had been marked off as dead, but maybe he was stuck in a fridge this whole time?

I couldn't help but pity him.

"Come on, come on..." the boy muttered under his breath as he tapped his foot impatiently. "Damn it, Ash..."

Ash. That boy from earlier. The one I was going to speak to in the shade. I had chickened out, but I still remembered his gaze following me when I ran away. His gaze...I still couldn't shake the feeling that there was something that just wasn't quite right about that boy. Something...

"Argh!" The boy slammed the phone in frustration before picking it up again and pressing some more buttons on it. "Please tell me you're available, Leaf..." He held the phone to his ear and looked more and more distressed as seconds ticked by. The squirtle crept toward him and placed a comforting paw on the boy's hand. He let out an exasperated sigh and pressed some more buttons. "Of course, she's not answering either...Ritchie, come on..."

There were a few seconds of oddly tense silence before I heard a faint click through the phone. The boy let out a sigh of relief. "Ritchie. Thought you'd never pick up..."

I could only hear one side of the conversation, but the side I heard wasn't very interesting anyway, so I focused my attention on the outside. The shutters were mostly closed, but I could see a little through the cracks. The sky was completely dark and there was rain pouring down from the sky. Wind blew objects and nature around everywhere, and there wasn't a human or pokemon in sight.

It was desolate.

The girl had finally entered the room and I glared at her as she approached me, a Poke Ball in hand. "You step any closer to me with that thing and I swear I'll..." I growled and let the sparking of my cheeks continue the threat. Of course, only her clefairy would understand what I was saying and there was no way in hell it would translate. Instead it used that dumb move it loved to use on me so much and held me in one place as the girl took off the straps. She pressed a button on the Poke Ball and it shrunk, startling me so badly I actually stopped squirming.

"You can stay out of your Poke Ball, but only if you behave." She said. I let out a low growl from the back of my throat. "But if you attack any one of us in here or damage anything in sight, into the ball you go. And there you'll stay until the first of April. Understand?"

I glared. At least I knew where the ball was going to be put next time. As soon as everyone turned their backs, I would take that thing and shock it until it exploded. With that plan in mind, I let out a reluctant nod and the clefairy let go of me gently on the couch.

The girl sighed and walked toward the kitchen, where the boy was still talking through the phone. "Who's that?"

The boy glanced at her, "Ritchie. I wanted to check on her since Ash and Leaf weren't picking up...wait, Ritchie, Ash called you, seriously?" He groaned. I found another reason why I gave up following that conversation. It was endlessly confusing. It was as if he were speaking to multiple different people at once, but he was the only person who could understand what they were saying and who was saying it. "Damn him..."

With no way to sneak out of the room without the others catching me, I decided to curl up on the couch and take a nap. If we were going to be stuck here, I might as well get some rest.

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was the low buzz of conversation coming from the kitchen. The second thing I noticed was that I had fallen off the couch and onto the floor into an awkward position. I groaned as I set myself upright and shook myself out. I heard rain pattering down hard on the roof and jumped back on the couch to peek through the window's shutters. The clouds were darker, the wind was more extreme, and I noticed a couple trees had fallen over in the distance. The storm had gotten worse.

I slowly crept toward the kitchen and hid behind a couch, listening carefully. Nobody was in this area, so maybe I would be able to take my chance to sneak out? I was counting on the girl having put the Poke Balls back in the basement, true, but there was no way she would keep them on here. She didn't need to. The Starters didn't do anything to get put in their balls and I was asleep the whole time.

After a few moments of listening to the various conversation happening, I smiled and took my chance. They were distracted. I sneaked around the side of the couch and carefully crept through the small crack in the door. I froze when it made a creaking noise and frantically turned my head toward the kitchen table. I let out a sigh of relief when I realized nobody had noticed the sound. Without a second to wait, I swiftly exited the room and ran down the hallway, making sure to keep my steps as light as possible.

I made a few turns before hitting a few dead ends here and there. I let out a growl from the back of my throat as I realized I had gotten lost. I wandered around for a while longer, before I recognized the area where the basement was. I gleefully trotted over to the door before stopping.

...how did you open a door again?

It took me a few moments before I remembered to reach for the handle. It was far too high for me to reach so I climbed onto a nearby desk and measured the jumping distance from it to the door. I jumped and snatched onto the handle, pulling it down and resisted the urge to cheer when the door swung open.

I dropped to the ground and began bounding down the stairs. It was dark, but not dark enough that I couldn't see, thankfully. I began scanning the shelves, trying to find that Poke Ball...

Wasn't it on a pedestal? I ran to the center of the room and let out a cry of relief to see not three but four Poke Balls sitting on a pedestal. One of them was the one that captured me. I looked between them and just decided to grab one, not entirely sure what I would do with it, but it was something.

I recoiled immediately when my paw stopped inches away from the balls. "What the-"

I began pounding on what seemed like an invisible force field around the Poke Balls. Why couldn't I grab them? What was-

Oh.

"It's glass, you moron." I whipped my head around and fired a Thundershock on reflex. There was a yelp and a crash before a bunch of boxes filled with various items came tumbling down. I frowned in annoyance when I saw three very familiar pokemon.

"Get out," I told them. "I really don't feel like dealing with you right now. How did you get in here anyway?"

The bulbasaur raised its vines with a dry look. "I would've used my vines to open the latch, but luckily you made it easier on us."

At my questioning look, the charmander sheepishly spoke up. "You left the door wide open..."

I huffed and crossed my arms. "So, you just decided to invite yourselves in?"

The bulbasaur scowled at me. "What, you didn't? What the hell are you doing in here? You better not be trying anything stupid."

"That's none of your business, now is it?" I snapped.

The squirtle sent an incredulous look toward the bulbasaur. "Did you mean that in a rhetorical way or..."

"Rhetorical, you dimwit. I can tell he's planning on destroying his Poke Ball."

"Then why'd you ask?" I asked, impatience filling my tone. This was getting ridiculous. The way things were going, I was never going to get my chance to escape. "And what do you care if I destroy that stupid thing. It's not like it'll effect you in any way."

"No, but your one-track mind might lead you to accidentally destroy one of our Poke Balls. Do you even know which one is yours?"

I glared at the squirtle and felt my cheeks spark briefly. "I can smell them, you stupid, idiotic, hare-brained moron."

The squirtle narrowed its eyes at me. "Oh, you're going to regret that..."

"Make me," I taunted gleefully. "Or are you too scared?"

"Okay, both of you, cut it out." The bulbasaur snapped. It turned to the charmander, who had been standing there quietly the entire time, looking largely uncertain as to what it should do. "Charmander, can you go and get Professor Oak or Daisy May to come down here before things get ugly?"

"Sure," the charmander replied and quickly hurried to the door. I instantly turned on it.

"Oh, no you don't!" I screamed and let loose a Thundershock, making the charmander scream and fall. As the bulbasaur and squirtle checked on their friend, I sprinted to the door and slammed it closed, then turned back to the Starters.

The exchanged fearful glances and I felt immense satisfaction that I was the one causing them discomfort. "Nice try."

"Look, we don't want any trouble." The charmander pleaded. "We just wanted to see where you were going-"

"I don't care!" I shouted. "I'm destroying those damn Poke Balls and you're not going to stop me!"

I readied a Thunder, but was cut off by the ground rumbling. I faltered as loud cracking noises filled the air and items all over the room began falling off of the shelves. Balls rolled on the floor and we all exchanged glances, uncertain as to what our next move would be.

"What's going on?" The squirtle asked, then yelped in surprise. It pointed fearfully toward the back of the room. "G-guys...what the hell is that?"

We all turned to see what it was so afraid of, then recoiled. Large white cracks seemed to appear in mid-air throughout the back of the room, surrounding a large ethereal looking hole. Wind started swirling around the room and I felt a gravitational pull toward the hole. Panicked, I latched onto a nearby shelf as the other Starters did the same.

"What the hell is that?!" The squirtle repeated, screeching in order to be heard over the loud gusts of wind.

"How am I supposed to know?" The bulbasaur snapped, gritting its teeth as it held on to the shelf with its vines. The charmander let out a yell as its paws slipped. Thinking fast, the bulbasaur used its vines to latch onto the charmander's paws and both pokemon let out a sigh of relief.

But it was only a brief moment of relapse, as a loud screeching sound filled the air. I let out a cry as the sound pierced my ears, and unwillingly let go of the shelf. I screamed as I was thrust toward the hole. The shouts of the Starters melded with the sound of the wind and I couldn't concentrate-

Then I couldn't hear anything at all. "What the-" I muttered, my heart still beating wildly. I had been stopped in my tracks mid-air and was caught in something. Something squishy. And slimy. I shuddered and turned around.

I wished I hadn't.

That thing let out a loud screeching noise. I heard a Thunderclap in the distance outside and banging on the basement door above. The Starters were screaming and the wind gusts were still hurting my ears. Everything hurt and meshed together like a bunch of berries.

I unwillingly let out a whimper as I realized whatever that thing was wouldn't let me go. It was white, almost transparent, and felt like jelly. It had large translucent tentacles too. It was glowing almost unnaturally and I could practically see its insides. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn't a pokemon. And it had me in its clutches.

I noticed that the wind was starting to die down and it became a lot easier to tell what was going on. The thing-beast-whatever it was let out another screech, as if that was the only way it knew how to speak and began to squeeze me. No, suffocate me.

Memories flashed through my mind and I began panicking. This was so much worse than those other times. Whatever this thing was, it suffocating me was so much worse than the cotton. So much worse than the Poke Ball. So much worse than the seat-belts...

When that things's tentacles began surrounding me further, I had a realization that made my heart stop. It wasn't just suffocating me. It was absorbing me. I couldn't hold it in anymore and let out a scream, moments before the being had engulfed me entirely.

I began struggling, desperately trying to latch onto air. I couldn't breathe inside of this thing, whatever it was, and being inside it hurt. My body felt like there were thousands of pins and needles being inserted into it mercilessly and my head felt like someone was cutting it open and squeezing my brain. It was hell in the truest sense of the word.

My screams began to die out as I felt the loss of air get to me. I felt tears blur my vision. I hated this. I hated this so much. It hurt and I hated it.

I hated it even more when the whispering began. It was small, subtle, and I couldn't hear it at all at first. But then it grew in volume until it felt as if someone were screaming in my ear. The prickling sensation I felt all over my body intensified as well.

My head felt like it was going to explode. The stupid whispers coming from what I presumed to be the beast that held me captive were making it even worse.

"Listen..."

I groaned as the edges of my vision began to blacken. I was going to die, wasn't I?

"Listen..."

I remembered arguments between pokemon in the forest that occurred over differing beliefs as to what would happen once you died. Some believed you would turn to dust, others believed you would be reincarnated as a human in another world, and others believed there was an after-life for the dead made by Arceus. That had unbelievably sparked a stupid debate that never seemed to end, with pokemon going back and forth about it for weeks. I thought it was stupid, and stayed out of the crossfire. I was especially satisfied with my decision to stay out of matters when the debate had finally been brought to an end. Apparently, the arguments had been taken too far and a pokemon had actually died.

The only reason that hadn't erupted yet another war between pokemon was because it was an old rattata who was already nearing his death-bed. He was also known to be crazy, even more so than the old bellsprout, so many of the rattata colony stayed clear of him. No consequences there.

I supposed there would also be no consequences if I died here, as well. There was no one I felt any particular attachment to in this world and I sure as hell doubted anyone would miss me if I died. Nobody would miss someone they didn't like.

"Listen to me..."

I had to admit, I was curious in seeing who was right. Who knew, maybe my next life would be just as crappy as this one. Either way, I wouldn't know until I took the plunge.

"Stop fighting it..."

It would be so easy...

"...stupid child."

I blinked and choked as I felt myself able to breathe again. I panted and flailed about inside the beast. I couldn't see outside of it, because its insides were blackened for some reason. It was allowing me to breathe, but still kept me captive. Why?

"Listen to me..." Just because I was able to breathe again didn't stop the sharp stabbing I felt all over my body, however, and I gasped sharply as the pain hit me full force. I felt nauseous and my head...oh, my head... "Listen closely..."

"Alright, I'm listening, I'm listening!" I screamed, desperately wishing for the pain to stop. I squirmed and convulsed in one position. Why couldn't that stupid creature just let me die? "Stop it already you stupid-!"

"...you are one filled with hate, aren't you, child?"

"Shut up!" I spat, but couldn't deny its words. "Let me go already!"

"You wish for the pain to stop, yes? Then listen..."

"I said I was listening!" I screamed and arched my back. "Now stop hurting me already!"

"The pain will stop once you hear my message...so listen carefully..."

I was going to shove that stupid creature's "listen carefully" in its face-wherever that was-if it didn't stop playing games with me.

The creature must've had enough of me, because it wrapped a tentacle around my mouth and muffled my cries, forcing me to remain still. How it managed to stick its tentacle inside of its body, I didn't know. I honestly didn't even want to know.

"You have a lot of hate within you...I shall ensure you use that hate wisely...all for the purpose of a better world. One without the creatures who plague this planet with their nastiness and terror. One where everyone is united and organized. One where nobody has to bear the pain of suffering alone. You...shall be our first step into creating that future, young child."

My eyes widened as I let out an involuntary whimper. I had no clue what that thing was talking about and it chilled me to the bone. I hated humans, yes, but what was this thing ranting on about with creating a new world?

"You shall help us...you may not realize it now, but you are essential to our survival, young child...help us..."

I began to struggle more and more as the creature continued speaking into my brain. My cries grew louder, despite still muffled, as I felt a stabbing all over my body. I thought that stupid thing would stop hurting me if I listened to its stupid speech!

"...remember...you don't belong here...you never have..."

I froze. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of that. I knew it was true, which was why I had always hated everyone I ever met, and why I had others hating me in return, but...

But...

"...no one here loves you. No one here likes you. No one here would miss you if you disappeared...even you yourself admit to all of these things, yes?"

I let out a weak whimper and felt my body go numb. Whatever the creature was doing to me was making me unresponsive, and I hated it...

"...but we will. Remember, child. Remember always..."

I felt myself start to slip into unconsciousness as the creature spoke its final words.

"...remember that you are one of us..."

The creature let me go and my eyes snapped open upon reflex.

Then I let out a long and blood-curdling scream before I finally passed out into a deep dark oblivion. I begged myself, for all love and war, to please just let me stay that way...and for me to never wake up again.

Let's see how long I can keep this up...regular updates, I mean. Heh. Heh...

Hope you liked that chapter and please review! :)