"Did you catch everything?"

I nod. After talking with this mysterious person, I concluded that indeed, it was Leanbox's Oracle, and that no, I wasn't betrayed by her and an impostor had taken her place.

I hear a playful sigh. "You do remember I can't see you, right?"

I blush and cough a bit, before answering. "Yes, sure. I was... Thinking. Yep, got the plan. I'm not sure I'll be able to get you out, though."

There is a pause at that, and then she answers me. "It does not matter. The people of Leanbox will only answer to me, and their copying machine requires me to be alive. That's what that green-haired grunt told me, anyway. They won't kill me, so I will stay here. You, on the other hand..."

I gulp, and steadily try to remove a fake brick that's just above my hand. Chika believes that we are in the Basilicom's highest prison room. And in that case, from what we both could see of the room, I am in one of the few cells that have been trapped to have a few hidden keys. If you know where to work and what to do...

"I got it."

I remove the fake brick, and carefully get the key out of its hiding place. It starts to shine brightly, and disappear in a poof of light, along with the chains that were holding me. I fall on the ground, and get up as the cell's door open with a bang. An alarm starts to blast off in what I assume to be the entire Basilicom.

Chika talks over the alarm. "Do you remember everything you need?"

"34C924, your room, two floors down, third door on the left wing. Second desk, first disc on the first console of the third desk." I answer, and she yells at me to go.

I start to run towards the door, and despite everything, I start to smirk.

It's funny how I keep having to raid the Basilicoms like that.

As swiftly as I expected, my road is blocked by two guys. Now that I know they are ASIC thugs, I can notice the red and yellow pins on their jackets.

One of them has an axe, the other wields a dagger. The guy with the axe takes out a walkie-talkie.

"Got him cornered, boss. Protocol?"

A young voice answers back. "Damn this idiot Brave! He can whine all he wants that I didn't answer to his dumb orders, I don't care anymore! Men, KILL HIM!"

With a call of "Roger," Axe Guy starts to jump towards me, and I jump backwards. His axe gets stuck to the floor, but with a roar, he yanks it out, along with a chunk of the floor itself.

Dagger Guy starts to run towards me, and I can barely keep my eye on him. I twist my arm to dodge his first strike, duck under a second, and my knee reaches his stomach before he can start a third. I then grab his arm, twist it, and use the guy as a shield against his fellow grunt.

Fellow grunt who doesn't care, and as I push dagger guy on the ground, slams his axe where we both were a second before. I stomp dagger guy as he lies there on the ground, steal his weapon, and quickly jump back to avoid the axe guy, who's trying to hit me again.

We both breathe heavily a bit, before I fake-throw the dagger at him. He quickly protect himself with the blunt of his axe, and it's the opening I need to approach him and stab him in the arm. I kick his leg for good measure, take the dagger back, and push him on the ground.

I turn back just in time to avoid dagger guy as he tries to get me from behind. Without a weapon, he is reduced to trying to pin me, but I'm not having it. I grab him by the face, and slams him on a wall, once, twice, and three times for good measures. I throw him at the ground, unconscious, and I start to leave, before an idea strikes me.

Hiding the two knocked-out grunts in the prison after having taken their clothes, I take the rather heavy axe and put it on the ground, at my feet. With the dagger, I cut myself a bit on non-important parts of my body, and then plops myself on the ground, next to the smashed walkie-talkie. Just in time, as a squad of grunts burst though the door. I fake a cough, and points towards a broken window, and the leader nod. One of them hands me a drink, and they're off, yelling "the Wildcard jumped through a window! Everyone to the main floor!"

I smirk, and drink what he gave me. I feel my injuries close, and I'm a bit less tired overall. I jump to my feet, and start heading down.

I run, and as I meet other grunts, I tell them to head to random places. They all listen to me, and none even try to follow me.

I soon reach a room with a heavy door, with a pin pad to the side. I'm pretty sure that I've arrived to my destination. I enter the code on the pin, and with a "ding", the door open. I quickly enter the room, and close the door behind me. A yell tells me I have been noticed, but luckily for me, the door closes before anything can happen- and a click confirms that nobody without either the code or a lot of firepower will enter the room.

I look around, noticing a lot of games and a lot of posters, all featuring one... Rather busty blonde in various states of undress. Weird, but that's not something to focus on; I shake my head, and follow the instructions I remember.

Second desk, first disc- that means the first game, right? So, I take it, and put in the first console the third desk... Wait so, is it the first from the door or from the-

An explosion in the hallway shakes the door, signalling to me that I have no time left. I decide it's the first from the door, and put the right disc in the right console- and one of the posters opens to reveal a hidden passageway. I take a few games and throw them on the ground, before jumping in the new entrance, and closing it behind me. I hear a click, and upon pushing the wall, it doesn't open, so I'll just assume it's closed.

Another explosion rocks the building, and I decide to continue down the hidden passageway. After a few minutes of nothing, a louder explosion makes the whole building shake, and I barely avoid falling on the ground. I can even feel some pebbles falling from the ceiling. Nevertheless, I continue, heading deeper and deeper, before finally reaching a big room. It's only lit up by a few torches, and I let a shaky breath as I realise I'm somewhat safe.

"Hello there, chu."

I yelp, and look around me, before my eyes lands on a giant mouse. I squint my eyes a little, and try to ask if he is who I think he is.

"Warechu?"

He laughs a little. "The gig is up, I guess. Nothing personal, chu. But I'll have to take you out myself."

With those words, he jumps towards me, and I jump backward to avoid him. He's quick on his feet however, and continues his assault mercilessly, while I barely manage to stay away from him.

I take out the axe and give a downward swing, but he jumps back, and starts to generate a magic orb within his palms. He launches it, screaming "Blast Impulse!", and I try to cut the attack in half with my axe- with great success, I might add.

He jumps back to get some distance between us, before pointing a finger towards me. A cry of "Viral Attack!" and a pink beam is released, and it slams my gut, but it doesn't hurt me more than that. I actually feel a bit better than before.

He frowns, and prepares another magic orb, this time twice as big as the first. I don't let him finish however, and I throw my axe at him, forcing him to launch his attack with a squeak before he could dodge.

I don't let up however, and I rush towards him, ready to kick him down. He tries to put some distance between us, but I'm faster, and I manage to land a few hits before he generates a shockwave and throws me back.

We watch each others for a few seconds, neither of us doing anything. His eyes starts to shut down, as he puts his hand to one of his ear, before getting a devious look, as he starts chuckling.

Confused, I take a step forward. That makes him stop, as he grabs something he had hidden in his back.

He then pins a red and yellow heart to his tail, before looking at me deviously, a walkie-talkie in hand.

"The boss has decided you outlived your purpose, chu. That means I can finally take the gloves off."

Before I can process anything he just said to me, he says something in his walkie-talkie, before throwing it away and rushing at me. I try to defend from his blows, but they never come, as he instead kick my legs, making me fall on the ground in the process. I roll away, manage to get up, run and grab the axe as Warechu prepares another magic orb.

As he starts launching his "Blast Impulse", he charges another. Soon, he's shooting at me twice a second, trying to score any hit he can, as I dodge and slashes the balls of energy to nothingness. Then, I see him slip up- did he use too much energy or something?- and I use the opportunity to get close and personal, and whack his face with the flat part of my axe.

He winces, but retaliate with another shockwave, sending me away once more, as he readies another, bigger magic orb. One that he doesn't stop charging for the entire time it takes me to get up and ready myself.

With a shout of "Blast Impulse Neo!", he launches his massive ball of energy in my direction. As it slowly approaches me, I look at my axe and think for a second.

There's no reason for my skills to be exclusive to one weapon, right?

As his attack nears me, I hit it with the flat of my axe, trying to feel the something inside of me that explode whenever I use my gun or any of my skills. As the weapon hits Warechu's attack, I close my eyes and scream "Twinkle Star!", hoping, praying that it'll work...

And an explosion make me lose my footing, as I open my eyes in shock to see Warechu get thrown at a wall.

I stare at him for a few seconds, before whooping in joy. With the fight now over, I can finally start to think about other things.

Mainly, Warechu's words in the middle of our fight.

I start to approach him, and wake him up by lightly hitting his face. He startles, but I don't let him gather his bearings, before finally asking the question that was eating me inside for a long time.

"You and Linda both used me, right?" I ask, with more conviction than I feel. He shakes his head, stop for a second, before smirking.

"From the very beginning."

I gasp at the words, before taking a step back. No hesitation in his words, just pure facts, echoing in my head in time with my axe's "clunks" on the ground.

I never had any friends, I just kept changing masters from one nation to the other.

I take another step back, and try to calm myself. That's wrong, obviously! I mean, I had the twins, and Mina...

But the twins didn't hesitate to try to kill me-

But Mina didn't once care about my safety, only the twins'-

I shook my head. Those dumb thoughts mean nothing. I need to make sure Warechu doesn't leave, and-

As I turn to look at him, I see him running towards me, with an axe in his hands. With my axe. I manage to kick his arm, making him release it, and I throw a punch at his head, hoping to knock him down one last time.

However, he ducks, grab my feet, and lifts me up before slamming me on the ground.

I scream, feeling my back break, as he releases me. I try to get up, but I can't. I'm stuck to the ground, and every move I make hurts like nothing ever did. From the corner of my eyes, I see him going to the axe, and throwing it away. He pauses for a second, and sighs, before throwing me a bottle.

He sits down on the floor, and say nothing for a few seconds.

"You know, I admire you."

I cough, and, cursing the weakness in my voice, asks him "what?"

He sighs. "Ya don't belong here, don'cha? You never had any parts in the story. It ain't happened once. Probably won' happen again. I don't know how to say it, but- you shouldn' exist."

I manage to rise and go on a seated position, as I drink what he left me. Another healing pad in liquid form, weaker than the one the other ASIC grunts gave me before.

"You're special", he continues, "but in a way, it's probably because you ain't. And yet... you change the story, one tiny step at a time. There's nothing great about you and yet, you leave an impact on the timeline. The Mistress... Maybe she was right about y'all. But again..."

He starts to leave, but then he stops, before turning back to look at me as I'm trying to rise up.

"Hey. Outworlder. When the time is right, ya might wanna go to the Trinity Marsh. The mistress has prepared a gift for ya."

As he leaves, I find myself thinking thinking about his words. His behaviour totally changed in the end. Really, it feels like...

It feels like he was sandbagging the entire time.

I kept trying to understand, before realising... It doesn't matter one bit. It never did, to be fair.

Because to everyone else, I've always only been a tool at best... And a toy at worst.

And this toy is laying broken on the floor.

Author's footnote

This chapter was ready back in December. Of 2021. I post chapter 19, and three days later, 20 pops out. Except I can't just write a regular chapter 20 can I? No, I need to write a different POV, of course. So. A few months go by, and I finally have 20L (that's the next one! It's been posted right after that one. If I didn't fail at life, of course.) by, what, summer of 2022? But now, I need to apologize for being so god damn late, so I write 21G. Except I don't. I fail to write it. Or, well, it's better to say I write the worst thing I ever wrote.

Meanwhile, I figure, might as well try other fandoms, I might just be burned out. I plan this epic Pokemon story, write two chapters, discard them. Write another story, less ambitious, discarded.

But hey, fuck it. I need to get back in this thing! So I'm lightly rewriting this chapter, probably will rewrite older chapters a bit too, and if anything, I might at least end Part 1 of this story lol.