The Path to Where I Stand
Chapter 6: Pain

...
...to…
Have to…
I have to…
...Can’t. Can’t… hold on…
…
……
………
...Where… am I?
Everything hurts…
I’m alone.
I’m scared.
Is that… a light?

[hr]

Yuko padded on the wooden floor, trying to avoid any guards she spotted. As far as she could tell, the building she was in was rather… unusual. Most of the inner corridors were carved out of a massive tree trunk, or woven out of silky, sticky spider webbing. Meanwhile nearly every room was a giant cocoon of webbing, silk, branches, and leaves.
It was actually kind of creepy. Most of the rooms gave you the impression that you were trapped in a very large spiderweb, about to have your innards sucked out.
That didn’t matter to Yuko, though. Once she got her wand back, she could just burn down the place.
She could innately detect the direction her wand was in, as could all of the fennekin line. Using this sixth sense, she searched out its location.
When she finally found the room it was in, she stood outside, listening for a moment. She couldn’t hear anything. Then she ducked inside the room.
It wasn’t one of the cocoon-rooms. Instead it was, like most of the corridors, hollowed out from the trunk of the tree. It was really rather cozy. There was a small window from which light filtered through. Moss grew heavily in a clump near the corner, presumably that was some kind of bed. It also grew on two short stumps. Possibly a rudimentary chair? In one of the other corners was a small wooden chest.
Yuko immediately rushed to the chest, opened it, as there was no lock, and pounced on the interior of the chest. She burrowed through the objects inside until she finally found what she was looking for.
“Ah-hah!” she cried triumphantly as she stuck her wand back into the corner of her mouth, where it belonged.
“And just what do you think you’re doing?” a voice asked behind her.
Yuko turned around. It was that zoroark. The one who resembled the zorua she had been placed next to.
Yuko snorted. “Just getting back what’s rightfully mine. I’ll be going now, so you don’t have to bother throwing me out.”
THe zoroark, Dusk, shook his head. “No. I can’t let you do that.”
Yuko frowned. “I’m not giving you a choice. I’m really strong for my age, you know.”
“I’m not giving you a choice, either,” Dusk responded. “And strength isn’t everything.”
Before he had finished talking, Dusk had activated an illusion, cloaking himself in the guise of a genesect.
Yuko frowned. She was familiar with illusions and magic. That wasn’t a zoroark’s normal illusion that Dusk was using, it was some kind of artificial one.
“Stupid move,” she muttered and she concentrated fire energy into her wand. But before she could finish charging Dusk slammed into her, pinning her to the wall. Click, click! the cannon on his back extended upwards slightly and trained itself on her, before releasing a Water typed Techno-Burst at point-blank rage.
Yuko had always thought she could easily take an illusory attack. Her mother had told her about just what a zoroark’s illusion was. She had said it was a manifestation on the physical plane of a zoroark or zorua’s mental abilities. All their hopes and dreams and despairs and fears and willpower punching you in the face. Yuko had always thought if it was mental, she could take it.
So she was rather surprised when the Techno-Burst hurt her. She felt no physical pain, she didn’t have to. Water was roaring in her mind, flooding her brain, drowning out her thoughts.
She screamed.

[hr]

Dusk stood over the unconscious body of the fennekin kit. A familiar vespiquen drifted into the room. Dusk looked up, and smiled. “Ah, Vex.”
Vex nodded. “Dusk.” She looked down at the fallen fennekin kit. “...So what are your opinions on that one?”
Dusk brushed his arms off. “She’s strong. She’ll be nigh unstoppable in the future. But she doesn’t know her strength yet… And by that I mean she thinks she’s more powerful than she really is.” He looked over at Vex. “She’s not a threat, yet. But she definitely will be in the future. We can’t give her that chance. Imprison her.”
Vex nodded, picking Yuko up and gliding out of the room.

[hr]

The first thing on X’s mind when he finally became fully conscious was pain.
When he opened his eyes, he was in darkness. He stood up, and his muscles were sore.
He couldn’t see anything. It was like he was standing with his eyes closed, but he could clearly feel them open. He couldn’t even see the stars or the moon. He couldn’t feel wind or grass, and the air tasted stale.
Where was he? Had he died? Was this the afterlife for bad pokemon?
It was. It had to be. He had died and gone to the bad afterlife for disobeying Feunard, and leaving Goldsong alone. Such an idiot he had been! Anything could’ve happened to Goldsong, and it wasn’t like he could’ve helped Feunard. He had been blinded by emotions, and payed the price.
He decided to test how far the darkness went. Maybe he could find someone. He wasn’t sure what was worse, though. Being alone, or finding a truly evil pokemon. However, he was saved the decision. He hadn’t even taken a few steps before he smacked into a wall of some kind. Not like any wall he had seen before. This was cold and metallic.
Suddenly the chamber he was in was illuminated by a soft green light. There was a slight rumbling noise, and bright white light flooded the chamber as a section of the wall in front of him lifted away.
X screwed up his eyes, yelping at first as the light caused him pain. But then after a few moments he slowly opened his eyes again and stumbled into the larger chamber. The wall behind him closed again automatically, almost trapping his tail.
He glanced about at this new chamber curiously. It was even stranger than the first. It was very large, with polished metallic walls and floor. Glaring white lights beamed down from the ceiling, and one wall perfectly reflected X and the room he was in. Adjacent to the reflecting wall was the wall that X had come from.
X walked up towards his reflection, frowning. The fur on his stomach was singed, and his bright green eyes had been tinged red. Had he been crying while unconscious. He hesitantly placed a paw on the wall, and his reflection copied him.
Ka-thump.
X felt the ground shake and tumbled to the floor. He was still unsteady, having just woken up and all.
Ka-thump.
A section of the wall opposite the one X had entered from began opening.
Something was coming.
Ka-thump.
Grrrrrrrr… Grrrrrrarrrr!
X watched the reflections in horror as something grotesque emerged from the wall. It was horrifying.
It looked like it used to be a lucario. But parts from other pokemon had been added on in awkward angles. The razor-sharp haphazard teeth of a carvanha. Paws weighed down with the deadly blades of a scyther. Back protected by the jutting spikes of skarmory feathers. The venomous tail of a scolipede. The terrible feet of a tyrantrum. And far worse.
The hybrid let out an arbok’s forked tongue, tasting the air. X realized with a shudder that its bloated, sightless eyes had once been those of a luxray’s. The hybrid pricked its pink audino-like ears. They seemed completely wrong, something so fluffy and pink slapped ridiculously onto such a monster. Then again, nothing about the hybrid seemed right.
It opened its mouth, and let out another strangled cry. This one almost seemed pathetic. “Grrrrrar…”
Using its ears and tongue, it seemed to have noticed X. Despite being blind, it was staring right at him.
X noticed that it had a collar around its neck. Hard, unbreakable, yet still see-throught. He could see the fur parted and skin rubbed raw beneath it, and the many multicolored wires threaded through the wire.
“...What are you?” X asked the hybrid.
“Arrrrr…” the hybrid responded, sadly. Then something happened.
The hybrid stiffened up as the wires inside the collar glowed. It let out a shrill cry of pain, trying to grip at the collar but only cutting its neck and chest. It narrowed its eyes and growled at X.
X uncertainly lowered himself into a battle position. He wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but he felt it would definitely end in a fight.