Kricketune ended up taking so long Pranav decided to just let her be while they collected the other bodies. Laying them all out aside from the one they’d left tied upstairs. The unfortunate fucker looked at them with wide eyes while his comrades were dragged down below one by one, but Pran was a little too tired to care.

  “What’s…what’s going to happen to me?” The man asked.

  Pran shrugged, “Nothing. Unless my bosses decide otherwise, but you’ll be alright. I think.”

  The grunt whimpered a little, but again, Pranav was beginning to run out of fucks to give. What he’d seen down there…he wasn’t sure he understood it fully. He just knew they were hurting Pokémon to create Amber, though the actual process evaded him.

  Unfortunately the brothers had given their word, and that was something he aimed to preserve.

  “Alright,” Pran said, wiping his hands on the uniform of a dead Grunt. “Should we give them a call?”

  Arun nodded, turning on his phone before wincing. “13 missed calls.”

  “We should call them back before it turns into 14.”

  “We?”

  “You.” Pranav amended.

  His brother sighed, dialling in the number and letting it ring.

  “Sirius.” Gloom did not sound happy.

  “Boss,” Arun said simply. “It’s done.”

  “What do you mean, ‘it’s done’? What did you do?”

  “They’ve been taken care of. Save for one, we agreed to a memory wipe for information.”

  Silence on the line.

  “Gloom?”

  “Stay. If you move from your spot I will know. We’re on the way.”

  The line clicked shut, and Arun sighed, “Guess we’re stuck here.”

  “We still need to free Gengar though,” Pran pointed out. “So you’re stuck here, I’m gonna do what we promised.”

  “And if Gengar turns on you? What then? We should wait for the others. They’ll be strong enough to keep it at bay.”

  “You think it’s going to wait for us to take our time?”

  “I won’t,” A voice whispered around them. Both brothers flinched, looking around only to see the room had gotten slightly darker. “Release me. I can sense your friends from here, powerful. I will not be near when I am freed.”

  Pranav raised an eyebrow at his brother, giving him a look that said ‘see?’

  “Fine,” Arun growled. “But take Valor with you.”

  “Sir yes sir.”

  Keeping Valor’s ball clipped to his belt (alongside two more dittos he’d looted) Pranav followed the long shadows through the hallway, guiding him to his destination. The same shadows that told him where to go in order to get the jump on the one they called Jal. Pranav made a mental vow to himself, one he’d thought was common sense, but figured it was best to outline.

  He would never try to hold a Pokémon against its will.

  Just because they could be bound to his commands (Somehow, he wasn’t sure how) didn’t mean they couldn’t work against him.

  Case in point, one very eager Gengar who had led him to an open office that didn’t smell like blood and shit.

  “I have left what you may find useful on the desk, Grunt.” Gengar said. There was something in its voice, a subdued hope as its shadows coalesced around a glass box on Jal’s desk, where a dusk ball lay sealed shut. “Now keep your word. Free me.”

  Pran recognized the beginnings of authority, something pressing against the side of his mind, wanting him to act, to move. He forced the feeling away, staring down Gengar for a few moments before walking up to the pokeball.

  “Aken. If you will.”

  His partner concentrated, furrowing his eyebrows before sending shadows streaking into the pokeball. A few dozen stabs of Shadow Sneak and the Dusk ball erupted, fizzling out with a puff of black mist.

  Immediately the room darkened, and Aken was on the defensive, taking his place between Gengar and Pranav. It was a nice gesture, he thought, watching energy gather near his partner’s horn.

  Unfortunately, it was a useless gesture.

  This was raw power. Untamed, free. A devil whose chains were shattered. Gengar took a deep breath, causing the room temperature to drop by a few degrees. It's exhale sounding like the dying breath of a hundred souls.

  And then it laughed.

  “Free, free, free again!” Gengar cackled, the mists coming together into its true form. “What fun, what fun! What fun I shall have! Oh to hunt again, to taste again, to dance the dance of death!”

  “Guess our deal’s done.” Pran said, wanting to immediately start bolting away. Unfortunately, there were documents to steal, so here he was.

  Gengar’s eyes flicked onto him, a wide grin beginning to stretch onto its face before its head snapped to the side. “Hm. I thought I had time for a quick scare but I suppose not. You are correct, our deal is done.”

  Gengar collapsed back into mist, slowly snaking out towards the door.

  “Perhaps we shall meet again in better circumstances.” Its voice whispered, causing Pranav to shiver. “Take care, Grunt, I hope you do not perish quickly.”

  And then it was gone.

  “What an asshole.” Pranav said.

  “You needed to wait 10 minutes to say that?”

  “Do you think I should’ve waited more?”

  “Hmph.”

  Aken’s tone gave him pause. Usually his partner would be more…forthcoming with his insults. Willing to dish out as many as he could and dragging it out while Pranav played defence. This was new, his partner was subdued.

  “What’s wrong?” Pranav asked, making his way to the desk. Ironically it was all in paper, something he was familiar with since bombs essentially cut off all the Wi-fi. They were essentially illegible. He wondered if they were coded.

  “...Am I not good enough to fight alongside you?”

  Pran blinked. “What?”

  “Did fear remove your ability to hear?”

  “First off, relax. Second, I heard you, I just want to know what you mean by that.”

  “Every battle that has ever mattered, I am pushed to the side. An afterthought. A tool.”

  “...But we’ve been fighting against people way out of our weight class.”

  “Maybe so, but did we not train? For what reason did I gain these skills? You couldn’t have used me to knock out this…Jal? The way Valor did for the other stains that lived here?”

  Pranav sat back in his chair, thinking for a bit. “We promised him to Kricketune though, didn’t we?” He countered. “I get that I could’ve used you better, but again, out of our weight class. We’ll find some time to look for people at our skill level–”

  “When?” Aken hissed. “At the rate that I battle, it will be ages before I evolve. You swore to me you would make me strong, and while I admit you have somewhat kept up with the promise, it is not enough.”

  “What did you want me to do?” Pranav argued. “Send you, a barely trained Pokémon, against a rampaging fire monster? Don’t be fucking ridiculous. You’re smarter than that.”

  Aken snarled at him, flying closer until he was eye to eye with Pranav. “That is not the point! You haven’t gone out of your way to look for battles that would challenge me! Battles that could help me hone my skills! You’re obsessed with this…money as if it’s a lifeline. I am your lifeline. I will be what protects you from the monsters.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  The trainer blinked in surprise at the words, forcing his retort down to think about what he was being told. Pranav didn’t think he was doing too bad a job as a trainer, all things considered. In fact, considering he had 0 experience in the department, he’d go as far as saying he was doing a great job. But clearly Aken didn’t have the same sentiment though, why? Was it the speed of which they were training?

  “Why do you want to evolve so bad?” He finally asked.

  “Because at the rate it’s going, everyone is leaving me behind.” His little ghost growled.

  “...can you explain that a little more.”

  “Over the course of the last couple of months, our enemies have only gotten stronger. I’ve had to swallow my pride multiple times due to the fact that I am currently not enough. But you promised me I would be. Train me, battle with me, help me grow, before I become something…useless.”

  “Has this been bothering you for a while?”

  Aken glanced away.

  Pran sucked in a breath, before letting out an explosive exhale. “You make a good point. A great one, even. Okay. Okay, yeah. I’ll write it down, we’ll head into town and just battle. Doesn't matter if we win or lose, let’s get some experience.”

  “Good. It is not…fun…being useless.”

  Pranav thought back to the Before, grimacing as he packed up all the papers Gengar haphazardly left scattered about.

  “No, it really isn’t.”

  —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Arun felt them before he heard them.

  Gloom’s mind was full of worry and annoyance, up until she reached the staircase, afterwards a wellspring of disgust began to grow exponentially. Omega’s mind was barely visible, only possible to find because Arun strained his senses to focus on the space around Gloom until he pinpointed her mind. He wasn’t able to find out what she was thinking though, well guarded as her mind was.

  “Where is he?” Gloom demanded, as soon as she walked into the ‘waiting room’ of the mass grave. Both women were wearing Chronos uniforms, probably how they entered without being accosted outside.

  “Gathering some documents.” Arun replied quickly. He wasn’t going to tell her about their deal with Gengar.

  “Get him here, now.”

  “Someone call?” Pran grinned, walking into the hall with a stack of papers in hand. He looked paler than when he’d left, and Arun could see the hand that he’d shoved into his pocket was trembling slightly.

  “What the fuck were you two thinking?” Gloom hissed.

  “We didn’t lose anything valuable, if that’s what you're worried about.” Arun said.

  “Yeah, it’s all here,” Pran said. “Unless you were talking about going loud? We kept it quiet, I don’t think they knew anything before we hit them.”

  Arun didn’t really understand why Gloom seemed to be getting angrier and angrier at their words. They did their jobs. No, in fact they went above and beyond, they wiped a mini base on their own. Something that would’ve only been possible with makeshift bombs and guns back in the Before.

  Unless…

  “Did you want to question one of them?” Arun asked, wincing as he glanced at the 7 bodies laid out to the side. “We have one upstairs, but the boss…he uh.”

  “He won’t be in one piece.” Pranav finished.

  “That isn’t the point,” Gloom snapped, causing them both to go quiet. “I gave you specific instructions. You were here to gather data, not go on a killing spree!”

  “But we did it,” Pranav stressed, gesturing about the room. “Look. We got them. They’re dead, we have everything we need.”

  “And what if you were hurt? If you ended up captured, or killed?”

  Pran shrugged, “Then we die. Mission failed. Thought that was pretty obvious.”

  Gloom slapped him.

  A stunned silence filled the room, Arun looking between the two. Pranav looked more confused than hurt, which kept the older brother from flying to his defense. Instead Pran worked his jaw, trying to figure out the right words to say.

  “I don’t understand what we did wrong,” Arun eventually said, when his brother could come up with nothing. “I understand we broke orders but…where did we go wrong?”

  “This isn’t about getting a job right. It’s about coming back alive. You think I want to bury a couple of boneheaded grunts?”

  Again, both brothers glanced at each other with confusion.

  “But…you’ve known us for two nights.” Pranav said.

  “And you said you didn’t even want Grunts to look after in the first place.”

  All the fury in Gloom’s eyes died suddenly, as she let out a deep sigh. For the first time since they had met her, Gloom’s age began to show. Eyes so full of life suddenly seemed tired and weary as she looked at both of them.

  “That’s not the point,” Gloom finally said. “The point is, you’re under my command. I don’t want you to die. You’re bright, you pick things up quickly, but most importantly, I can see that you care. About your Pokémon, about each other. Why would I want two trainers brimming with potential to march into a killzone?”

  “Killzone for Chronos, maybe.” Omega muttered, looking at the corpses.

  “Zip it.”

  “Zipping it.”

  It was…strange being praised as such. He could tell his brother felt the same, from his awkward fidgeting to trying to figure out where to look. Being in the Before, praise was given if someone was trying to get something from you, and even from before the bombs, their parents, bless their souls, weren’t ones to give it so freely and easily.

  But Gloom?

  There was nothing she could want from them, she had every advantage, and even still, she’d probably seen trainers with 100x the talent that they had.

  “Thanks.” Arun finally said. And he was surprised to feel that he meant it.

  “Yeah…sorry about, y’know, ignoring orders and rushing in.”

  Gloom sighed. “I don’t want it happening again. If I tell you to do something, you do it, understood?”

  “Yes ma’am.” They both said.

  “You won’t try some stupid, zubat-shit crazy stunt like this again, right?”

  “No ma’am.”

  She stared at them, long and hard to the point where Arun found that he couldn’t look her in the eye anymore. She finally gave them a break however, waving her hands in a ‘forget about it’ gesture as she said, “Fine, show me what you have and what you learned.”

  Pranav stepped forward first, holding his papers. “I got a bunch of documents, but they’re all written in some kind of code. Whatever it is, I can't read it, but it’s something.”

  “You searched everywhere?”

  “The place is kind of a shithole ma’am.”

  Gloom raised her eyebrow.

  “Ah. I mean, it’s not that well furnished,” He waited for her nod before continuing. “We were looking at a barely used office, with little to no personal effects. The laptop was similarly empty, probably only used for communication, but the asshates–Chronos–decided to bolt it down onto the desk for some reason.”

  The older trainer took the papers, her eyes briefly scanning over the strange letters that Arun only got a glimpse of, before finally nodding and handing them off to Omega.

  “What about…this place?” Gloom asked, waving her hands around.

  “We’re not certain,” Arun said. “I think it’s best to show you.”

  “If it looks half as bad as it smells, I’ll bet it’s terrible.”

  Arun knew she was trying for a joke, to lighten the mood just a tad, but when he thought about the Pokémon in their cages…the machines.

  He simply shook his head at her, before turning on his heel and leading the way.

  It went about as well as he expected.

  “Arceus…” Gloom gasped, staring at the room. The older woman had gone pale, her eyes staring at the blooded machines and the remains that weren’t moved in time. Arun didn’t know what Omega was doing, but she was quiet, her face stuck in concentration as beads of sweat rolled down her face.

  “We know they were hurting Pokémon,” Arun said. “We just didn’t know why.”

  “You could figure it out though,” Pranav added. “If you used Remembrance, right?”

  Gloom said nothing for a while, letting her fingers drift over some of the machinery, before finally nodding. “Mushy, if you will.”

  Arun wanted to throw up.

  He’d never experienced Remembrance before, but it was horrible. I’m the pink mists he could see shapes, so close he felt like he could touch them if he moved just a little bit closer, only for the shadows to fade away.

  But he could see, and he could hear.

  He watched in horror as Pokémon, either captured or hatched straight from eggs, were beaten senseless by Gengar and strapped to the machines in the room. He was right, it was a butchers room. Ungodly cuts and instruments were taken to the Pokémon, cutting, stabbing, ripping. All the while they screamed and screamed, so loud and intense Arun thought his eardrums were going to explode.

  The worst was when they were healed. That brief moment of confusion and hope in their voices before the agony began all over again. Some of them couldn’t take it, mostly the newly hatched from what he could see. They died early and were unceremoniously dumped off to the side before a new one took their place.

  “Stop,” Someone begged, and Arun turned to see Pranav looking visibly sick. “Gloom, stop.”

  “No,” The older woman said, her voice uncharacteristically hard. “These people are now our enemy, brand their sins into your mind.”

  Arun didn’t know how long the tortures went on, but he did see people coming with tubes that were stuck into open wounds. They were draining the Pokémon, pumping fluid out of their bodies until they were nothing but husks. The fluid was then sealed up in a container and pushed into a box with others of its ilk. They filled and filled until Arun could count no less than 80 boxes of the stuff, to which they began hauling off.

  “Come on.” Gloom ordered, the other three stumbling behind her as Musharna, openly weeping, brought them to a set of double doors that opened easily into what could be described as the world's worst lab.

  There were beakers and flasks, but they seemed to be there to give an appearance. It didn’t matter which beaker the fluid was poured into, they were all treated the same. Stirred and combined with something unknown before being left in another random flask to sit.

  And then it all faded away.

  “Amber is…it’s Pokémon?” Pran asked, as if he wanted his question to be disproved.

  “Adrenaline, perhaps,” Gloom said. “Something happens within the body when it’s in pain. They must be harvesting it somehow.”

  “Gloom,” Omega said hoarsely, rubbing at her temple. “We have to…any group that’s taking part in…this.”

  “We inform Mars.” Gloom nodded.

  “Is there anything we can do to assist?” Arun asked.

  “No. Sit your asses down, you’ll hear it in the morning.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Omega.”

  “On it,” The younger woman sighed, pulling out her notebook and handing it to Pranav. “You’re going to write down what I tell you, got it?”

  “Y…yeah.” Pran replied a little dumbfounded. The shock hadn’t entirely worn off on his little brother, but the clear instructions gave him focus.

  “Sirius,” Gloom called. “With me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “There’s a missing P.I that still needs to be found.”

  He hurried after her, “I thought Felis went with—“

  “Felis,” Gloom hissed. “Can’t listen to orders. So you’re coming with me.”

  Ouch. Still angry.

  The older trainer had called a Lucario to her side, the Pokémon looking just as annoyed as their trainer. Arun knew where they were going, they’d passed by the bolted door a lot earlier.

  “[Force Palm].”

  Lucario growled, blue energy forming at the palms if it’s hand before smashing forward, crumpling the steel door. It ripped its arm back, taking the door with them and gesturing inside.

  There was a woman there, her face was pale, stained by tear streaks that had long stopped flowing. Her hair was a messy dark brown, messy and patchy, as if she’d ripped off chunks from her scalp.

  She wore little, a simple white tee and sweatpants that too, were dirty. She had marks all over her body, bruises and barely healed cuts, scabs that still bled slightly as if she were scratching them over and over again.

  The worst, however, was her eyes. They were Pranav’s eyes. Dead eyes. Dim and blank with little to no cognitive function. Even as she scrambled forward on broken hands and chipped fingernails, her eyes didn’t change.

  Rage washed through him, emanating in waves. Beside him Lucario snarled as well, clenching its fists.

  “Is it…do you have it?” The woman asked in barely a whisper. Dehydrated. She looked thin, too.

  “We’re not here for that.” Gloom said, gently.

  The woman looked up, and smiled. “Time to go?”

  “Oh child,” the old trainer whispered. “We’re getting you out of here. We’ll take you somewhere safe.”

  “No, no, nononono—“ She clutched her hair. “You won’t trick me again, you won’t.”

  Gloom kept her distance, removing the blazer and reaching inside her coat pocket with one hand, while the other made a placating gesture. The addict, because Arun had no other words to describe her, watched behind matted hair with the same, dead-eyed stare.

  A trainers license was produced, one with the Galactics signature G emblazoned clearly. Gloom slid it forward carefully, before her hand retreated into her belt once more, this time to draw out a bottle of water and what looked like those squeeze bottles that you’d give to children.

  “Oh…” the addict whispered. “Oh.”

  Filthy arms hesitantly reached forward, Gloom silently scooting forward to meet them. The addict began running her broken fingers down the old trainer's face, as if trying to feel if she were real.

  “What’s your name, child?”

  “Anissa.” Her voice was so quiet Arun could barely pick it up.

  Gloom slowly pulled the other woman in for a hug. “Do you want to leave with us?”

  “Can I…?”

  “Of course you can,” The older woman chuckled. “Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore, not so long as we’re here.”

  “Oh…”

  That was all that was said before she finally allowed herself to break down. Arun almost sagged in relief as life began to ebb into her eyes once more. Granted, it was through a waterfall of tears and snot, a torrent that Gloom took with grace, whispering sweet words and reassurances that Arun tuned out as they weren't meant for anyone else's ears.

  The addict—Anissa, wailed. Loud cries of someone who’d forced herself to harden her heart, of someone who was drowning in darkness for so long and finally saw a light. Of someone who’d been alone for so long.

  It was horrible, agonizing, but it signaled the end. And that, to Arun, made it so relieving to hear.

  why I was acting this way. It's not like I was lacking in creativity, I still enjoy writing and have some projects on the side I don't think I'll post, and that has just been amazing fun, and it sort of hit me like a truck.

  job, and not what it should have been, a passion project.