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Pokémon To Another Abyss

Inyssa

Bug Catcher
Pronouns
He/Him
Partners
  1. kricketune
Hiya! I was thinking about starting to post some of my stuff over here while I work on my newer fics, and figured I could start with something more compact like this.

Story Cover:

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Synopsis:
Kanto has changed a lot in the past ten years. The League is no more, and trainers have become tools for the rich and powerful, either mercenaries or dogs of the government.

Sabrina is the latter. She is to play the role of Gym leader in a sick, twisted mockery of the art she once admired, bearing the name of her childhood idol: a woman who is now wanted across the region. All for the entertainment of Kanto’s shadowy new rulers.

It’s a role she doesn’t mind playing. At least until an unusual challenger comes into her Gym, into the life she’s worked so hard to build, and begins to slowly unravel it all.

Originally this was a story told throughout nearly 40 snippets in between 500 and 1000 words, but as to not spam the thread over and over I'll be uploading it in sets of around 7 snippets each per chapter, for a total of five parts for each big 'turn' in the story. To explain further, this is a short novella written as the 'backstory' for a character in an old Pokemon tabletop campaign, which serves as a standalone tale of its own.

The campaign itself is also currently being adapted into prose by me, but I figured I'd start with this since it's much more manageable, lol. Cheers to Yuki (DM) and Sabrina (the player) for their help with this.

Content Warnings:
Swearing, smoking, blood and violence involving both humans and Pokemon (though not gratuitous) and death.






Chapter 1: Atheist's Peace​


Prologue: Saffron's Child


Two trainers stood across from each other within a large steel cage. The one on the far right was a short, black-haired girl wearing a black beanie and a hoodie, a cigarette being held by her lips.


Pinching the butt of the cig with her fingers, she began to speak.


"I suppose you know the rules, though I don't mind repeating them," she said with a cold, dispassionate voice. "Three against three; you can use your Pokemon in any way you wish as long as you don't have more than one out at the same time."


She took a slow drag of the cigarette as she backed up toward a small table inside the cage. Atop rested a handful of cardboard boxes, each filled with Pokeballs of different colors.


"The leader, that would be me, will use random Pokemon from these boxes." She pointed at them, looking bored. "They haven't been raised by me nor do I care about their well-being, so don't expect me to go easy on you."


She closed her eyes for a moment, throwing the cigarette to the ground and stomping on it.


"You can try to kill me to win, and in fact I recommend you do. I'm not allowed to kill any challengers. Too much paperwork, you see. But then again…"


Her eyes set on her opponent and the massive, rough-looking Rhydon at his side, her eyes a cold, apathetic abyss.


"Accidents do happen."


High above the arena, two men looked at the trainers from the VIP spectator booths. One of them was somewhere in his forties, smoking a pipe as he stared down with something akin to boredom.


"Is that the new Gym Leader?" he asked. "Could’ve mistaken her for a guy. Is she any good?"


The young man next to him crossed his arms and replied with a soft, chilling voice.


"Well… her physical strength is terrible, her attitude is abysmal and she urgently needs someone to take her down a peg," he listed calmly. "However… her skill in Pokemon battles is something you don't see every day. And most importantly, she doesn't ask questions."


"And what's her name?"


The young man smiled, turning to look at his associate. His features were soft and handsome, and he wore an all black uniform with a single white triangle badge on his chest. His hair was straight and soft though somewhat overgrown, mostly light brown except for the single tuft which covered his right eye, which was a deep azure. His eyes were bi-colored, the same two as his hair.


"She doesn't have a name anymore,” answered the man, the corners of his lips quirking up into the shadow of a smile. "From now on she's simply... Sabrina."











#1: Just another tale from the streets of Saffron


"Aaand over here we’ve got the most important part."


A handsome man in an all-black uniform and a young girl stood inside the dustiest, most dilapidated room either of them had ever seen. A room that would, today, become her new home.


As the man showed her around, he stopped next to a table full of cardboard boxes, each marked with a differently colored stroke of paint. Pokeballs of all sorts and colors were littered inside them. The girl following him stole a quick glimpse of the boxes and nodded. She didn’t look particularly imposing, almost a head shorter than the man accompanying her and just as skinny, wearing an oversized hoodie that gave her an air of plainness and indifference. The only thing of note about her appearance was the dingy wool hat resting atop her head, casting an ever-present shadow over her face.


"Red means relatively weak Pokemon, Green means Pokemon with a bit more experience," the man continued explaining. "Black means Pokemon on par with those of a Gym leader, and the ones in the Blue box are, of course, incredibly powerful. It's my favorite color after all," he smiled. "These Pokemon will be your companions for the entirety of your… stay here."


Even though the first two boxes were filled to the brim with Pokeballs, the black and especially the blue box only contained a few. Not too surprising; well-trained Pokemon were hard to come by these days.


"You'll be sleeping here, of course. All you need to do is… well, clean up a little, if you want to."


The man dragged a finger across the surface of a nearby cupboard, then made a face and wiped the filth and dust on his dress pants.


"There's a bathroom; second door on the left past the hallway, and there's also a little kitchen back there, in case you want to cook something for yourself." He turned around and let out a sigh, smiling. "Any questions?"


Just as the girl was about to speak, the metallic door leading to the dingy room opened with a creak. An older man with salt and pepper hair came in.


"S-sir…" he said, breathless. "We have a challenger."


The other man, whose long, messy hair was a light brown with the exception of a single blue tuft over his right eye, made an unpleasant face.


"I thought I'd made it pretty clear that today we wouldn't have… Ah, it doesn't matter."


He shook his head and sighed somewhat exaggeratedly, but recovered almost instantly. Turning around, he placed both hands on the girl's shoulders and shone her a smile that sent a shiver down her spine.


"Exciting, isn't it!? This will be your first fight!" He spoke so excitedly that she almost expected to see sparkles coming off him. "Here, have these."


He handed her the green box and gave her a friendly pat on the back.


"Now go, Sabrina. Good luck!"


Sabrina stumbled toward the door, clearly overwhelmed, but stopped just before crossing the sill.


"…Your name?" she asked, looking over her shoulder.


The man raised his chin slightly, that long tuft of blue hair falling to the side, and what a strange sight that was. One of his eyes was brown. The other was the same color as his dyed tuft of hair; a cold, boundless blue like winter itself.


"Who, me?" he asked innocently. "You can just call me Azure."










#2: Tested


The young woman walked out into the arena, absentmindedly spinning a Pokeball in her hand.


That Azure guy said this would be enough , she thought, skeptical. So my opponent must not be too skilled.


A small stadium –if one could even call it that– sprawled out before her. The concrete floor was cracked and scorched and stained with blood all over, surrounded on all sides by rusty fences which were missing a few chunks here and there. Beyond them there were about a dozen spectators, waiting for the fight to begin. Steps echoed not far off as more people started coming in.


Her opponent, a middle-aged man with a horrid multicolored mullet, turned his nose up at her and chuckled derisively. He grabbed a Pokeball from his belt, opening it to a blinding flash of light. That the ground shook under the creature's weight was already bad news. The fact that it ended up being a Rhydon only exacerbated the crease of anxiousness in Sabrina's forehead.


"And who's this, eh?" scoffed the man. "This ain't a kindergarten. I came here to fight the Gym leader, not to have a tea party."


Sabrina's eye twitched with irritation. Not that she didn't expect this type of reaction. "Then how about you show me what you're made of?" she said. "If a snot-nosed brat like me gives you a beating, that'd be pretty humiliating, wouldn't it? Then again… with that hair, you must be used to the feeling."


The man's eyes widened, nostrils flaring like a Tauros about to stampede. "Tsk. Just shut your mouth and open that Pokeball!"


"You don't have to tell me twice!"


Flaring with anger, she smiled and threw the ball up in the air. Yet what emerged from the burst of light was worryingly small, a vulpine creature with golden brown fur and thin, almost skeletal limbs folded over each other. Its head swayed back and forth, and its eyes were closed as it tried to doze back to sleep.


An Abra.


"…Ah."


A gnawing worry started rising up her body. Abra couldn't learn any offensive technique normally, but… that Azure guy wouldn't just give her a defenseless Pokemon for her first fight. The Abra surely knew a TM or two… right?


"Psychic!" she yelled, hopeful.


The Abra turned his head slowly toward her, questioning.


"…You only know Teleport, don't you?"


As the creature gave a lazy nod, their opponent's order echoed through the arena.


"Rhydon, use Megahorn!"

The ground actually shook with the monster's first step, and all Sabrina's eyes could focus on then was the brimming power exuding from its horn as it barreled toward them, too fast to dodge.

"…Shit."










#3: Along the Way


The door to Sabrina's room swung open violently. And there under the sill stood none other than Azure, sporting a sickening grin from ear to ear. The girl looked up from her book –a leather volume so old it was practically disintegrating– and her eyes narrowed with pure spite.


"Well?" Azure asked excitedly. "How'd it go, how'd it go?"


It'd been almost a week since that first battle. Multiple band-aids peppered the girl's face, a splint covered her left arm and –as Azure noticed when she rose to her feet– she had a limp as well.


"How the fuck do you think it went!?" she bellowed, clutching at the collar of his suit. "Of course I lost! What did you want me to do with a Pokemon that can't even attack? There were easier ways to kill me if that's what you wanted you cretin!"


Azure stared at her, his smile frozen in place.


"…But you didn't die," he whispered.


Sabrina blinked, surprise briefly quenching her anger. "What?"


"Nothing, nothing!" Azure hummed, freeing himself from her grasp. "Anyway, it looks like you finally made this place your own, huh?"


In truth, the room looked just as dingy and dilapidated as before, large swathes of plaster painting blotches on the visible and nearly rotten bricks beneath the walls, a few rays of sunlight coming in from the holes in the ceiling Sabrina hadn't gotten to plugging up yet. Clearly, she'd only cleaned up as necessary and hadn't touched anything otherwise, with the exception of the small mountain of books around the couch and the many vinyl records scattered everywhere.


"Oh, I just remembered," said Azure, bringing her back to reality. "There's some… business I need to take care of, so I probably won't be back for a few weeks. But before that… here you go."


Sabrina instinctively opened her palm as the man deposited something on it, small and metallic. The Marsh badge. It was almost identical to the one given by the original Sabrina, only the golden circle was inserted into a black triangle. She... could only stare. The symbol, twisted and corrupted though it was...


A brief scene flashed across her eyes. A young brat with her nose practically pressed against the T.V. screen, watching a battling tournament between the various Gym leaders of Kanto and Johto. Her smile widening and her eyes sparkling with amazement as the real Sabrina brought out her ace, the unstoppable Alakazam. That day-


"I'd say you've earned it, wouldn't you?" Azure said all of a sudden. "And now… I must bid you adieu."


So entranced Sabrina was that she came back to reality a little too late. "W-wait!"


But Azure had already walked out of the room by the the time Sabrina came back to herself. She could do little but stand there, staring blankly ahead.


"What… what the hell!?"


Had he really sent her to die with a smile on his face, or would he have stopped her opponent before it came to that? It was impossible to tell. She couldn't read him at all, which meant for now she couldn't trust him as far as she could throw him.


Minutes stretched into nearly an hour as she sat there in her shithole of a room, contemplating her situation, contemplating Azure and whatever the hell his inner thoughts might be, what he wanted with her. But before she could reach any conclusion, the door opened once again. This time, it was that man with salt and pepper hair; one of the Gym's caretakers, she'd figured.


"Ah… there you are," he grumbled. "Master Azure said–"


"I know," Sabrina cut him off. "He'll be skipping town for a while."


"No, not that. He forgot to give this to you."


"Huh?"


From the pocket of his shirt, the man pulled out a folded-up piece of paper, a letter which smelled faintly of floral perfume, and handed it to her. Frowning, Sabrina grabbed it and turned it over as the man turned around and left. That signature, that fancy writing... it was Azure's, no doubt. Feeling a pit in her stomach, Sabrina opened it and started to read its contents.


'Dear Sabrina,


How are you? Have you been sleeping well? I sure hope so!


Like I said, I'll be absent for a while, so I wanted to inform you of a few things, just to avoid confusion.


First of all, the maintenance crew–'


Sabrina scoffed; as if there were such a thing in this shithole.


'–accidentally misplaced all the Pokeball boxes with the exception of the red one, so you'll have to make do with freshly-caught Pokemon until my return. Ah, how careless these brutes can be! I can't imagine who would've given them such an order. Oh, by the way, there's a good possibility the police will pass by for a routine raid today or tomorrow, or at least that's what people in the streets say. Still, I'm sure you'll be able to handle it without trouble.


Love: Azure.'


By the time she made it to the end, she'd practically crushed the note between her fingers, face red and shoulders shaking with fury.


"That… that son of a bitch…!"


An overwhelming desire to punch the wall washed over her, but after a few long, slow-breathing seconds, that fury was transformed into something more. A sudden determination flared up inside her.


"…Alright," she muttered. "It's alright. So that's how you wanna play, eh? That's fine by me. You can take away my Pokemon, you can throw me at every police officer and smelly punk in the city, it doesn't matter. I won't give you the satisfaction of seeing me fall. No matter how dirty you play, I'll play ten times as dirty! This is my Gym now, so give me your best shot you bastard!"



And that's how the weeks passed. The girl not only wore the title of Gym leader like a glove; she made a profession out of surviving, and an art out of playing dirty.


Little by little as the victories piled up, the rumors spread and both the girl's infamy and her number of challengers grew, bringing with them more and more spectators. The lowest and the highest in Saffron. All of them vile and corrupt, all of them coming to her Gym with the hope of seeing a violent, bloody spectacle.


And that is exactly what they were given, time and time again.


Without even realizing it, without it even bothering her, the girl's day to day became an endless parade of battles for survival.











#4: Pray on me:


Over two years had passed since Sabrina's arrival at the Gym, and as expected, she'd taken over the place in its entirety. Her word was law. Although deep down, she knew that Azure could take that power away with the snap of his fingers.


Inside the little run down shack she called home, an Abra -suspiciously similar to the one from her first fight- slept soundly next to a moldy mattress. And, above a pile of discarded books, a Mr. Mime meditated in silence.


"Cut that out," grumbled Sabrina, looking for Mew-knows where amidst the disaster that was the room. "You're a special attacker; in a real fight you'll be shoving that meditation right up your ass."


The door opened just then with an ominous screech. A familiar man with salt and pepper hair peaked through.


"This one's dangerous," he said, more hopeful than worried. "He blasted through the other five trainers with practically no effort. You better not underestimate him."


Sabrina stood up, stretching, and let out a big yawn.


"We'll see about that."


The man shoved a bunch of Pokeballs at random into a small box, and both he and the Gym leader headed out. The Gym was filled to the brim with the lowest, most depraved Saffron had to offer. Half the audience loudly cheered her opponent, while the other half clamored for his blood.


Just another day…


Sabrina entered the enormous cage, hands in her pockets, a lit cigarette in her lips. Cheers and insults rang throughout the arena. Lazily, she let her gaze fall on her opponent. A pretty unremarkable man, tall and with wild, messy black hair, a smile full of enthusiasm on his lips. She couldn't make out his age, but he must've been a couple years older than her.


She narrowed her eyes. There, hanging from his neck, resting against his chest, an iron cross gleamed against the powerful lights hanging from the ceiling.


A priest, eh? Let's see what he's capable of.


She stuck a hand inside the box and pulled out a Pokeball. Her foe did the same, never dropping that irritating smile.


"Let's have a nice, clean battle," he exclaimed, bowing respectfully.


Sabrina rolled her eyes. Around the audience, comments and bets were already being made.


"Heh, that guy's not gonna last a minute against Sabrina."


"I wouldn't be so sure. Didn't you see how his Pokemon fought before? It wasn't… normal," someone else replied.


"He has the advantage in typing, that's for sure," a third commented.


"Type advantage ain't gonna be enough against Sabrina. Just watch."


Opinions and predictions -all scandalous and arrogant- flowed freely from person to person like the bills being passed around before the battle. The bets were high this time, although it wasn't terribly unusual for this gym. For a good portion of the audience, the two trainers inside the large steel cage were little more than investments.


Pokeballs in hand, they both stared deep into each other’s eyes, gauging the level of danger.


Then, something strange happened. The young man noticed the cigarette hanging from Sabrina's lips, and frowned.


"Aren't you a little young to be smoking?" he asked disapprovingly.


"Aren't you a little old to be believing in god?" she spat back.


A placating, horribly condescending smile came to the man's lips, as though he'd expected her words. "Ah… Still in that rebellious phase I see. My little brother is just like you."


"Tsk," Sabrina spat, eyes narrowing with annoyance. "Less talk, more action, priest."


The young man chuckled. "And to think you're the famous Sabrina. The original being so striking and beautiful, I didn't expect her imitator to be a short, emaciated brat."


At that, Sabrina lifted an eyebrow, the smile going cold in her lips.


I'm going to kill him.


"Are you going to fucking start or do you want me to attack you first?" she barked.


The man simply rolled his eyes, as though he were dealing with an annoying child. "Geez, young people sure are impatient nowadays…"


The man with the silver cross threw his Pokeball toward the center of the arena, and from the burst of light emerged a tall, imposing insect-like beast, its body green and segmented, two long, sharp blades protruding out of his forearms.


A Scyther.










#5: It's only over once it's over.


Sabrina studied the Scyther carefully, doing her best to conceal her worry. A swift, hard-hitting bug-type, surely with loads of combat experience… could she have gotten a worse opponent?


To make things worse, they'd agreed to a one on one duel, so this would be decided in an instant.


She threw her own Pokeball out, and from the blast of light emerged an old, frazzled Hypno wearing a pair of colorful yellow glasses. The Pokemon bristled, seemingly not bothered by his opponent's chilly glare. Sabrina knew him well, and knew that despite his frail appearance no other Pokemon from the Gym could match his smarts and experience.


Against a Scyther, though…?


After weighing all the possible options, the two of them crossed eyes, and nodded. There was only one way out of this, and it involved being smiled on by Lady Luck.


Both Pokemon stared each other down for a moment. Then, emboldened by the blood-thirsty cheers of the audience, they jumped to attack in unison.


"X-Scissor!" the man bellowed.


"Trick!" Sabrina countered.


The Scyther's speed was beyond compare. A bolt of verdant lightning, he crossed the arena in an instant and slashed upwards with both of his scythes, catching his foe just as the glasses disappeared from his face with a pop . The poor Hypno hit the ground hard, the sheer force of the impact sending him rolling until he crashed against the bars of the cage on the other side. He trembled, one hand against the floor, but could not bring himself even to his knees.


Without a doubt, the man with the cross knew what he was doing.


However, that made him and his Pokemon cocky. The both of them turned toward Sabrina, completely disregarding the Hypno as he raised a small berry and shoved it in his mouth.


Sabrina very pointedly didn't turn to look. Which was good, as the next instant the giant bug Pokemon shot toward her. He stopped within an inch of killing her, scythe raised to her neck with practiced control, barely brushing her skin. From this close, she could see that pair of yellow glasses adorning his face.


"Woah, easy there." Sabrina raised her hands in a show of surrender, earning a storm of boos from the audience.


"Nice one, Clay! You knocked it out of the park!" The man with the cross cheered with a big, dumb smile. "I'm very proud, buddy!"


Despite the danger of the situation, Sabrina couldn't help but roll her eyes again. So he wasn't even intending to kill her? A priest through and through, she supposed, and that's what'd end up sealing his fate. She had to keep up the façade. The cool, calculating Scyther with a blade to her neck. The dumb, arrogant trainer smiling like an idiot. The young Gym leader with her hands raised, far from her Pokeballs, looking nervous.


"Well? What now?" asked the man, raising both hands and shrugging. "I'm disappointed. Seems like the rumors were all exaggerated."


A smirk formed on Sabrina’s lips. "Heh."


"What's so funn–?"


"Disable."


Eyes shooting wide, the Scyther tried to turn around. But Hypno was now possessed by an abnormal speed, and barraged his foe with a sudden wave of psychic energy, throwing him off of his trainer. The priest clearly hadn't expected that. His eyes immediately darted toward the Hypno, but he wasn't there anymore, dashing through the arena toward his foe.


"Wh–Clay's Salac Berry!?" he exclaimed, a tint of panic to his voice.


Sabrina's grin widened maliciously across her face.


"Psychic."


The burst of concentrated energy blasted the Scyther in the face, sending him across the room. His trainer balled his hands into fists, eyes wide with panic.


"X-Scissor!"


But the Scyther didn't move. Couldn't. His body quivered with the bug's desire to attack, but it was as though every muscle in his arms had been paralyzed. He couldn't raise his scythes.


"Shit, Struggle!?" he cursed, realization dawning on him. "Of course, the Choice Specs…!


The rest of the fight was predictable. Unable to use his arms, the Scyther flew at Hypno in an attempt to tackle him, but slammed against the ground again and again, as the Salac berry had given Hypno more than enough speed to dodge each of his attacks. The old psychic Pokemon barraged the poor insect with burst after burst of psionic power, until finally he hit the ground like a brick, smoking from head to toe. Hypno looked down at his fallen foe and struggled a step back, heaving from pain but still very much capable of fighting.


He knew what came next.


With an expression that bordered on demonic, Sabrina pointed at the man with the cross, and the wizened Hypno obeyed without question, raising a hand aflame with purple wisps of power.


Yet, to Sabrina's disappointment, her opponent didn't look scared or worried in the slightest. Instead, he hung his head and closed his eyes, balled fists trembling.


He was pissed .


"Y-you… backstabbing, traitorous…!" He seriously looked on the verge of losing it from anger. "What kind of trainer does something like that!? You're a disgrace to all Gym leaders!"


Sabrina raised an eyebrow, and chuckled. "Right…"


Unconcerned, she took an old iron lighter from her pocket and flipped it open, lighting a cigarette as she took it to her mouth. What was she supposed to say to that? Despite not usually being the bloodthirsty one in these matches, she'd fully intended to kill her, but after that reaction... It just wasn't fun if he wasn't concerned for his life. That, and she supposed letting him live with his stupidity and naivete was punishment enough; surely someone else would do the dirty work for her eventually.


"You wanted to win too cleanly," she said through puffs of smoke. "If you hadn't been such a good boy and actually killed me when you had the chance, you'd be leaving this place with my badge and my fame. But you didn't, because you're a loser. That your Pokemon is superior to your opponent's in all aspects doesn't guarantee your victory, priest."


She shoved the lighter back in her pocket and returned the Hypno to his Pokeball. Then she turned around and started walking away.


"You'd do well to remember that."


Fists trembling, pupils shrunken by rage, the man with the cross yelled as the Gym leader disappeared into darkness.


"I won't let this stand! I'll never accept your way of fighting! I'll be back tomorrow, and then I will beat you! You'll see!"










#6: Bored And Extremely Dangerous


An annoying, singsongy voice reached Sabrina’s ears on her way to the Gym, instantly giving her a headache.


“Oh Sabrinaaa~


“Ugh.”


Azure threw his hand over her shoulder, forcing her to drag him along with every step to her great irritation.


Following her previous fight, Sabrina had chosen to wake up uncharacteristically early in order to train in the outskirts of Saffron, and was in the process of returning to the Gym with slow, tired steps, ready to face any new challengers. Not that she’d gotten many lately.


She hadn’t expected to run into her boss on the way back though. It almost felt wrong, to see Azure out in the open, under the sunlight, a part of her imagining him melting under its rays like some kind of vampire


“Azure,” she greeted him with a smile like salt on a wound. “What an unfortunate coincidence.”


“I heard about yesterday’s battle,” he said. “Very impressive. Though I was surprised to hear your opponent left the Gym still walking. You’re not going soft on me, are you?”

Sabrina went silent, the hairs on her arms standing on end, as she tried to gauge whether Azure's words were something she should concern herself with. What was she supposed to say? That she didn't think he was worth killing? That his idiotic straightforwardness reminded her of how Pokemon battles were, long ago? No, she was the Gym leader here. She was...


“Tch. Don’t tell me how to do my job.”


And she threw his arm off of her brusquely. Azure stumbled back a step, making an expression as though he were about to cry.


“You’re always sooo cold,” he whimpered, lower lip shaking. “I thought after all this time, we’d finally become good friends!”


Sabrina winced. Theirs was… in all honesty, a pretty unusual relationship. The distrust she felt toward Azure was still there, somewhere in the back of her mind, but it had slowly been giving up ground, becoming little more than a memory.


Truth was, she’d become accustomed to him, to his dark sense of humor, his cryptic ways and the always-present scent of blood whenever he’d return from a mission. She couldn’t complain. After all, wasn’t she hemmed in the same scent? It would be too far to say they were friends, but still…


They finally reached the Gym, in between snide comments and bad jokes, though this time they decided to enter through the front door, since it was too early for anyone else to have arrived. Sabrina unlocked the padlock, and as she pushed against the heavy steel doors, she was surprised at what was waiting for her in the blood-soaked arena.


“Finally!” A familiar, annoying voice reached her ears. “I’d almost gotten tired of waiting! Were you planning on running away from our duel!? I wouldn’t expect any less from a coward like you.”


As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the arena, Sabrina saw two gleams. First that of a Pokeball being drawn, and second that of the silver crucifix hanging from the man’s neck, swaying back and forth.


“En garde!”


“...Huh?”


There was a moment of shocked silence, and then Sabrina sighed.


“...Right, the religious nutjob from yesterday,” she said dismissively. “You really came back. So either you’re a complete idiot or you got tired of living, hm?”


“What’d you say!?” he bellowed, the spark behind his eyes lighting up like coals, though he quickly calmed himself down. “No, it’s fine… God forgives you. But that doesn’t mean I won’t wipe that smug smile off your face, brat!”


Beside her, Azure tilted his head like a curious kid, a smile attempting to lift the corners of his mouth.


“Wow, okay! I’m not sure what I’m looking at here, but it sure is interesting!” he said, cheery as usual. “It almost reminds me of the beginning of a tormentous love story, don’t you agree?”


Sabrina turned her head so fast her neck clicked. “Wh-!?”


Yet something stopped her in her tracks before she could insult Azure. The man’s eyes, one brown and one blue, were locked onto the priest’s black ones, unmoving. For a moment… For just a moment, Sabrina was overwhelmed by their presence, as though she were standing in between two wild Pokemon sizing each other up before they could strike.


“Alright!” Azure finally spoke, clapping his hands together. “I better leave you two to it, wouldn’t wanna… interrupt, hehe!”


And he walked away, humming to himself a song Sabrina was unfamiliar with. Of course, she tried her best to bore a hole into his back with her glare, but the man didn’t seem to notice.


Those two pairs of eyes crossing… Sabrina was regrettably ignorant of what it augured. She had no idea her normal life in the Gym had, with that alone, come to a sudden and complete halt.










#7 Fissure


At first Sabrina thought this would be a passing thing, that after his third or fourth loss he would finally see reason and leave, never to return. But that wasn’t the case.


Day after day the man with the cross would come to the Gym to challenge its leader, and day after day he would lose due to some dirty trick or technicality. It was clear who the stronger trainer was, who had the best Pokemon and instinct for combat; it was him. But that didn’t keep him from suffering defeat after humiliating defeat.


Yet that didn’t seem to bring down the man’s spirits who, fueled by god knows what kind of determination, always came back for more. He often ended the battle wounded. Far from his obstinate nature earning Sabrina’s compassion, it only seemed to piss her off, turning her even more violent than usual. Yet fate -or perhaps lesser powers- always made sure to pluck the man just out of the way of her Pokemon's most lethal attacks, the man's Scyther more often than not blocking said attacks with his own body. Of course, she often received her own share of injuries, though never anything too serious.


A few weeks passed after that first battle, and the challenges from the man with the cross became part of Sabrina’s daily routine. It wasn’t something that excited her, of course. Yet -though she would never admit it out loud, and despite the usual brutality of their duels- she’d eventually come to see their fights as a break of sorts, a small haven from the darkness of her life in which there was no scheming or hidden intentions, only fighting until one of them went down. Strange thing.


It was common for their duels to be silent, save for the occasional insult or order being barked at their Pokemon, but on that particular day, a conversation was struck.


Some time later, Sabrina would come to wish she’d never answered.

 
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Inyssa

Bug Catcher
Pronouns
He/Him
Partners
  1. kricketune
Author Notes: Alright! We're getting into these two's relationship, finally. Hopefully you'll like and hate them as much as I do, the scrunklys.




Chapter 2: All There Is

#8 Stranger than Fiction

"You have too many Pokemon, so of course… you can’t train all of them to maximize their strengths…”


The man with the cross spoke with a surprisingly conceited tone considering he was half-collapsed against his side of the cage, dripping blood from a few superficial cuts and burns. His Scyther lay next to him in a similar state, having recently fallen unconscious.


“If you p-paid attention to them individually…” he continued, ”if you trained them properly, they would be much stronger.”


Though she would’ve liked to tell him where he could stick his advice, Sabrina wasn’t in much better shape. Her fingers held onto the bars of her side of the cage so strongly her knuckles were white, her weak arm trying to keep her from collapsing to the ground. Her breathing was hard and labored. A Noctowl stood on one of her shoulders, feathers covered in blood and dirt.


“The loser… shouldn’t be giving advice to the winner,” she said after a couple inhales, forming a mocking smile.


“W-what!? You know full well that I could’ve killed you if I wanted to, just like-Agh…!”


Despite his wounds, the man reacted with a burst of energy as he suddenly stood up, his wild mane of ebon hair seemingly sticking up by indignation alone.


“Yeah, and that makes you even stupider,” Sabrina said. “Besides, these Pokemon aren’t mine. I didn’t train or nurture them. I just use them for fighting.”


“...Really. I see…”


His anger suddenly placated by those words, the man turned to look at his unconscious partner, his Scyther, and placed a soft, careful hand on his forehead. A smile formed on his lips.


“That’d explain why you use such reckless tactics,” he whispered, turning to look at her. “Then, those Pokemon… it’s a little sad, don’t you think? That you’re not able to call them your friends.”


Sabrina let out a despective snort. “Don’t misunderstand me. Even though they don’t belong to me, we’ve been through thick and thin together. Whether I like it or not, these Pokemon are my partners, and…”


Only then realizing what she was saying, Sabrina’s eyes went wide and she opened her mouth to quickly change the topic, but it was too late.


“HA!” The man exclaimed, pointing at her with a victorious smile. “I knew it!”


“S-SHUT UP!” Sabrina barked, crimson rising to her cheeks.










#9 Come Join Us

“...Hey, Azure,” Sabrina said absentmindedly, gaze lost in her drink. “Who do we work for?”


It was a miracle Azure heard her amidst the loud music blaring through the bar. The two sat next to each other around the VIP table overlooking the Gym arena, accompanied by a handful of older men wearing expensive-looking suits, talking and laughing amongst themselves. Each of them some flavor of gang leader or low-ranking government official.


Said bar, though quite big, wasn’t exactly what one would call extravagant, but this night was special. The furniture had been polished. The cups had been washed (with soap, even!) and there were hardly any cockroaches to be seen.


Sabrina, of course, had been practically dragged here by Azure so she could rub shoulders with the leaders of Saffron’s dirty underbelly, unpleasant though she found the idea. It came naturally to him, of course. With his perfectly ironed black suit, shirt and tie and that tiny white triangle insignia on his lapel, you couldn’t pick him out of a crowd amidst all these people. Sabrina, on the other hand, was the very embodiment of the idiom: ‘like a Magikarp out of water’.


Mew bless his heart, Azure had tried. He’d ordered her to take off that dingy hat and had even given her some not-torn clothes, but even then it was clear how uncomfortable and out of place the girl was amidst this crowd, to the point she barely said a word for what felt like hours. Until, at last, she broke that silence.


“Oh?” Azure lifted an eyebrow, putting down his glass of wine. “It’s odd to hear you ask questions; you never were the curious type. That’s why the higher-ups liked you so much, haha.”


“Don’t dodge the question,” she replied, cutting. “Not that I care much. I just… after so long, I’d like to know. This guy… What are we to him? What are these Gyms to him?”


Azure let out a hearty laugh, reaching with one hand to pat Sabrina on the head, playfully ruffling her hair. An insult usually prevented by her trusty hat. Sabrina glared daggers at him.


After a moment, however, he answered.


“You eight Gym leaders are… valuable assets. That’s all you need to know,” he said, and a second later lifted his hand and raised it over his head, asking the bartender for a round of tequila shots. “But… who knows? Maybe you’ll meet him in person one day.”


There was a pause, a sinister smile frozen on his lips.


“Maybe he’s even sitting alongside us right now.”

-

The two shot glasses -one Sabrina’s, one Azure’s- hit the table in unison, followed by a sharp, pleasured sigh from their owners. It was four or five in the morning, neither of them were sure anymore.

The mafiovernment officials around them kept chatting amongst themselves, mostly about trivial stuff. The tone and volume of their voice, however, changed dramatically in pitch here and there when a certain something was brought up, but to Sabrina it was nothing more than background noise.


Something did catch her attention, though. Hushed, furtive whispers; mentions of a certain someone coming back to Saffron… judging by the tone of their voice, they must’ve been both admired and feared by them. But who-?


“Since you asked me a question before…” Azure’s voice dragged her out of her thoughts. He was refilling the glasses as he spoke. Sabrina winced, preparing for the worst, and she wasn’t wrong. “...I believe it’s my turn now. What do you think about that man with the cross?”


There was a *tonk* as both glasses were slammed down again, followed by identical sighs.


“Why do you ask?” Sabrina formed a mocking smile as she refilled the glasses again, giving one to Azure and taking the other to her lips. “Are you jealous or som-?”


Yes .”


Sabrina’s reaction was immediate; she choked on the tequila shot, coughing and spluttering it all over the table, earning the displeased eyes of all around her and practically burning her throat.


All she could hear was Azure’s lively laugh. When she finally composed herself, she glanced at him off the corner of her eye. He was playing with her, surely. It was true he showed an unusual level of interest in her person, but to her… it looked like the same type of interest a Meowth showed a Rattata it had caught.


“...My turn,” she said, trying to ignore what had just happened. “How…?”


As she refilled the glasses again, she thought she’d heard a commotion in the distance. Screams, chairs and people being thrown around. Nothing unusual there. Once more, the two of them drank the shot and slammed the glasses down on the table.


“How old are you?” she asked.


“Eh? That’s your question?” Azure smiled, genuinely surprised. “You’re simpler than I thought, haha.”


“Don’t-”


It was then that they found the source of the commotion below. Or, more accurately, said source found them; pushing his way past the numerous guards standing at the end of the staircase leading toward the first floor, a tall, black-haired man made straight for the VIP table, stopping only when she found Sabrina.


A silver cross hung from his neck, resting against his chest.


“I… I came to challenge the Gym leader to a battle!” he screamed, raising a Pokeball toward her.


A long, ominous silence stretched for what felt like hours.


Then, when Sabrina’s mind managed to comprehend the stupidity she’d just witnessed, she closed her eyes and let out a sigh, massaging her temples as though nursing a headache.




#10 Infected

A small can flew toward Sabrina’s face who, exhausted, barely managed to catch it with one hand.


“What’s this?” she asked. The can was pleasantly warm.


“It’s called coffee,” replied the man with the cross, sitting alongside her on one of the hanging steel beams, struggling to open his own. They were alone in an abandoned construction site west of the Gym. The sun was starting to rise. “You’re drunk. No wonder you’re often mistaken for a man; you drink more than one.”


“That can be fixed,” Sabrina muttered, warming her hands with the can. Autumn kept trudging on, promising a winter more ruthless than any before. “Your stupidity, on the other hand…”


The man was a complete mess. Drenched in blood, clothes torn and cut in various places and sporting a split lip and a black eye he’d surely be unable to open in a few hours.


Yet that stupid smile was still stuck to his face, only hidden when he raised the can to take a sip of his coffee.


“...Why did you do that?” Sabrina finally asked. “Sneaking into a party packed full of the most important and dangerous people in Saffron… just to fight me? I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here; I want to believe you had some other reason for such idiocy.”


A shrug was the man’s simple response.


“I couldn’t attend our duel today,” he explained. “And I promised I’d challenge you every day, didn’t I?”


Sabrina stared at him, dumbfounded.


“...God.”


“He’s a great guy, yeah,” he sighed dreamily.


“In any case… Why didn’t you defend yourself?” she asked. “You obviously weren’t going to win against such numbers, but with Pokemon like yours you could’ve taken down a few of them before they beat the shit out of you like that.”


“Hm… I wonder why,” he whispered, scratching his bruised cheek with a finger. “Maybe because I knew you’d stop them before they killed me. I knew you’d intervene, hehe.”


Sabrina’s eyes grew wide, and she immediately looked away with a ‘Tch!’, setting her eyes on the fire of the rising sun.


“I just felt sorry for you, like one does for a lame Growlithe. Don’t get any ideas.”


“Ha… bit late for that, I’m afraid.”





#11 When?

“Sooo… you’re supposed to be ‘Sabrina’, right?” the man with the cross asked, trying (and failing) to open a mustard packet for his tasteless lunch while they walked together through Saffron’s black market.


Both of them were covered in cuts and bruises of varying severity, living proof of the Pokemon battle they’d had in the Gym only minutes before. Sabrina had mentioned something about buying potions and a TM that was for sale, as well as a bag of fertilizer for her garden, and her rival decided to accompany her on her shopping trip, ignoring all complaints on the matter.


“That’s what they call me,” she answered reluctantly, both hands in her pockets.


“Then that means… you can, y’know…”


He pressed a finger against his temple, screwing up his face like a prune; an expression so stupid and childish that the Gym leader could barely keep the corners of her mouth from perking up.


To answer his question, Sabrina narrowed her eyes ever so slightly, fixing them on the mustard packet the man held in his other hand. A moment passed, then two. Then, so suddenly that the man almost dropped his lunch, she squeezed her hand and the packet exploded violently, staining the man’s jacket.


“Perhaps,” the girl said, trying not to smile.


“WH-!?” The man blinked gormlessly, looking between her and his stained hand. “Y-you fucking-!”


“Well, hello there!”


He wasn’t there one moment, and then there the next. Like a passing mirage, Azure appeared out of the corner of one of the stalls in the moment they weren’t looking, hands held behind his back and a listless, cold smile on his lips. The complete lack of blemish on his person contrasted sharply with the filth around him. Sabrina couldn’t believe they didn’t see him coming a mile away.


As soon as he appeared, both trainers froze in their spot, unconsciously holding their breath.


“Having fun?” Azure asked with a small rise of the eyebrow. “It’s not the place I’d choose as a spot for a first date, but eh… To each their own.”


All color drained from Sabrina’s face. Like the flash of lightning before thunder, she felt a horrible ominousness fall over her. Beside her, the man with the cross looked at Azure with wide eyes.


“What’s with those faces?” Azure shrugged. “It’s not strange for me to be here. I need to buy groceries just like any other citizen, don’t I?”


The Gym leader opened her mouth to say something, but was just as swiftly interrupted.


“Oh, by the way, Sabrina… You have another challenger at the Gym. He’s been waiting for you for the past, oh…” Azure stole a glance at his expensive watch, an unnecessary if not pointed gesture. “...40 minutes, exactly.”


Sabrina let out a tired sigh. This would be her fourth battle of the day, and in all honesty she didn’t see herself or her Pokemon having the energy to win. Then again, she had a nagging feeling that this challenger didn’t actually exist, and that Azure simply wanted time alone with… the man with the cross. She reminded herself to ask him for his name at some point.


“...Right.”


As she turned around to head back, Sabrina couldn’t help but catch the moment both men’s eyes crossed. Something… Something in Azure’s bi-colored gaze… He was smiling, but…


Sabrina shook her head, and simply kept walking.


Must just be her imagination.







#12 Doing Time

Dragging a shovel across the pavement with one hand, a bag of fertilizer with the other and carrying a sleepy Abra atop her head, Sabrina emerged from her ever-filthier shed of a home. Instead of heading for the street, however, she scooted through a hole in the tall fence, into what one might charitably call a garden.


With a deep, tired sigh, she carelessly put down everything she was holding -including the Abra- with a deaf thump.


The place was a mess. The dry, sickly yellow grass reached up to her waist in the few patches where it grew, and the rest was covered in little shrubs, flowers and trees, all of them dried up, having died very shortly after she’d planted them. The mess of skeletal, blackened branches was sad to behold.


The only sign of healthy plant life was the tall, robust oak growing in the very middle of the ‘garden’. Its leafy, vibrant crown contrasted sharply with everything around it.


The young woman stared ahead silently, her expression unreadable.


Then, with a quieter sigh, she rolled up her sleeves to the elbow and picked the shovel off the ground, ready to get to work.







#13 Empty Causes

“So, how did you end up here?”


The young man with the cross threw the question at Sabrina only moments after throwing himself to the ground, barely avoiding an Ice Beam from her Starmie that would’ve frozen him solid, and only moments before ordering a counter-attack of his own, which his Scyther executed swiftly.


“Here?” Sabrina repeated, eyes struggling to follow the two Pokemon’s dizzying battle.


“Here, yes. Yours isn’t a particularly common… nor a healthy profession.” He pushed himself up, following the battle just as intently. “Not to mention illegal.”


Sabrina scoffed. “I could ask you the same. Why do you waste your time coming here every single day?” She paused for a moment to bellow an order, then sighed. “Don’t you have a hobby or something?”


“I asked first,” the man replied with an annoyingly childish tone of voice.


Their Pokemon exchanged blows for a few unbearable long seconds; Scyther had split himself into countless mirages of himself, and Starmie-


“Psych Up!”


-alternated between short electric bursts to keep its foe at bay and beams of pressurized cold to catch him in between dodges. Neither of the trainers spoke for a few breaths.


“It’s good money,” Sabrina finally said. “I’ve got some debts, my mom… she’s got medical issues that aren’t cheap to deal with. Not the kind of money I could earn doing a normal-”


She choked on her words suddenly, at the realization that her opponent was looking at her with tears slowly forming in his eyes, lower lip trembling.


“Wh-Wait. Stop. Why are you-?”


“I KNEW IT!” The man bellowed, seemingly forgetting about the battle, his voice fraught with emotion. “The devoted daughter who sells her soul to the devil in order to save her mother… What a beautiful tale! See? Do you see now that God’s love still lives inside y-!”


BANG!


A bolt of lightning the width of a person fell upon the man with ruthless speed, and he would have certainly been carbonized were it not for his Scyther jumping at the last moment to take the hit for him. He hit the ground with a deaf thump an instant later, smoking from head to toe, completely out of it.


“Tsk. I missed.”






#14 Struck a Nerve

Afternoon was slowly giving way to night, the last orange rays of sunlight filtering through the leaves of the only tree in Sabrina’s pitiful attempt at a garden. And there, resting against the trunk, the young Gym leader read a small, worn book. Her breathing was slow and automatic, thin wisps of cold vapor leaving her lips every time she exhaled.


The oak behind her remained as strong and healthy as ever despite the coming winter. A handful of Pokemon (both wild and belonging to the Gym) rested atop its many branches, including the infamous Abra who only knew Teleport, the first Pokemon she’d ever fought with in this place.


So immersed was she in the book that she didn’t notice the man’s presence until he knelt in front of her, peering over the book curiously.


“WH-!?”


Sabrina instinctively jumped, slamming the back of her head against the sturdy oak.


“Fuck! W-what… what the hell are you doing here!?” she sputtered out, rising to her feet in a panic. “There’s… people guarding both entrances, how…!?”


The man with the cross formed a careless smile, arms resting over his knees as he looked up at her.


“I have my methods,” he shrugged.


“What are you, a ninja?”


“Hehe.”


After looking around for a moment, the man let out a whistle and pushed himself to his feet, dusting off his knees. “Anyway, what’s this supposed to be? A setting for a horror movie? And what are you reading?”


Before Sabrina could stop him, the man was rifling through the small pile of books next to where she’d been sitting, inspecting the covers and authors.


“Robert Frost, Neruda, Stephen Crane…”


“T-that’s none of your business, bastard!”


Only then did the man turn to look at her, and the little O that his mouth became told Sabrina she’d forgotten a very important detail.


“Hey, aren’t your eyes a bit wet?” he said with sudden glee in his voice. “What, did one of these mean old books make the heartless Gym leader tear up?”


Sabrina’s reaction was as swift as it was predictable.


“Shut up! This is… I got some dust on…” Seeing that her excuses were pointless, each one only widening her rival’s amused smile, she decided to change her approach. “Bah! As if a brainless idiot like you could understand the beauty that lies in these-”


“Then teach me.”


The man wasn’t smiling anymore as he took a step toward her, staring straight into her eyes. And in that breathless moment, his usual childishness fell from his expression like a mask cracking, and beneath was the face of a more mature, deathly serious man.


“I want to see it too,” he said. “If what your eyes see is truly that beautiful… then I too…”


The Gym leader’s brain had turned off completely. It wasn’t until the man spoke again, that listless smile of him returning, that she could even take a breath.


“What’s wrong?” he said, tone teasing. “Your face is all red.”





#15 New Leaf

“You didn’t answer me, in any case,” the man said once Sabrina managed to compose herself. “What’s this place meant to be?”


“A garden. What else?”


The man with the cross looked around more carefully this time, taking in the dry shrubbery, the sun-burnt flowers and the dried up trees that were never able to grow. And if that wasn’t enough, he then glanced at Sabrina and raised an eyebrow to drive the point home.


“I’m trying, okay?” she complained, grabbing a cigarette from her pack. “I never said I was good at this.”


“You clearly aren’t,” he said, immediately swiping the cig from her mouth.


“Those cost money, bastard.”


“I already told you, you’re too young to be smoking,” he sighed, half concerned and half annoyed. “Anyway, how come the whole place is dead and dried up… except for this?”


He rapped his knuckles against the hardy bark of the oak giving them shadow. Sabrina was silent for a moment. The crease in her forehead was no longer due to anger, but something else.


“This one… I planted the day I got here,” she said. “I don’t know why, but it never dried up or got sick. I tried to plant some other stuff, and they grew well at first but… the more time passed, the harder it got to keep them alive.” There was a pause. “Nowadays I can’t make a sprout last longer than a few hours. It’s like…”


“...Scary,” the man whispered after a short, uncomfortable silence. “Maybe we’re on top of an ancient burial ground or something.”


Sabrina didn’t hear him. Her gaze was a million years away, sad, so terribly sad. The man with the cross glanced at her again, his eyes momentarily losing that childish spark of theirs.


A cold gust of wind battered them from the side.


“Should we go inside?” he whispered, offering Sabrina a hand.


“Don’t act like you own the place, dickhead.”








#16 Marked

“We’re gonna have a winter like salt on a wound, huh?”


The man with the cross looked at the inside of the Gym through the frosty, grimy windows outside while Sabrina finished locking up the front doors.


“Weren’t you leaving?” she asked, exhausted. “We already fought today -another humiliating defeat, by the way- and I have other things to do.”


“You fucking brat…”


Already narrowing his black eyes with anger, producing a Pokeball in one hand, the man paused all of a sudden as he noticed the dirty-looking bandage on the Gym leader’s hand, uselessly trying to hide a nasty-looking burn mark. A product of one of her most recent battles.


“...What, you don’t like the cold?” he finally asked, voice softer.


With a final click and a lock, Sabrina stood in place, pensive. Then, with some doubt in her voice, she answered.


“It’d be nice if it snowed. Then again, it hasn’t snowed in Saffron for over fifty years, so…” She realized what she was saying and tensed up. “Not like it makes any difference to me,” she quickly added.


“Ha! You are a brat, see? You wanna play in the snow, don’t you?”


“Shut the fuck up.”


With a gesture so casual it took Sabrina’s brain a while to process, the man laughed and patted her on the head, rubbing her frazzled wool hat before turning and walking away. By which point, of course, he was too far away for Sabrina to insult him.


The Gym leader saw him slowly disappear, and a minuscule, almost invisible smile formed on her lips as one of her hands went to her hat.


“Wow! Are you really Sabrina!?”


“W-wh…!?”


Once again, just like a whisper, like a sudden winter chill. Sabrina turned around on a dime, and found Azure’s face only inches from hers, those bicolor eyes of him drilling into her very soul.


“A-Azure…”


The smile on his lips didn’t extend to his eyes. “You were running late, so I came to check on you… Hehehe…”


“Don’t… Don’t ‘hehe’ me,” she sharply answered, pushing him away with a hand. Her expression had quickly hardened again. “And don’t act like you’re my nanny. You don’t have to worry about me.”


She dug her hands into her pockets and started walking away from the Gym, its shadow giving way to the last of the day’s sunlight. Azure followed, of course, his footsteps as quiet as the grave.


“I’m afraid I can’t help it. You’ve changed a lot, you know?” Azure commented with a singsong-y voice. “Those eyes of yours aren’t the same as when you showed up here three years ago… there was a certain sharpness to them. But now they’re more… human.”


And as he said that last sentence, though his expression didn’t change in the slightest, his voice dropped an octave or two. It was enough to send a chill down Sabrina’s spine.


“Stop wasting my time,” she said. “My shift’s already over, but you need something from me, don’t you? What’s the job gonna be this time?”


“Hehe, but of course.” There was a pause as Azure inhaled. Sabrina didn’t know why the gesture felt so out of the ordinary. “I’ll get to the point; there’s a certain… favor we’d like to ask of you. A new facet of the job, you could call it.


“We… want you to help us kill someone.”


And Azure’s smile, in that moment, was wider and colder than ever before.





Author notes: Azure's just being a little silly! He's an extremely innocent and silly little guy, as you can see :)
 
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Negrek

The One Star
Staff
Hey, Inyssa! Happy belated birthday! I was going to review your one-shot for this week, in keeping with the theme, but this thread ended up stealing me away with promises of a Pokespe-style world and Sabrina (ish), one of my favorite characters.

It's definitely a dark setting you have here, with trainers fighting to the death for the entertainment of the crowd! I kind of wonder how we got to this point from the world we see in canon... if this is Pokespe-verse, then the League was already in trouble there, but this is an entirely new level of dysfunction! In the summary it's mentioned that this Sabrina idolizes the previous one. I wonder what (previous) Sabrina represents to her--simple power, perhaps a symbol of a happier time, or maybe ambition, cunning, or someone who was able to beat the odds to make a name for herself? Presumably Sabrina's situation before coming to the Gym can't have been great, or she wouldn't have ended up in such a bleak place. This is a backstory fic, but already I'm curious about Sabrina's backstory even further back, heh.

The priest is an interesting character, too, and one we don't get a lot of insight into at this point--not even a name! It sounds like their relationship is going to be very important to this story, so I'm curious to see where it goes. Normally I'd expect something like the priest is eventually going to convince her to leave the Gym and maybe look into a less-murderous way of life, but the ominous note at the end suggests that maybe the results aren't so uplifting. (Or maybe they are, but it turns out life on the up and up is hard, or something, heh.) The priest keeps coming back, and Sabrina keeps not killing him--they're clearly both looking for something here, and I wonder what's going on with the priest in particular, since he remains a cipher.

If there's one thing I would have liked to see in this section, it's more exploration of why Sabrina doesn't kill the priest, when she's apparently had no problem doing that with other challengers. It may not be something she even understands herself, but we don't really get anything from her POV to indicate why she makes that decision, not even a, "weird, why am I hesitating?" sort of moment. She's even resolving to kill him a few paragraphs earlier! There are plenty of reasons I can think of that would make sense, but I'd really like to know which one struck Sabrina specifically, what brings about some change in her usual character here.

And, minor point, but I was confused about the part where Azure leaves and then, apparently something like a couple minutes later, the other guy comes in with a letter from him for Sabrina. Did he write that all in the intervening time and then give it to somebody to deliver instead of just going back? I wasn't sure if I was missing something there.

All in all I think this is a fun beginning to a classic darkfic, and it sets up a solid foundation for a character backstory and for the relationship between Sabrina and the priest character. Presumably she's eventually going to leave her Gym leader life behind and set off on a new adventure (in the RP, yeah?), but I'm curious how the priest is going to play into it, and whether her experience here is going to leave her more bitter or less. I see you just posted the second set of scenes, which I won't have time to get to for a bit, but I'm intrigued!

"Red means relatively weak Pokemon, Green means Pokemon with a bit more experience." The man continued explaining.
Just a minor dialogue punctuation error; there should be a comma after "experience" and "The" should be lower case.

The man dragged a finger through the surface of a nearby cupboard, then made a face and wiped the filth and dust on his dress pants.
Perhaps "across" or "over" the surface, rather than "through?"

In truth, the room looked just as dingy and dilapidated as before. Clearly, Sabrina had only cleaned up as necessary and hadn't touched anything otherwise, with the exception of the small mountain of books around the couch and the many vinyl records scattered everywhere.
I like the details of how Sabrina has made this a home for herself, with the records and the books. I think it would be neat to get more information about what exactly makes the place "dingy" and "dilapidated," rather than just those broad descriptors!

Unable to use his arms, the Scyther flew at Hypno in an attempt to tackle him, but slammed against the ground again and again, as the Salac berry had given him more than enough speed to dodge each of his attacks.
I found this sentence a little hard to follow because both pokémon are him/his; maybe replace some of the pronouns with "Scyther" or "Hypno" to make it more clear who's doing what?

“...Right, the religious nutjob from yesterday,” she said despectively.
Maybe you meant "dismissively?"
 

Inyssa

Bug Catcher
Pronouns
He/Him
Partners
  1. kricketune
@Negrek thank you so much for reading!!!! Your comments are always so nice and insightful. I'm glad to see you like Sabrina lol, even if this one isn't the OG hopefully you'll end up liking this story.

It's definitely a dark setting you have here, with trainers fighting to the death for the entertainment of the crowd! I kind of wonder how we got to this point from the world we see in canon... if this is Pokespe-verse, then the League was already in trouble there, but this is an entirely new level of dysfunction!

Very much so! So the setting wasn't made specifically for Sabrina; it was thought of by the DM, Yuki, and Sabrina was adapted into this ruined Kanto as a result. Yuki wanted a Pokemon setting where trainers and Pokemon fought together in battle, to complement the tabletop mechanics he came up with, and so he took Pokespe Kanto and set the campaign 10 years after Red and everyone else's misadventures, where a certain someone led a shadow coup against the League and government and has been ruling the region ever since.

These 'dark' Gyms aren't in the center of town or anything, they're more of a black market thing but it definitely wouldn't have happened before this new government, that's for sure.


The priest is an interesting character, too, and one we don't get a lot of insight into at this point--not even a name! It sounds like their relationship is going to be very important to this story, so I'm curious to see where it goes. Normally I'd expect something like the priest is eventually going to convince her to leave the Gym and maybe look into a less-murderous way of life, but the ominous note at the end suggests that maybe the results aren't so uplifting. (Or maybe they are, but it turns out life on the up and up is hard, or something, heh.) The priest keeps coming back, and Sabrina keeps not killing him--they're clearly both looking for something here, and I wonder what's going on with the priest in particular, since he remains a cipher.

Hehehehehe :) Personally I love these two and their relationship so much, especially how they annoy each other, and I'm very excited to read your thoughts as more of them is revealed.

If there's one thing I would have liked to see in this section, it's more exploration of why Sabrina doesn't kill the priest, when she's apparently had no problem doing that with other challengers. It may not be something she even understands herself, but we don't really get anything from her POV to indicate why she makes that decision, not even a, "weird, why am I hesitating?" sort of moment. She's even resolving to kill him a few paragraphs earlier! There are plenty of reasons I can think of that would make sense, but I'd really like to know which one struck Sabrina specifically, what brings about some change in her usual character here.

I realize now I didn't write it well enough so it'd come across this way; the idea was that Sabrina very rarely kills her challengers since it'd be bad for business, and when it happens it's mostly an accident. She was going to severely hurt or maybe even kill the priest, but his reaction kinda took the wind out of her sails. And after that the opportunity just hasn't come up yet. But I'll make sure to include a line to make that more clear!

And, minor point, but I was confused about the part where Azure leaves and then, apparently something like a couple minutes later, the other guy comes in with a letter from him for Sabrina. Did he write that all in the intervening time and then give it to somebody to deliver instead of just going back? I wasn't sure if I was missing something there.

Ah, good point! I'll include a short line where it's explained that some time passed in between the two scenes, haha.

And thank you so much for the grammar fixes too! Those are always my worst enemy, I'll make sure to fix them soon.

I'm very grateful for your comment!!! I love reading your thoughts.
 

Spiteful Murkrow

Busy Writing Stories I Want to Read
Pronouns
He/Him/His
Partners
  1. nidoran-f
  2. druddigon
  3. swellow
  4. lugia
  5. growlithe
  6. quilava-fobbie
  7. sneasel-kate
  8. heliolisk-fobbie
Heya, stopping by as part of my “pay it forward” plans for Review Blitz where I try to shoot out a review to every author that’s stopped by to check out one of my stories since the beginning of the past calendar year. Though a story about Sabrina told through a series of vignettes, huh? Not sure where this one will go, but I suppose there’s only one way to find out:

Chapter 1

Prologue: Saffron's Child

Two trainers stood across from each other within a large steel cage. The one on the far right was a short, black-haired girl wearing a black beanie and a hoodie, a cigarette being held by her lips.

Pinching the butt of the cig with her fingers, she began to speak.

"I suppose you know the rules, though I don't mind repeating them," she said with a cold, dispassionate voice. "Three against three; you can use your Pokemon in any way you wish as long as you don't have more than one out at the same time."

Aha, I see that that’s Sabrina from your cover art there. Though from the synopsis, this sounds like a more distant sequel to the events of Gen 1. I wonder what the story is behind taking the name of a former Gym Leader, though, and if Sabrina is the only Gym Leader in modern Kanto who rolled a shtick like this.

She took a slow drag of the cigarette as she backed up toward a small table inside the cage. Atop rested a handful of cardboard boxes, each filled with Pokeballs of different colors.

"The leader, that would be me, will use random Pokemon from these boxes." She pointed at them, looking bored. "They haven't been raised by me nor do I care about their well-being, so don't expect me to go easy on you."

Well, that’s certainly quite a mood-setter right there. Boy, the last 10 years have not been quite the sea change in training culture.

She closed her eyes for a moment, throwing the cigarette to the ground and stomping on it.

"You can try to kill me to win, and in fact I recommend you do. I'm not allowed to kill any challengers. Too much paperwork, you see. But then again…"

Yeeeeeah, that one definitely is quite a vibe shift relative to the canon games. Though if Sabrina is this burnt out on life, I’m a little curious how she gets out of bed every morning. :copyka:

Her eyes set on her opponent [ ], a cold, boundless abyss behind them.

"Accidents do happen."

It might have been worth giving a bit more detail to glom onto for Sabrina’s challenger there, e.x. to give vibes of just how serious of a challenge Sabrina’s staring down right now.

High above the arena, two men looked at the trainers from the VIP spectator booths. One of them was somewhere in his forties, smoking a pipe as he stared down with something akin to boredom.

"Is that the new Gym Leader?" he asked. "Could’ve mistaken her for a guy. Is she any good?"

The young man next to him crossed his arms and replied with a soft, chilling voice.

"Well… her physical strength is terrible, her attitude is abysmal and she urgently needs someone to take her down a peg," he listed calmly. "However… her skill in Pokemon battles is something you don't see every day. And most importantly, she doesn't ask questions."

I’m going to guess that these two are officials who help run the league in its present state, though boy is that “she doesn’t ask question” part of the line an ominous sign there. :copyka:

"And what's her name?"

The young man smiled, turning to look at his associate. His features were soft and handsome, and he wore an all black uniform with a single white triangle badge on his chest. His hair was straight and soft though somewhat overgrown, mostly light brown except for the single tuft which covered his right eye, which was a deep azure. His eyes were bi-colored, the same two as his hair.

"She doesn't have a name anymore,” answered the man, the corners of his lips quirking up into the shadow of a smile. "From now on she's simply... Sabrina."

Filing that note about the badge away, since I get the feeling that it won’t be the last time we see people wearing it. Though Sabrina is an assigned name, huh? Guess there really are other people going around with the old Gym Leaders’ names at the moment.

#1: Just another tale from the streets of Saffron

"Aaand over here we’ve got the most important part."

A handsome man in an all-black uniform and a young girl stood inside the dustiest, most dilapidated room either of them had ever seen. A room that would, today, become her new home.

Girl:
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As the man showed her around, he stopped next to a table full of cardboard boxes, each marked with a differently colored stroke of paint. Pokeballs of all sorts and colors were littered inside them. The girl following him stole a quick glimpse of the boxes and nodded. She didn’t look particularly imposing, almost a head shorter than the man accompanying her and just as skinny, wearing an oversized hoodie that gave her an air of plainness and indifference. The only thing of note about her appearance was the dingy wool hat resting atop her head, casting an ever-present shadow over her face.

Is this Sabrina from before the opening scene, or…?

"Red means relatively weak Pokemon, Green means Pokemon with a bit more experience," the man continued explaining. "Black means Pokemon on par with those of a Gym leader, and the ones in the Blue box are, of course, incredibly powerful. It's my favorite color after all," he smiled. "These Pokemon will be your companions for the entirety of your… stay here."

Okay, yeah, that sounds a lot like Sabrina when just starting out here.

Even though the first two boxes were filled to the brim with Pokeballs, the black and especially the blue box only contained a few. Not too surprising; well-trained Pokemon were hard to come by these days.

Oh, there’s a story here, huh? Though I wonder what on earth happened, since it apparently also involved the Indigo League going tits-up.

"You'll be sleeping here, of course. All you need to do is… well, clean up a little, if you want to."

The man dragged a finger across the surface of a nearby cupboard, then made a face and wiped the filth and dust on his dress pants.

"There's a bathroom; second door on the left past the hallway, and there's also a little kitchen back there, in case you want to cook something for yourself." He turned around and let out a sigh, smiling. "Any questions?"

Just as the girl was about to speak, the metallic door leading to the dingy room opened with a creak. An older man with salt and pepper hair came in.

Girl: “Wow, rude. I was about to speak there!” >_>;

"S-sir…" he said, breathless. "We have a challenger."

The other man, whose long, messy hair was a light brown with the exception of a single blue tuft over his right eye, made an unpleasant face.


Oh, this is that one guy on the left quadrant of the cover art, huh?

"I thought I'd made it pretty clear that today we wouldn't have… Ah, it doesn't matter."

He shook his head and sighed somewhat exaggeratedly, but recovered almost instantly. Turning around, he placed both hands on the girl's shoulders and shined her a smile that sent a shiver down her spine.

"Exciting, isn't it!? This will be your first fight!" He spoke so excitedly that she almost expected to see sparkles coming off him. "Here, have these."

Okay, yeah, this is Sabrina. And note to self, but blue-tuft is bad news here.

He handed her the green box and gave her a friendly pat on the back.

"Now go, Sabrina. Good luck!"

Yeah, I knew it.

Sabrina stumbled toward the door, clearly overwhelmed, but stopped just before crossing the sill.

"…Your name?" she asked, looking over her shoulder.

The man raised his chin slightly, that long tuft of blue hair falling to the side, and what a strange sight that was. One of his eyes was brown. The other was the same color as his dyed tuft of hair; a cold, boundless blue like winter itself.

"Who, me?" he asked innocently. "You can just call me Azure."

Well, that name is on the nose. And Azure is all but confirmed to be the same figure from the left quadrant of the cover art. I wonder what his story is, though, since these mannerisms just scream ‘is/was part of Team Rocket’.

#2: Tested

The young woman walked out into the arena, absentmindedly spinning a Pokeball in her hand.

That Azure guy said this would be enough , she thought, skeptical. So my opponent must not be too skilled.

You know what they say about assuming, Sabrina…

A small stadium –if one could even call it that– sprawled out before her. The concrete floor was cracked and scorched and stained with blood all over, surrounded on all sides by rusty fences which were missing a few chunks here and there. Beyond them there were about a dozen spectators, waiting for the fight to begin. Steps echoed not far off as more people started coming in.

Oh, well that bodes poorly for what’s considered normal for Pokémon battles nowadays. Probably explains why Sabrina’s just outright given entire boxes of Pokémon to work with.
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Her opponent, a middle-aged man with a horrid multicolored mullet, turned his nose up at her and chuckled derisively. He grabbed a Pokeball from his belt, opening it to a blinding flash of light. That the ground shook under the creature's weight was already bad news. The fact that it ended up being a Rhydon only exacerbated the crease of anxiousness in Sabrina's forehead.

"And who's this, eh?" scoffed the man. "This ain't a kindergarten. I came here to fight the Gym leader, not to have a tea party."

Sabrina: “Uh… that would be me speaking.” .-.

"Then how about you show me what you're made of?" replied Sabrina, ticked off. "If a snot-nosed brat like me gives you a beating, that'd be pretty humiliating, wouldn't it? Then again… with that hair, you must be used to the feeling."

[ ]

"Tsk. Just shut your mouth and open that Pokeball."

[ ]

"You don't have to tell me twice!"

Probably would be worth to show mullet man and Sabrina’s reactions to each other a bit more than you presently do.

Flaring with anger, she smiled and threw the ball up in the air. After the flash, the figure that appeared was small, skinny and with a big head, its yellow-and-brown body swaying sleepily from side to side.

An Abra.

IMO, you were a bit too vague with your description of the Abra’s appearance, since it wasn’t really visualizable until the “An Abra” part.

"…Ah."

A gnawing worry started rising up her body. Abra couldn't learn any offensive technique normally, but… that Azure guy wouldn't just give her a defenseless Pokemon for her first fight. The Abra surely knew a TM or two… right?

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"Psychic!" she yelled, hopeful.

The Abra turned his head slowly toward her, questioning.

"…You only know Teleport, don't you?"

Mullet Man: “I’ll just be accepting that forfeit from you right now.” [smugzel]

As the creature gave a lazy nod, their opponent's order echoed through the arena.

"Rhydon, use Megahorn!"

[ ]


"…Shit."

Well, that’s an Abra that Sabrina’s never getting back. Especially from what the condition of the battlefield implied that Pokémon battles in the modern league are like. :copyka:

Though it probably makes sense to show off a bit more of Rhydon’s charge / that sinking feeling in Sabrina’s mind as she realizes that this won’t end well.

#3: Along the Way

The door to Sabrina's room swung open violently. And there under the sill stood none other than Azure, sporting a sickening grin from ear to ear. The girl looked up from her book –a leather volume so old it was practically disintegrating– and her eyes narrowed with pure spite.

"Well?" Azure asked excitedly. "How'd it go, how'd it go?"

Sabrina: “Fantastic, couldn’t you tell?”
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It'd been almost a week since that first battle. Multiple band-aids peppered the girl's face, a splint covered her left arm and –as Azure noticed when she rose to her feet– she had a limp as well.

"How the fuck do you think it went!?" she bellowed, clutching at the collar of his suit. "Of course I lost! What did you want me to do with a Pokemon that can't even attack? There were easier ways to kill me if that's what you wanted you cretin!"

Oh, so new-style Pokémon battles involve the trainers throwing down as well. Makes me wonder what the new management in town is like, since that certainly doesn’t feel like something that Team Rocket would’ve cared about had they taken over.

Azure stared at her, his smile frozen in place.

"…But you didn't die," he whispered. [ ]

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing!" Azure hummed, freeing himself from her grasp. "Anyway, it looks like you finally made this place your own, huh?"

Azure’s going to have quite a few moments like this in this story, huh? Though it might’ve made sense to show off Sabrina’s reaction to Azure’s reply a bit more than you presently do.

In truth, the room looked just as dingy and dilapidated as before, large swathes of plaster painting blotches on the visible and nearly rotten bricks beneath the walls, a few rays of sunlight coming in from the holes in the ceiling Sabrina hadn't gotten to plugging up yet. Clearly, she'd only cleaned up as necessary and hadn't touched anything otherwise, with the exception of the small mountain of books around the couch and the many vinyl records scattered everywhere.

Sabrina: “Would it really have killed you to just set me up with a hotel here or something?” >_>;

[ ]

"Oh, I just remembered. There's some… business I need to take care of, so I probably won't be back for a few weeks," said the man. "But before that… here you go."

Sabrina instinctively opened her palm as the man deposited something on it, small and metallic. The Marsh badge. It was almost identical to the one given by the original Sabrina, only the golden circle was inserted into a black triangle.

You probably want a bit more transition back to focusing on Azure in your description. Though I take it that that triangle motif is related to the new clique/villainous team/whatever that calls the shots in Kanto, huh?

"I'd say you've earned it, wouldn't you?" smiled Azure. "And now… I must bid you adieu."

[ ]

"W-wait!"

But Azure had already walked out of the room by the the time Sabrina came back to herself. She could do little but stand there, staring blankly ahead.

"What… what the hell!?"

It might make sense to show a bit more of Sabrina’s thought process before the “W-wait!” moment, since the structure here kinda vibes as if there’s meant to be some sort of brief pause before it clicks to Sabrina that Azure’s leaving, but it doesn’t really come through with back-to-back lines of dialogue ATM.

Had he really sent her to die with a smile on his face, or would he have stopped her opponent before it came to that? It was impossible to tell. She couldn't read him at all, which meant for now she couldn't trust him as far as she could throw him.

I take it that Sabrina’s not doing this job because she wants to, huh? Especially since in the prologue, she’s explicitly mentioned as not having a name ‘anymore’.

Minutes stretched into nearly an hour as she sat there in her shithole of a room, contemplating her situation, contemplating Azure and whatever the hell his inner thoughts might be, what he wanted with her. But before she could reach any conclusion, the door opened once again. This time, it was that man with salt and pepper hair; one of the Gym's caretakers, she'd figured.

"Ah… there you are," he grumbled. "Master Azure said–"

"I know," Sabrina cut him off. "He'll be skipping town for a while."

Sabrina: “Seriously, how on earth did I get stuck in this situation with you two?” >_>;

"No, not that. He forgot to give this to you."

[ ]

"Huh?"

The man gave her a folded-up piece of paper and left without another word. Sabrina opened it and blinked down at the fancy writing. Azure's, no doubt. [ ]

'Dear Sabrina,

Okay, uh… you have a lot going on in this short sequence here. Enough that you probably want to describe out more of the actions and reactions playing out. Especially for actually indicating that Sabrina’s starting to read the paper she opened up.

Also, it’s optional, but you might find using indent blocks handy for making it a bit more visually obvious what text is part of the letters and what part is from normal narration.

How are you? Have you been sleeping well? I sure hope so!
Like I said, I'll be absent for a while, so I wanted to inform you of a few things, just to avoid confusion.
First of all, the maintenance crew–'

Sabrina scoffed; as if there were such a thing in this shithole.

See the notes re: suggesting indent blocks here. If you opt to use them, the format on this site is [ INDENT ] [/ INDENT ] minus the spaces, surrounding whatever block of text you want to offset.

'–accidentally misplaced all the Pokeball boxes with the exception of the red one, so you'll have to make do with freshly-caught Pokemon until my return. Ah, how careless these brutes can be! I can't imagine who would've given them such an order.
Oh, by the way, there's a good possibility the police will pass by for a routine raid today or tomorrow, or at least that's what people in the streets say. Still, I'm sure you'll be able to handle it without trouble.
Love: Azure.'

Okay, so whatever group Azure and Sabrina are in, it’s not on the legal up-and-up with the present government in Kanto, duly noted. I suppose that would explain a thing or two about the “how on earth is this legal”-ness vibe that the Gym’s had from our glimpses of it thus far.

By the time she made it to the end, she'd practically crushed the note between her fingers, face red and shoulders shaking with fury.

"That… that son of a bitch…!"

Azure’s going to be doing this a lot in this story, isn’t it?

[ ] An overwhelming desire to punch the wall washed over her, but after a few long, slow-breathing seconds, that fury was transformed into something more. A sudden determination flared up inside her.

"…Alright," she muttered. "It's alright. So that's how you wanna play, eh? That's fine by me. You can take away my Pokemon, you can throw me at every police officer and smelly punk in the city, it doesn't matter. I won't give you the satisfaction of seeing me fall. No matter how dirty you play, I'll play ten times as dirty! This is my Gym now, so give me your best shot you bastard!"

I kinda wonder if it’d have made sense to tip your hand a bit as to the context behind this. e.x. where Sabrina came from, what’s normal in the Kanto that she lives in these days, etc. Since I get the distinct impression that it’s a different Kanto, but up to this point, you haven’t really shown much through the narration as written from Sabrina’s perspective about what’s “normal” for it.

<><><>

And that's how the weeks passed. The girl not only wore the title of Gym leader like a glove; she made a profession out of surviving, and an art out of playing dirty.

Little by little as the victories piled up, the rumors spread and both the girl's infamy and her number of challengers grew, bringing with them more and more spectators. The lowest and the highest in Saffron. All of them vile and corrupt, all of them coming to her Gym with the hope of seeing a violent, bloody spectacle.

And that is exactly what they were given, time and time again.

Well, that’s certainly different from how the old league worked, and that would explain a thing or two about the bloodstains on the battlefield. I do think that there’s enough of a jump in time here that you should consider adding a hard scene break, though.

Without even realizing it, without it even bothering her, the girl's day to day became an endless parade of battles for survival.

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Totally healthy and normal there! /s

#4: Pray on me:

Over two years had passed since Sabrina's arrival at the Gym, and as expected, she'd taken over the place in its entirety. Her word was law. Although deep down, she knew that Azure could take that power away with the snap of his fingers.

Sounds like a recipe for constant paranoia, just saying.

Inside the little run down shack she called home, an Abra -suspiciously similar to the one from her first fight- slept soundly next to a moldy mattress. And, above a pile of discarded books, a Mr. Mime meditated in silence.

"Cut that out," grumbled Sabrina, looking for Mew-knows what amidst the disaster that was the room. "You're a special attacker; in a real fight you'll be shoving that meditation right up your ass."

How on earth has this girl stayed alive for two years if that’s the sort of relationship she has with her Pokémon?
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The door opened just then with an ominous screech. A familiar man with salt and pepper hair peaked through.

"This one's dangerous," he said, more hopeful than worried. "He blasted through the other five trainers with practically no effort. You better not underestimate him."

Sabrina stood up, stretching, and let out a big yawn.

"We'll see about that."

de7.png


The man shoved a bunch of Pokeballs at random into a small box, and both he and the Gym leader headed out. The Gym was filled to the brim that day. Half the audience loudly cheered her opponent, while the other half clamored for his blood.

Just another day…

Oh, Pokémon battles basically run on Nuzlocke logic in this setting, huh? Or at least I get that impression there. I do wonder if it’d have made sense to lay out cleanly as to “this is normal, and the old way of battling just isn’t a thing anymore” sometime in the earlier snippets.

Sabrina entered the enormous cage, hands in her pockets, a lit cigarette in her lips. Cheers and insults rang throughout the arena. Lazily, she let her gaze fall on her opponent. A pretty unremarkable man, tall and with wild, messy black hair, a smile full of enthusiasm on his lips. She couldn't make out his age, but he must've been a couple years older than her.

She narrowed her eyes. There, hanging from his neck, resting against his chest, an iron cross gleamed against the powerful lights hanging from the ceiling.

A priest, eh? Let's see what he's capable of.

- peeks up at the cover art -

Well, that bodes poorly for how this guy’s going to fare in this battle here. Which, uh… is a positive for Sabrina, at least? ^^;

She stuck a hand inside the box and pulled out a Pokeball. Her foe did the same, never dropping that irritating smile.

"Let's have a nice, clean battle," he exclaimed, bowing respectfully.

Sabrina rolled her eyes. Around the audience, comments and bets were already being made.

"Heh, that guy's not gonna last a minute against Sabrina."

Well, I don’t know about ‘a minute’, but… yeah, I can see that blood-spattered cross with Arceus features in your cover art, and it sure looks “iron”-y to me.

"I wouldn't be so sure. Didn't you see how his Pokemon fought before? It wasn't… normal," someone else replied.

"He has the advantage in typing, that's for sure," a third commented.

"Type advantage ain't gonna be enough against Sabrina. Just watch."

I mean, if Sabrina’s been alive after two years in battles where it’s not just the Pokémon that get physically violent in battle… uh, yeah, that sounds like a reason to bet on her.

Opinions and predictions -all scandalous and arrogant- flowed freely from person to person like the bills being passed around before the battle. The bets were high this time, although it wasn't terribly unusual for this gym. For a good portion of the audience, the two trainers inside the large steel cage were little more than investments.

They’re both doing this because they have to, huh? Since I got the distinct impression that Sabrina was doing this as a coerced duty, but…

Pokeballs in hand, they both stared deep into each other’s eyes, gauging the level of danger.

Then, something strange happened. The young man noticed the cigarette hanging from Sabrina's lips, and frowned.

"Aren't you a little young to be smoking?" he asked disapprovingly.

"Aren't you a little old to be believing in god?" she spat back.

68a.jpg


Even if I suppose that with how bitter Sabrina has vibed in the earlier installments, that she really wouldn’t think much of seeking solace in faith.

[ ]

"Ah… Still in that rebellious phase I see. My little brother is just like you."

[ ]


"Less talk, more action, priest."

Some more spots where it might make sense to slow down and show a bit more of the characters’ reactions to one another, especially if there’s anything going through Sabrina’s mind right now to try and stay ready for her battle.

The young man chuckled. "And to think you're the famous Sabrina. The original being so striking and beautiful, I didn't expect her imitator to be a short, emaciated brat."

Aaaand I’m just going to move a few bucks on this guy’s death pool, since he’s sure going out of his way to try and undercut his sympathy to the audience.

At that, Sabrina lifted an eyebrow, the smile going cold in her lips.

I'm going to kill him.

Yeah, I knew it.

"Are you going to fucking start or do you want me to attack you first?"

[ ]


"Geez, young people sure are impatient nowadays…"

Another spot where it probably makes sense to show off a bit more character reaction there, since I actually didn’t realize at first that the first line there was meant to be Sabrina’s due to a lack of speech tags or framing context.

The man with the silver cross threw his Pokeball toward the center of the arena, and from the burst of light emerged a tall, imposing insect-like beast, its body green and segmented, two long, sharp blades protruding out of his forearms.

A Scyther.

Sabrina: “Seriously, why on earth does everyone who come here have some crazy-powerful Pokémon? What ever happened to shin-kickers with Squirtles or something like that?”
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Priest: “I mean, did you really expect that parents would willfully allow their children to a Gym Battle under modern rules?”
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#5: It's only over once it's over.

Sabrina studied the Scyther carefully, doing her best to conceal her worry. A swift, hard-hitting bug-type, surely with loads of combat experience… could she have gotten a worse opponent?

I mean, you could’ve gotten rolled a Tyranitar that your Pokémon would do diddly against, so…

To make things worse, they'd agreed to a one on one duel, so this would be decided in an instant.

She threw her own Pokeball out, and from the blast of light emerged an old, frazzled Hypno wearing a pair of colorful yellow glasses. The Pokemon bristled, seemingly not bothered by his opponent's chilly glare. Sabrina knew him well, and knew that despite his frail appearance no other Pokemon from the Gym could match his smarts and experience.

Against a Scyther, though…?

Scyther: “*Ha ha, I’m gonna kill you!*”
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Jasmine: “Gee, rub it in, why don’t you?” >_>;

After weighing all the possible options, the two of them crossed eyes, and nodded. There was only one way out of this, and it involved being smiled on by Lady Luck.

Or, you could’ve sent out a Psychic-type with Power Gem, but that might’ve been asking a bit much in Kanto.

Both Pokemon stared each other down for a moment. Then, emboldened by the bloodthirsty cheers of the audience, they jumped to attack in unison.

Sabrina: “Wait, Hypno, what are you doing?! Don’t just go and get close to-!”
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"X-Scissor!" the man bellowed.

"Trick!" Sabrina countered.

The Scyther's speed was beyond compare. A bolt of verdant lightning, he crossed the arena in an instant and slashed upwards with both of his scythes, catching his foe just as the glasses disappeared from his face with a pop . The poor Hypno hit the ground hard, the sheer force of the impact sending him rolling until he crashed against the bars of the cage on the other side. He trembled, one hand against the floor, but could not bring himself even to his knees.

Without a doubt, the man with the cross knew what he was doing.

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I see they really aren’t screwing around with modern-style battles, and it’d explain a thing or two about how chewed-up Sabrina was after her very first one here.

However, that made him and his Pokemon cocky. The both of them turned toward Sabrina, completely disregarding the Hypno as he raised a small berry and shoved it in his mouth.

Sabrina very pointedly didn't turn to look. Which was good, as the next instant the giant bug Pokemon shot toward her. He stopped within an inch of killing her, scythe raised to her neck with practiced control, barely brushing her skin. From this close, she could see that pair of yellow glasses adorning his face.

Ah yes, just going full “shoot the messenger” in battle. Though that makes me wonder if some challengers just skip fighting the Pokémon and go straight for Sabrina.

"Woah, easy there." Sabrina raised her hands in a show of surrender, earning a storm of boos from the audience.

Sabrina: “Oh, piss off! Let’s see what you can do when you’re five seconds from being beheaded!” >.<

"Nice one, Clay! You knocked it out of the park!" The man with the cross cheered with a big, dumb smile. "I'm very proud, buddy!"

Despite the danger of the situation, Sabrina couldn't help but roll her eyes again. She had to keep up the façade. The cool, calculating Scyther with a blade to her neck. The dumb, arrogant trainer smiling like an idiot. The young Gym leader with her hands raised, far from her Pokeballs, looking nervous.

"Well? What now?" asked the man, raising both hands and shrugging. "I'm disappointed. Seems like the rumors were all exaggerated."

Uh, buddy, you should probably get that forfeit made official before you stop to gloat, since I didn’t see a ref counting down at all there.

A smirk formed on Sabrina’s lips. "Heh."

"What's so funn–?"

"Disable."

Yup. Though I notice that there wasn’t a ‘tap out’ mechanism for ending the battle, implying that this will go on until on or the other is physically incapable of going on, huh?
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Eyes shooting wide, the Scyther tried to turn around. But Hypno was now possessed by an abnormal speed, and barraged his foe with a sudden wave of psychic energy, throwing him off of his trainer.

[ ]


"Wh–Clay's Salac Berry!?"

You probably want to show the priest’s moment of shock there realizing that he’s been had, since it’s not really coming through ATM. If the idea is that Sabrina can’t see it but can only hear it, play up the “things going in a confusing blur with Pokémon screeching bloody murder”-ness aspect of it.

Sabrina's grin widened maliciously across her face.

"Psychic."

The burst of concentrated energy blasted the Scyther in the face, sending him across the room. His trainer balled his hands into fists, eyes wide with panic.

Wow, that Hypno really isn’t one to be trifled with. .-.

"X-Scissor!"

But the Scyther didn't move. Couldn't. His body quivered with the bug's desire to attack, but it was as though every muscle in his arms had been paralyzed. He couldn't raise his scythes.

"Shit, Struggle!?" he cursed, realization dawning on him. "Of course, the Choice Specs…!

02637fa248b4f13a4f4111fe251ba08ef018e85d.gifv


The rest of the fight was predictable. Unable to use his arms, the Scyther flew at Hypno in an attempt to tackle him, but slammed against the ground again and again, as the Salac berry had given Hypno more than enough speed to dodge each of his attacks. The old psychic Pokemon barraged the poor insect with burst after burst of psionic power, until finally he hit the ground like a brick, smoking from head to toe. Hypno looked down at his fallen foe and struggled a step back, heaving from pain but still very much capable of fighting.

Scyther Clay: “Ow.” X_X

He knew what came next.

With an expression that bordered on demonic, Sabrina pointed at the man with the cross, and the wizened Hypno obeyed without question, raising a hand aflame with purple wisps of power.

Whelp, it was nice knowing you, Mr. Priest Guy, but we need your cross for the cover art with a bit of a makeover.

Yet, to Sabrina's disappointment, her opponent didn't look scared or worried in the slightest. Instead, he hung his head and closed his eyes, balled fists trembling.

He was pissed .

"Y-you… backstabbing, traitorous…!" He seriously looked on the verge of losing it from anger. "What kind of trainer does something like that!? You're a disgrace to all Gym leaders!"

Sabrina:
5krd9l.gif

“Just saying, you were perfectly happy to have your bug behead me 30 seconds ago. You’re not allowed to complain about me getting the drop on you.”

Sabrina raised an eyebrow, and chuckled. "Right…"

Unconcerned, she took an old iron lighter from her pocket and flipped it open, lighting a cigarette as she took it to her mouth.

"You wanted to win too cleanly," she said through puffs of smoke. "If you hadn't been such a good boy and actually killed me when you had the chance, you'd be leaving this place with my badge and my fame. But you didn't, because you're a loser. That your Pokemon is superior to your opponent’s in all aspects doesn't guarantee your victory, priest."

I’m surprised that she’s taking the time to monologue here instead of just getting straight to the point, though I suppose that the priest can’t really do diddly at the moment.

Sabrina: “To make a long story short, this isn’t the Indigo League, old man.”

She shoved the lighter back in her pocket and returned the Hypno to his Pokeball. Then she turned around and started walking away.

"You'd do well to remember that."

Fists trembling, pupils shrunken by rage, the man with the cross yelled as the Gym leader disappeared into darkness.

"I won't let this stand! I'll never accept your way of fighting! I'll be back tomorrow, and then I will beat you! You'll see!"

I’m actually surprised that Sabrina didn’t kill him there given that she clearly wanted to in the last vignette. It might make sense to show a bit more of what gets her thought process to back down (e.x. if she realizes that her challenger is stuck in the old ways and decides to let him off easy) and how the audience is reacting, since presumably some portion of the crowd signed up for blood and not for watching some girl in a hoodie sass an older man.

#6: Bored And Extremely Dangerous

An annoying, singsongy voice reached Sabrina’s ears on her way to the Gym, instantly giving her a headache.

“Oh Sabrinaaa~

“Ugh.”

Sabrina: “What now?” >_>;

Azure threw his hand over her shoulder, forcing her to drag him along with every step to her great irritation.

Following her previous fight, Sabrina had chosen to wake up uncharacteristically early in order to train in the outskirts of Saffron, and was in the process of returning to the Gym with slow, tired steps, ready to face any new challengers. Not that she’d gotten many lately.

I mean, yes. That tends to happen when your opponents either get hospitalized or die after you defeat them. ^^;

She hadn’t expected to run into her boss on the way back though. It almost felt wrong, to see Azure out in the open, under the sunlight, a part of her imagining him melting under its rays like some kind of vampire

Shots fired.

“Azure,” she greeted him with a smile like salt on a wound. “What an unfortunate coincidence.”

“I heard about yesterday’s battle,” he said. “Very impressive. Though I was surprised to hear your opponent left the Gym still walking. You’re not going soft on me, are you?”

[ ]

“Tch. Don’t tell me how to do my job.”

This feels like a part where it’d make sense to show off what’s going through Sabrina’s head a bit more, especially if the way she dealt with the priest wasn’t normal for her.

And she threw his arm off of her brusquely. Azure stumbled back a step, making an expression as though he were about to cry.

“You’re always sooo cold,” he whimpered, lower lip shaking. “I thought after all this time, we’d finally become good friends!”

Sabrina: “Azure, I’ve been living in that craphole of a gym for two years since you’re too cheap to set me up with alternative lodging.”

Sabrina winced. Theirs was… in all honesty, a pretty unusual relationship. The distrust she felt toward Azure was still there, somewhere in the back of her mind, but it had slowly been giving up ground, becoming little more than a memory.

Truth was, she’d become accustomed to him, to his dark sense of humor, his cryptic ways and the always-present scent of blood whenever he’d return from a mission. She couldn’t complain. After all, wasn’t she hemmed in the same scent? It would be too far to say they were friends, but still…

827659294400970753.webp


That sounds like a really, really strong reason to not trust him, Sabrina, just saying.

They finally reached the Gym, in between snide comments and bad jokes, though this time they decided to enter through the front door, since it was too early for anyone else to have arrived. Sabrina unlocked the padlock, and as she pushed against the heavy steel doors, she was surprised at what was waiting for her in the blood-soaked arena.

Sabrina: “Why on earth do we not clean that up between matches anyways?” .-.
Azure: “You know how it is with these newfangled gyms: ‘if it bleeds, it leads’, just like a news outlet.” [gardeshrug]

“Finally!” A familiar, annoying voice reached her ears. “I’d almost gotten tired of waiting! Were you planning on running away from our duel!? I wouldn’t expect any less from a coward like you.”

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the arena, Sabrina saw two gleams. First that of a Pokeball being drawn, and second that of the silver crucifix hanging from the man’s neck, swaying back and forth.

Sabrina: “Oh for crying out loud…” >_>;

“En garde!”

“...Huh?”

There was a moment of shocked silence, and then Sabrina sighed.

“...Right, the religious nutjob from yesterday,” she said dismissively. “You really came back. So either you’re a complete idiot or you got tired of living, hm?”

So if he somehow doesn’t die in this scene, are we going to get a:

jYtJnvX.gif


moment at some point? :V

“What’d you say!?” he bellowed, the spark behind his eyes lighting up like coals, though he quickly calmed himself down. “No, it’s fine… God forgives you. But that doesn’t mean I won’t wipe that smug smile off your face, brat!”

I’ll heavily take the under on this guy having made it out of seminary with that sort of attitude to him.

Beside her, Azure tilted his head like a curious kid, a smile attempting to lift the corners of his mouth.

“Wow, okay! I’m not sure what I’m looking at here, but it sure is interesting!” he said, cheery as usual. “It almost reminds me of the beginning of a tormentous love story, don’t you agree?”

[ ]

“Wh-!?”

Sabrina turned her head so fast her neck clicked, but something stopped her in her tracks before she could insult Azure. The man’s eyes, one brown and one blue, were locked onto the priest’s black ones, unmoving.

For a moment… For just a moment, Sabrina was overwhelmed by their presence, as though she were standing in between two wild Pokemon sizing each other up before they could strike.

Wait, who is saying that line in the third paragraph? Sabrina or the priest? Since it’s not really clear there.

“Alright!” Azure finally spoke, clapping his hands together. “I better leave you two to it, wouldn’t wanna… interrupt, hehe!”

And he walked away, humming to himself a song Sabrina was unfamiliar with. Of course, she tried her best to bore a hole into his back with her glare, but the man didn’t seem to notice.

Oh, he notices, he just doesn’t care.

Those two pairs of eyes crossing… Sabrina was regrettably ignorant of what it augured. She had no idea her normal life in the Gym had, with that alone, come to a sudden and complete halt.

The priest is going to do something completely stupid like try and take a swing at Azure, huh?

#7 Fissure

At first Sabrina thought this would be a passing thing, that after his third or fourth loss he would finally see reason and leave, never to return. But that wasn’t the case.

Day after day the man with the cross would come to the Gym to challenge its leader, and day after day he would lose due to some dirty trick or technicality. It was clear who the stronger trainer was, who had the best Pokemon and instinct for combat; it was him. But that didn’t keep him from suffering defeat after humiliating defeat.

Oh, so we are doing the Spongebob meme there.

Yet that didn’t seem to bring down the man’s spirits who, fueled by god knows what kind of determination, always came back for more. He often ended the battle wounded. Far from his obstinate nature earning Sabrina’s compassion, it only seemed to piss her off, turning her even more violent than usual. Yet fate -or perhaps lesser powers- always made sure to pluck the man just out of the way of her Pokemon's most lethal attacks, the man's Scyther more often than not blocking said attacks with his own body. Of course, she often received her own share of injuries, though never anything too serious.

Azure: “They’re in love~ <3”
Sabrina: “Shut up, Azure!”
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A few weeks passed after that first battle, and the challenges from the man with the cross became part of Sabrina’s daily routine. It wasn’t something that excited her, of course. Yet -though she would never admit it out loud, and despite the usual brutality of their duels- she’d eventually come to see their fights as a break of sorts, a small haven from the darkness of her life in which there was no scheming or hidden intentions, only fighting until one of them went down. Strange thing.

Wait, implying that Sabrina’s lost at least once in these repeated battles? Otherwise wouldn’t this be ‘until he went down’?

It was common for their duels to be silent, save for the occasional insult or order being barked at their Pokemon, but on that particular day, a conversation was struck.

Some time later, Sabrina would come to wish she’d never answered.

I kinda feel like this should’ve been actually depicted, since we don’t really get to see what this conversation is about here.

Alright, made it to the end. I’ll admit, that I didn’t really know what to expect from this story when diving into it, and it’s a bit darker than the normal cuppa that I go for in fanfic, but it did a pretty good job at bringing a much darker and dystopian version of the Pokémon world to life. Like it’s still the early stages, but you seemed to get a lot of mileage with showing off Sabrina navigating a much harsher world of Gym Battling where literally everyone on the field’s a target that she’s been thrust into in what’s strongly implied to not be by choice, and the ways that different characters bounce off of it. Some bob along with it like Sabrina, some actively benefit from it like Azure, while some like the priest just want to tear it all down, but haven’t succeeded at doing so… yet. The vignette-style formula also largely worked well for showing little snapshots of what was going on and then piecing them all together into a larger story.

For weaknesses, there were a couple typos and paragraphs where I didn’t see eye-to-eye with on formatting. I do feel that there’s a number of details related both to context-setting Sabrina’s situation and her world, her thought process, and the way that she and other characters react to things that kinda go unsaid at the moment but would be better off being explicit about. Like one offhand example I can think of is Sabrina’s interactions with her priest challenger, where she starts off getting annoyed to the point of wanting to kill him, but turns around and lets him off in the next vignette without it being depicted as to when or how Sabrina’s mindset changed towards that end. Something to consider if you ever go back to do touchups to these vignettes.

Though that was certainly a ride, @Inyssa . I admittedly likely won’t have time to come back to this story before Review Blitz ends on account of things piling up for me, but I’ll be keeping an eye on your fare in the future.
 

Inyssa

Bug Catcher
Pronouns
He/Him
Partners
  1. kricketune
@Spiteful Murkrow thank you so, so much for your review!!! It was great to read all of your thoughts as the chapter progressed, and despite the flaws in the story I'm glad you enjoyed what you saw so far!! Yeah, it's definitely a darker and more dystopian fare than most fics I write, but I wanted to focus more on these two's relationship than that. I'm glad it wasn't too much for you, haha.

Thank you also for pointing out the specific parts where I could add some reactions or a bit more narrating to make the character's emotions more clear, you're right in that in some parts it's too vague. I'll get to that as soon as I can.

As for the end of the chapter, the conversation alluded to there happens at the start of chapter 2 haha, I just wanted to leave people on an ominous cliffhanger.

Again, thank you so much. I'll have a blast re-reading your review, I'm sure, and I'm happy you considered this little fic!
 

Inyssa

Bug Catcher
Pronouns
He/Him
Partners
  1. kricketune
Chapter 3: Social Suicide
#17 All Good Soldiers

“Well? Did you prepare at all for the job I told you about?”

Azure carefully placed a bandage over the cut on Sabrina’s cheek, one eye closed and the tip of his tongue peering from his lips in concentration. It was a very childish expression. Yet unlike with the man with the cross, it looked… wrong on him.

Besides, Sabrina knew the only reason he was tending to her wounds was because he wanted something from her.

“I thought I was plenty clear last night; I’m paid to fight Pokemon battles, not kill people.”

“Mhm, you say that as though you’ve never done it before,” Azure said in his singsong-y voice as he absentmindedly unrolled a bandage. “Do you think all those challengers we drag off the Gym in critical condition somehow make it out and manage to turn their life around, living happily ever after?”

Sabrina said nothing.

“Talking like your hands aren’t just as bloody as mine isn’t like you. Did you perhaps forget what you are?”

“...”

“Besides, when you learn who your target is, I’m sure you’ll be very interested,” he hummed happily, and Sabrina could perfectly imagine a heart at the end of that last word.

Yet once again, Sabrina said nothing. Seconds passed in silence, and it wasn’t until she made it clear she had nothing more to say on the matter that Azure hung his head and sighed.

“I wonder… Are you refusing because you’re worried about what he might think?”

That made the Gym leader react. With speed she didn’t know she possessed, she stood up suddenly and grabbed Azure by the collar, pulling him to his feet as well. It was an instinctual impulse, a spark of anger. She tamed it just as quickly, letting go of him and turning around, starting to walk away.

Yet Azure’s voice, as ever, reached her even as she turned around the corner, echoing inside her head as though he were whispering against her ear.

“Don’t let your guard down, Sabrina. Don’t let him weaken you. You were so beautiful before, sharp and ruthless… I miss it oh-so dearly.” Azure sighed. “If only things could go back to the way they were before…”

Sabrina didn’t need to look at him to know his expression was giddier than ever.



#18 Tiny Voices



“Hm… She sure is taking her time,” the man with the cross muttered, wandering about the withered garden with his hands in his pockets.

Sabrina had told him she had something to discuss with her boss, so maybe she’d gone home already, hoping he would give up and return as well.

As if he’d admit defeat that easily.

Bored, swinging back and forth on the ball of his feet, his gaze fell once again on the small pile of books next to the robust oak. On an impulse, he leaned down and picked up the one at the top. The old, pocket-sized tome opened on a specific page as though this one had been read a hundred times before, a thought also evidenced by the clear wear and fingerprints on the edge of the page.

The man narrowed his eyes. It seemed to be… a short poem?

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;

Round and round they sped.

I was disturbed at this;

I accosted the man.

"It is futile," I said,

"You can never -"

"You lie," he cried,

And ran on.



He remained still and breathless, eyes glued to the page for an indefinite amount of time. Though he wasn’t sure why, he felt as though he’d found something extremely valuable, something perhaps more revealing about the young Gym leader than any of their short, superficial conversations up to this point.

Only the sound of distant footsteps dragged the man from his trance. Feeling Sabrina approach, he turned around and placed the book down where it once rested, as swiftly and surreptitiously as he could.

“Sabrina,” he said suddenly, eyes wide, fearful. His heart was galloping.

The Gym leader stopped in place, alarmed.

“Huh? What’s with that fac-?”

“Let’s flee. Please , we have to get out of this place. It doesn’t matter where, just…!”

It looked as though Sabrina had been slapped. She unconsciously raised an eyebrow, confused, but a spark of… something, unmistakably crossed her eyes in that moment.

“...”

A frigid wind ran down the length of the garden. The man didn’t speak, refusing to meet Sabrina’s eyes. Gulping, she parted her lips to-

“...He, hehe. I was joking!” The man laughed all of a sudden, sticking his tongue out. “Got you pretty good there, huh?”

“Don’t… joke about that stuff, asshole!” she exploded after a few seconds, slamming her fist against his chest.





#19 No Control



“My group was surrounded, with no chance to escape. Our lives depended on me being able to stealthily sneak behind our foes, so I…” The man with the cross inhaled, leaving in a dramatic pause, only to realize he wasn’t being listened to. “Hey! Wake up, brat, I’m telling you a story!”

“...Huh? Oh, right…” Sabrina blinked back into consciousness, slightly ashamed at first, though that quickly turned into righteous anger. “Well, tell a more interesting story next time.”

For the past few weeks, sitting together under the gentle shadow of the oak tree following their Pokemon battles had become something of a daily routine. They talked about plenty of things and saw, within the dusty yellow-paged books Sabrina always carried around, a multitude of places, situations and people completely foreign to their little world. A window into another reality.

The man never told Sabrina about the poem he found, but he often heard her talk about this ‘other life’ she sometimes dreamed about, this shining horizon blocked by a large, impassable wall.

All he could do was smile sadly every time she brought it up.

“Makes sense you wouldn’t appreciate my tale, you’ve got no manners…”

After a moment of silence, the man’s eyes widened and he couldn’t help but laugh. The sound instantly soured Sabrina’s mood.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, hostile.

“Nothing, it’s just… you were sleeping, right? Doesn’t that mean I earned your trust? I bet you don’t lower your guard around anyone else, hehe…” Now the man’s smile was wide and stupid, and Sabrina couldn’t stand to look at it. “That means I’m special! That makes me happy.”

“I-of course I don’t! Stop getting ideas, I just… I’m tired!” She slammed one of the books down onto the pile, eyes wide with embarrassment. “Who would ever trust a twisted priest like you? I… Stop laughing!”

It wasn’t all a lie, however. Sabrina looked genuinely exhausted; her voice lacked energy, her face was colorless and there was a stained bandage hastily placed around her neck. And it wasn’t a one-time thing. Lately, she often got so engrossed in her own thoughts that he had to shake her to bring her back to reality.

“...What happened there?” the man asked, pointing at the wound on her neck.

“Hm?”

Sabrina blinked a few times. Just then, a small ray of sunlight had filtered through the leaves, falling right on top of the silver cross hanging from the man’s neck. She’d never realized before, but there was a small indent in the metal, like someone had taken a nail and hammer to it.

“Ah… this,” she finally said, looking down at her collarbone. “A challenger’s Sandslash got out of hand today, so…”

But the man had stopped listening at that point, a sudden, dangerous shadow falling over his black eyes. Alarmed, Sabrina followed his gaze and her heart jumped. There, under the sill of the door leading to her room, past the edge of the garden, stood that older man with salt and pepper hair; Azure’s right hand, and the one who always followed her around and told her of new challengers.

After a moment, he shot Sabrina an odd look, a warning, before turning around and disappearing.

The man with the cross didn’t know what that meant, nor why Sabrina, all of a sudden, looked as though an unbearable weight had been dropped on her shoulders.





#20 Drastic Actions



“The numbers don’t lie. Mr. Azure is very dissatisfied, so what do you intend to do to fix it?”

Sabrina had been called back to the gym by the salt and pepper haired man, and was now being lectured on last month’s middling battle performance. As it turned out, ‘Koga’, Fuchsia’s leader, had surpassed her by quite a large margin. The young Gym leader, however, was having an awful lot of trouble paying attention; her eyes were glued to the window next to her, gaze lost in the garden outside as her mind raced with thoughts and possibilities.

Tonight was the night. The ‘job’ Azure had told her about would take place in mere hours, and she was to lead the assault, followed by a small group of trainers. In the end, she hadn’t been able to refuse. She didn’t even know who their target was. Regardless, she was supposed to meet with Azure after this, get all the details of the mission, straighten out their plan of attack…

And then there was him too. The situation was getting out of control.

“Are you listening?”

Sabrina blinked.

“Hm? Yeah, yeah, so what if Koga did a little better last month? I was leaps and bounds above him the month before, wasn’t I? That’s how it is with us,” she shrugged. “He’s my equal. Sometimes he beats me, others I get ahead. I really don’t get why you care so much about this stupid competition between cities; it’s not like we’ll ever fight each other anyway.”

“Still,” frowned the man. “Mr. Azure was very disappointed. He said your drop in performance was due to certain… distractions.”

The emphasis he placed on that word finally made Sabrina look at him. She parted her lips to reply, and…






A gut-churning sense of impending ruin bore down on Sabrina as she made her way back toward the Gym arena, where she knew she would find him. She hated it. The building anxiety felt like a balloon ready to burst, and no matter how much she tried to put it off… She knew the time was coming. This… this was it.

With every step, she racked her brains trying to think of an alternative, a plan, anything. Yet every desperate ray of hope her mind conjured, the mental image of Azure’s cold smile erased almost instantly.

I have to do it.

Her fingers closed around the doorknob, but she found herself unable to turn it. She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t do it. It was too much.

Sabrina closed her eyes.

Minutes passed in which all that could be heard was the whistling of rain through one of the cracked windows.

Until finally, with a sharp, determined inhale, the Gym leader opened the door and walked into the caged arena.

…And there he was, making his way toward her with a steely determination on his face. There was no Pokeball in his hand, which she found strange. His gaze was sharp and deadly serious, lacking all semblance of doubt, and his silver cross gleamed on his chest beneath the last rays of sunlight. Sabrina’s eyes, on the other hand, were distant and passionless, as though she were looking at the situation outside of herself, a spectator.

Both trainers stopped a pace from each other.

“We have to talk,” they said in unison.





#21 Chasing the Wild Goose



Impetuous as always, the man with the cross spoke up before Sabrina could, fast and desperate. The Gym arena was slowly falling into darkness.

“I’m… I’m leaving the city. Tonight.”

Sabrina let out a small sound of surprise, but she wasn’t allowed to say anything, as the man quickly followed that with:

“And I want you to come with me.”

“...You’re not gonna say it’s a joke this time, are you?”

But of course, the firmness in his eyes was all the response she needed. Sabrina bit her lower lip to keep it from shaking, a boundless, burning fury rising like bile from her stomach.

“Are you… are you out of your mind!?” she hissed, swiping at him with a hand. “Go with you? Where!? I have responsibilities here, stuff I need to do, I can’t just-!”

If she’d learned anything about the man, however, it was that he could match her anger beat for beat.

“You can’t stay tied to this Gym! We can’t keep doing this, every day, you… Please, please listen to me, this place is killing you!”

The girl grit her teeth hard, and he took advantage of her silence to keep pressing her.

“They’ll never find us!” he pleaded. “And even if they do… I’ll protect you, always!”

“...Protect me?” Sabrina whispered incredulously through her teeth.

“You think I don’t see it? Every day you come to sit under the tree with a different wound on your body, every day you fight these battles to the death and… what if something goes wrong one day? What if…?”

With a scoff, Sabrina took a step back and shook her head, offended. “That’s part of the job! It’s what I signed up for!”

“It’s not just your body!” he bellowed, gripping her shoulder desperately. Then his voice softened, his dark eyes full of sadness. “How can you not see it? As long as you’re here, the trees and flowers won’t ever grow. You’ll never see that horizon, never…”

Realizing what he was saying, the man stopped talking. But it was too late. Sabrina’s eyes widened, the corner of her lips twitching.

“...You read the poem.”

“N-no, that-that has nothing to do with it.”

“...Ha. I was right, you are a naive, clueless idiot.” She smiled bitterly and looked him straight in the eye, as though challenging him. “Remember… when you asked me why I’m working here? Remember what I told you? That whole thing about my mom and her medical bills?”

The man tried to speak, but she didn’t let him, eyes glinting with a sharp, bitter malice.

“Well? What do you think?” she whispered. A beat of silence before thunder fell, and the dam inside her broke. “It was a lie! Do you wanna know the truth!? The truth is that my mom died years ago, less than six months after I started working here! I only used her as an excuse so I could stay here, so I wouldn’t have to think of finding another place where I could belong!”

Her hand shot forward, gripping the man by the shirt, pulling him face to face.

“And do you want to know why? Because, just as you so eloquently put it the day we met, I’m a coward. Because if I leave… Because this is… Because this is all I know how to do! I have no other skills, nothing that makes me worthwhile besides my Pokemon battling! I’m nothing without this!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, possessed by an ire that had been pressurized inside her for god knows how long. “Why don’t you get it!? No matter how much I want to chase that horizon, in the end I’m just like the man who keeps saying ‘it’s useless, it’s useless’, because I know it’s true, I know there’s walls you can’t overcome! This is my real personality, the real me, so… S-so how can you… For a piece of shit like me, how can y-!?”

She didn’t get to finish. Her vision darkened, and all of a sudden she felt her face pressed against the fabric of the man’s shirt. His arms were tight around her, shaking.

“...It’s not like you to be this chatty,” he said in a low, serene voice. “Shut up for a little bit, okay?”





#22 Best for you



“You’re right,” the man with the cross whispered after almost a full minute. “You’re a horrible person, and you’re not even that hot.” He paused, and though Sabrina couldn’t see it, she knew he was smiling. “I don’t know what I saw in you.”

Sabrina closed her eyes strongly, her face buried against his shirt.

If we…

“I wonder… Are you refusing because you’re worried about what he might think? Ha…”

If we could stay like this…

“Mr. Azure was very disappointed. He said your drop in performance was due to certain… distractions.”

For just one more minute…

“Don’t let your guard down, Sabrina. Don’t let him weaken you. You were so beautiful before, sharp and ruthless… I miss it oh-so dearly.” Azure sighed. “If only things could go back to the way they were before…”

“...”

“Come with me,” the young man whispered. “Please.”

After what felt like a lifetime, the Gym leader pushed against his chest, slowly taking a few steps back. When she finally looked up, her eyes were dull and colorless. Her expression was the same as when they’d met, so many battles ago.

Then, to the man’s confusion, a wide, morbid smile stretched across her face.

“Heh. You’re something else, you know that?”

A sudden blink. Confusion. “What-?”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?”

The man froze in place, eyebrows slowly rising on his face.

“Let me guess," said Sabrina, the corners of her lips forming a smile as sharp as though it'd been carved onto her face. "You thought you could just show up one day all of a sudden, charming smile and all, and change me? You thought that as a moral, religious man, it was up to you to save this poor wayward sheep? That’s what you thought, wasn’t it?”

“What are you…?”

Sabrina shrugged, still smiling. “Well, I’ve got news for you; I don’t need to be saved. I’m perfectly fine the way I am. And do you want to know something else? All this time, thinking that with your kindness and your idiotic smile you’d managed to melt this wretched girl’s frozen heart… You have no idea how hilarious I found it, how much I laughed at your stupidity when you weren’t around.”

The man’s jaw dropped, his breath seemingly gone from him. “What?”

“Want me to make it clearer for you? You mean nothing to me,” she said plainly. “All you are is some mild entertainment I liked to tune into when I was bored. I don’t care about you in the slightest, I never did.”

“That’s… You’re lying,” he whispered, though he couldn’t hide the tremor in his voice. “You’re lying, right?”

Sabrina’s gaze was unflinching, frigid like ice.

“You’re-”

He tried to take a step toward her, but froze when he noticed the Pokeball on her hand.

“Don’t take another step,” she warned him. There was a flash of light, and a Mr. Mime materialized next to her. And despite his goofy appearance, the man knew well that he was one of the Gym’s most powerful fighters. “If you get an inch closer, I’ll kill you.” All hesitation was gone from her voice.

The look on the man’s face could’ve broken anyone’s heart. Wounded, his wide eyes searched Sabrina’s doggedly for any sign, any indication that…

“Is… is it true?” he finally asked. “Everything that happened, was it really…?”

“Leave,” Sabrina cut him off. “I don’t want to see you ever again, whether in my Gym or my city. I’m tired of this game.”

Without saying anything else, the Gym leader turned around and walked away, disappearing into the darkness of the young night.





#23 A Recipe for Hate



As soon as she closed the door behind her, exiting into the small open courtyard at the back of the Gym, Sabrina felt an arm around her shoulders, and the weight of another person leaning on her.

“Hooooo, talk about ice cold,” Azure whistled, his smile so clear in his voice Sabrina could picture it without looking. “That’s the Sabrina I like to see!”

“Don’t touch me.” she whispered. Behind her calm tone there was the threat of an imminent explosion.

“Scaary!” protested the man, raising both hands as though to defend himself. “But you know… You are an incredibly good liar, I can’t deny that. Ha, even I almost bought it for a second. But don’t you think you might’ve gone a bit too far? I mean, having to walk home through this cold Saffron night with a broken heart… sigh . Poor guy.”

The last three years of life-and-death battles weren’t nearly as difficult as remaining calm in that very moment. She closed her eyes, fighting tooth and nail for any ounce of serenity.

“The job,” she said. “I didn’t come here to have a chat.”

She only had two Pokemon with her at the moment; the previously shown Mr. Mime and an Exeggcute recently brought from the south of the region, which she’d intended to test for the first time during her battle with the man with the cross today. A missed opportunity. Yet she knew another one would come, depending on how difficult their target would be to kill.

“Aren’t you going to ask me who it is?”

“...”

“You’ll be surprised 🎵”

Azure waited for a reaction, but when he didn’t get one he just kept talking.

“It’s almost poetic that you’ll be the one to do it…”

“Where are the others?” Sabrina asked, sounding tired. So tired...

“Hehe… The rest are already in position. This won’t be an easy target, you know. If I sent you out there all on your own… Why, I’d lose my precious Gym leader! And then the boss would be very cross with me.”

Sabrina bit her lip, hands balled into fists. “Can you stop being so fucking mysterious?”

“Want a clue? You and her have…” And he turned sharply, his bicolored eyes staring straight into hers. “...a lot in common.”

Sabrina’s eyes flew wide open. A memory came to her, months and months ago during that party…

Something did catch her attention, though. Hushed, furtive whispers; mentions of a certain someone coming back to Saffron… judging by the tone of their voice, it must’ve been someone both admired and feared by them. But who-?

So… it was her.

“Sab-”

“Original and best 🎵 ”

“...rina.”
 

Inyssa

Bug Catcher
Pronouns
He/Him
Partners
  1. kricketune
Author Notes: We're almost there!!! One more chapter to go; will these lovebirds make it out?



Chapter 4: God's Love

#24 Pretenders





After being her shadow for all these years, Sabrina would now have to kill the person she’d admired since she was a child. Curiously, she didn’t feel anything at the prospect.


Maybe the man with the cross had been right. Maybe this place had eroded her beyond repair.


“What? Nothing to say to that?” Azure huffed, holding the back of his head with his hands. “Boooring.”


Shrugging almost robotically, a dead-eyed Sabrina whispered. “If that’s the case, I should go get my strongest. That’s all there is t-”


Yet the moment she turned around to head back inside -both to get her Pokeballs and at least a minute of peace- she caught Azure’s gaze moving fast, somewhere over her shoulders. The slightest show of tension.


Then, a giddy smile formed on his lips, and he spoke.


“You’re good, I’ll give you that. But you’re clearly not the sharpest crayon in the box, are you? After all the effort Sabrina made to keep you safe…”


Every muscle in Sabrina's body seized up. She heard a faint tap on the grass behind her and slowly, fearfully, turned around to find the man with the cross having just landed on the courtyard, eyes hidden by shadows.


“Wh…”


No. Nononono... This was bad. This was the worst possible situation. How had he managed to sneak in without anyone noticing? And why the fuck had he followed her in the first place?

Stupid, you’re so stupid! She cursed internally, although deep down…


Without dropping his smile, Azure tried to take a step forward but Sabrina quickly stopped him by raising an arm, staring ahead with eyes like those of a Hoothoot.


“I’ll deal with this,” she said, producing a Pokeball. “Didn’t I tell you to fuck off? Forget about what you heard and leave this city if you don’t want to die. I won’t repeat myself again.”


Azure giggled beside her. “Ah, I’m afraid it’s not that simple anymore. This man heard of our plans, which means we can’t let him leave, can we?” He left in just enough of a pause for panic to start building inside Sabrina, but what he said next truly threw her into disarray. “Still… it can’t have come as too much of a surprise. I’m sure you already suspected we’d be killing her tonight; you just came to confirm it, didn’t you?”


Sabrina turned to look at Azure, tilting her head in confusion.


“What?”


“I tried to warn you,” the man shrugged, feigning offense even though childish glee bubbled right under the surface of his face. “I told you to be careful with him, but you didn’t listen.”


She didn’t understand what Azure was implying, but she didn’t like that smile on his lips one bit.


“All this time, feigning interest in you, trying to get close… And you never suspected a thing! He’s been working for the real Sabrina since the very beginning!”













#25 Someone to Believe





“What!? That’s not true!” The man with the cross burst forward with anger, shock and hurt still clear on his face. “Sabrina, he’s lying!”


“Am I?” Azure whispered, smiling serenely.


Between the two, Sabrina stood languidly in place, the gears in her brain turning so fast they were giving out smoke.

Wasn’t it strange? A malicious voice whispered inside her head. How he never told you where he came from, or what he was doing here? He didn’t even tell you his name. Isn’t it suspicious how he always talked so much without saying anything about himself?


“...Of course,” she said, barely audible. A small, bitter smile dragged at the corners of her lips. “Why else… would he be interested in someone like me?”


“S-Sabrina?” The man’s voice was pleading. “You don’t… believe him, do you?”


Azure clapped his hands together loudly enough to bring Sabrina back to reality. “Well then!” he exclaimed jovially. “Now that the Meowth is out of the bag, I imagine you won’t have a problem cleaning the filth that’s infiltrated your Gym, right?”


But she didn’t move, couldn’t. She felt the man with the cross’ eyes on her, wide, begging.


“It’ll be a nice entree for tonight’s main dish~” Azure hummed, placing a hand atop Sabrina’s head like one would do with an attack dog.


She still had Mr. Mime’s Pokeball in hand, but she couldn’t will her limbs to move. The rawest, most harrowing doubt was reflected in her eyes.


“What’s wrong? Go on, kill him,” Azure urged her. “Why the hesitation? This is the trash that toyed with your emotions for so long, remember?”


“Shut up! That’s not true!” The man with the cross bellowed. “I followed you around because… I had to make sure…!”


Sabrina’s hand was trembling. Azure stole one last glance at her, and sighed.


“Hah. Looks like I’ll have to dirty my own hands after all .”


“N-!" Heart leaping to her throat, Sabrina turned around to protest, but it was-


“Too late~


The man’s bicolored eyes fell closed, lips still quirked up into a smile. Then, in a flash too fast for even the eye to follow, a Pokeball was opened and the creature within materialized before the man with the cross.


The monstrous Nidoqueen, as wide as five men, fell upon the man with a swipe too fast to dodge, tearing into his side with her knife-sharp claws.










#26 Heaven is Falling





The spray of blood from the Nidoqueen’s attack reflected off of Sabrina’s eyes, glistening with moonlight, but thanks to the man’s incredible reflexes the slash only caught him on the side, missing his vitals.


A lot happened at once. Right as Sabrina pressed the button on her Pokeball, materializing her Mr. Mime by her side, a flash of green light appeared in between the man with the cross and the Nidoqueen as he stumbled back, slamming against the former with monstrous force, enough to send a shock-wave of air and push the beast back almost toward the wall.


It was Clay, the Scyther that always gave her so much trouble in battle. Despite being much smaller than his opponent, the strength behind his scythes threw Nidoqueen off balance with very little difficulty, the bug’s eyes shining with a ferocity unlike any Sabrina had seen before.


It was enough to give her courage, if just a little. She parted her lips and…


“Mime, Psych-!”


BLAM!


Completely ignoring the Scyther and his master, Nidoqueen turned on a dime and threw herself at Sabrina like an incoming train. Her massive hand closed around the girl’s torso, lifting her off the ground as though she weighed nothing and slamming her against the wall next to Azure with enough force to loosen some of the bricks, flakes of cement and paint exploding in a cloud around her.


“S-Sabrina!” The man with the cross' scream ringed in her ears, harrowing.


“Come on, don’t be like that now,” Azure sighed, hands calmly shoved in the pockets of his pants. “Are you really going to throw away your future just for this man? Did you think this through at all? If you reconsider and kill him like I ordered you too, I’ll pretend this never happened and we can continue being good friends. What do you say?”


Yet Sabrina could only grunt and struggle against the Nidoqueen’s grip. It was useless, like a young child foolishly attempting to move a stone pillar with their hands.


“...You know, if you acted like a real psychic, you wouldn’t be in this situation,” Azure said, teasing. “Maybe it’s about time you stop ignoring what you are, hm?”


Vision swimming, Sabrina half-opened one of her eyes, looking for her Mr. Mime, when she saw Azure sigh again, and turn to walk toward her, which made her heart sink. But then…


At first she thought her brain had frozen. But no; contrary to her -and even Azure’s- expectations, the man was unable to take that first step, that ever-present smile on his face faltering ever so slightly for the first time since she’d known him. His bicolored eyes widened with surprise, and Sabrina followed them as they looked behind him, over his shoulder.


There, in the man’s shadow, lay buried a small knife unlike any Sabrina had seen before, its blade short and triangular. Somehow, unbelievably, that alone kept Azure from moving. Even speaking seemed to come as a challenge to him.


“Hoo… You really are talented, eh?”


The man with the cross simply formed a lopsided, confident smile, his black eyes shining with determination. The wound on his side bled slowly, dripping, red infused with moonlight.










#27 Them and Us





Azure, still completely immobilized by some invisible force, could do little as the man with the cross took another Pokeball out of his pocket, gripping it with shaking fingers.


Yet he looked strangely calm despite being at his opponent’s mercy, his tight-lipped smile betraying an amused hum in his throat. And on the opposite side of the spectrum, Sabrina was almost sweating blood with the amount of effort it took not to pass out due to the Nidoqueen’s suffocating grip, who seemed to want to push her straight through the wall.


A part of her short-circuiting brain wondered why the hell Mr. Mime wasn’t doing anything, but then… it wasn’t needed.


“RHYSHAAH!”


Something fast and purple slammed against the beast’s back like a cannonball, just hard enough for her to relax her grip and allow Sabrina to slip free. The Gym leader fell to her knees, coughing and gasping. And through tear-filled eyes she saw the long, serpentine shape of a familiar Pokemon coiling around the stunned Nidoqueen’s torso, who let out an ear-splitting roar as she tried to shake both of her opponents off.


Sabrina knew the Arbok well, though due to his inherent type weakness she hadn’t seen much of him during their matches.


“As long… as the knife is stuck there, he won’t be able to move,” the man with the cross explained, reaching Sabrina’s side and pulling her by the shoulder to her feet. His shirt was stained with blood, though thankfully the wound didn’t seem deep. “It won’t… agh, last long, though.”


Sabrina’s -somewhat oxygen-deprived- brain lagged for a moment, heart racing, as she looked between the struggling Nidoqueen and her listless owner as though she could will their situation to be less shit. A couple breaths later, she leaned against the man’s shoulder and found purchase, determined to do something. To-


The door on the other side of the courtyard opened before she could speak. A chorus of voices, flashes of Pokeballs being opened, too many things happening at once. Chaos.


"There! Get them!" an unfamiliar man's voice echoed.


A trio of Houndour jumped the Mr. Mime -who hadn’t moved a single muscle since leaving his ball- and sank their fangs into him as soon as he hit the ground, ruthlessly tearing him apart accompanied by a series of screams that would’ve chilled Sabrina frozen, were it not for the tri-colored beam of light that fell upon them a second later.


They jumped in opposite directions, barely dodging the attack, but that’s all they had time to do. Three of Azure’s men were already upon the man with the cross by the time his feet touched the ground, grabbing him by the arm and torso, a storm of hands and arms. One of them was trying to choke him, while the other swiftly grabbed the belt full of Pokeballs from his waist, tearing it off and throwing it aside where he couldn’t reach it.


“Sabr-ghahh!” the man choked as someone placed an arm around his neck, lifting him up.


Didn’t Azure say everyone was already in position for tonight’s mission? Sabrina wondered in the flash moment before she reached for her second -and last- Pokeball. Maybe… No, it can’t be. Did Azure… know this would happen?


And like a fitting backdrop to the chaotic painting that was their surroundings, Azure stood immobile and calm, smiling impassively.













#28 It’s a Long Way to the Promised Land





Black eyes alight with fury, the man with the cross screamed at the top of his lungs and threw the man holding him from behind over his shoulders, instantly producing a knife from his sleeve and stabbing it into his liver the second as he slammed to the ground. Two others reached to grab him, Pokeballs in hand, but he dove forward and vaulted over the one he’d just stabbed, putting distance between them.


“Agh, they… they have my Pokeballs!” he roared as he stumbled back toward Sabrina’s side, eyes moving back and forth dizzyingly. Yet when he glanced over his shoulder, he noticed the girl had her eyes closed tight, as though concentrating on something.


What followed was an eerily familiar chill, air thinning, compacting around them.


Come on… Sabrina begged, pursing her lips tightly. Just a little more…


To the man’s great surprise, a faint blue light soon surrounded their bodies, blurring them, making them fizzle in and out like a broken T.V. image. They were almost gone-


“Swift!” a voice screamed out.


A wave of golden energy stars slammed against the back of both trainers, pushing them violently against the nearest pillar and almost throwing Sabrina to the ground.


“Shit! I can’t… I can’t do it yet!” She cursed her weakness as she wiped the blood off her cheek, vision swimming, head pounding.


A familiar, chillingly cruel laugh echoed from behind them, almost too far back to hear properly.


“It’s already too late!” Azure bellowed, sounding positively ecstatic, like a child about to open a birthday present. “Do you see now, Sabrina? At the most critical moment, when it truly mattered, you doubted him! You chose to believe me ! And now it’s too late, no matter what you do!”


“SHUT U-!!”


A massive figure slammed against the wall behind them, shattering it with ease and forming a huge hole beneath the body of the Pokemon that had been tossed. The man’s Arbok lay unconscious over a pile of rubble. And on the opposite side, Azure’s Nidoqueen cracked her knuckles, eyes fixed on the wounded Scyther before her.


Bursting with panic and adrenaline, Sabrina’s eyes went to the hole in the wall. It led to the Gym arena, and thus, the exit.


“Now!” she screamed, grabbing the man by the arm. “Let’s go!”


“Wait-no! Clay!”


Struggling against Sabrina’s pull, the man looked horrified over his shoulder at the Scyther who could barely dodge the barrage of fire from the Houndour as well as Nidoqueen’s punches. He was fast, faster than the eye could follow, but against so many of them-


“Shit!” Sabrina said suddenly.


In their distraction, a pair of buzzing Beedril appeared in between them and the exit. Sabrina froze in place. She still had another Pokemon, but-


Clay didn’t think about it for a moment. In an inhuman burst of speed fueled by fear and loyalty alike, the Scyther cut a zig-zagging verdant path around his opponents and threw himself at the two Beedril, blocking their stingers with each of his scythes. His two new opponents threw themselves at him alongside the four behind, and yet somehow, miraculously, Clay managed to hold them off for a few moments, dancing between their attacks like smoke through one’s fingers.


“Let’s go!” Sabrina repeated, desperately dragging the man toward the exit. “Please!”


Tears forming in his eyes, the man with the cross finally stopped resisting. They took the first step over the rubble.


“Clay… CLAY ! Please… Don’t die, partner!”


He took one last, painful look back; he would never see his Pokemon again.


And they started to run.










#29 In the Night



“Kill the man, and bring me Sabrina. Preferably in one piece, though if it can’t be helped I’ll be content with just her pretty little head.”


Azure, finally free of that odd shadow binding, dusted himself off and spoke as casually as an office boss asking his secretary for a cup of coffee.


“Oh… And take that too,” he added, pointing toward something buried in the rubble of the now destroyed courtyard. The look on his face as he raised his finger would’ve frozen the veins of the bravest person.


--------


The small group of men scouting the outside of the Gym were used to testing challengers before they were judged worthy to fight Sabrina, so they had some knowledge of Pokemon battling. Yet as they made their way toward the cold and dark Saffron streets, few could hide their nervousness.


“What are you so afraid of?” one of them, the oldest and tallest, elbowed his partner and stepped forward. “Gym leader or not, there’s little she can do without Pokem-”


He cut himself off, raising a hand to stop the rest as he noticed something in the distance. The men narrowed their eyes. Was that…? Something like a body was collapsed past the edge of the nearest turn, what seemed like a head visible above the rubble.


“D-did the rest get them already?” he whispered.


They advanced slowly, carefully. What must’ve been the man’s head was covered in a dirty black cloth, or was it his jacket? The bravest of them stepped forward and quickly snatched it back.


A bad idea.


Six pairs of eyes met his. The Exeggcute smiled maliciously as it spat a cloud of yellow dust in their faces, which quickly grew to cover the entire group.


“Gh-ghah! Stun… s-spore…!?”


Not too far away, the man with the cross looked over his shoulder as he ran, his teeth chattering and his fingers numb from the ruthless cold. The Saffron streets were so badly lit and full of rubble that he and Sabrina kept tripping every few seconds. And the various wounds and scratches on them certainly didn’t help. It was a moonless night, and the thick blanket of clouds above hid every single star in the firmament.


“D-did it work?” the man asked.


“I don’t see them following us, so you tell me,” Sabrina replied, struggling to keep up with his running. Stamina had never been her strong suit.


At the sound of that, the man waited for her and then wrapped one of his arms around her head in a chokehold, laughing as he ruffled her head in glee.


“Haha, we did it! Who would’ve thought; in the end it was your dirty tricks I hate so much that saved our hides!”


“I c-can’t… breath…” Sabrina wheezed, flailing her arms at him.


“Oh, sorry. Hehe.”


Before she could tell the man she’d be more than happy to leave him behind next time he did that, she saw him stop in place only a moment after they resumed their running. His eyes were set on an old woman crossing the street opposite them.


He didn’t hesitate for a second. At first the woman seemed alarmed to see a man bleeding from the side approaching, but then he gently grabbed her by the shoulders and spoke.


“Miss, I’m imploring you to return to your home,” he said with that tone that had -unknowingly- worked so well on Sabrina all this time. “Saffron is dangerous at this time of night, and it will only get worse. Please.”


The old lady looked at him and spluttered, unsure of what to say.


“We don’t have time for this!” Sabrina complained, grabbing him by the arm and pulling away. “I’m sure more of them are on their way, come on!”


“A-ah! Please, go back to your home, stay safe! Jeez, I’m coming…”


They kept running in silence for an indeterminate amount of time, scurrying through forgotten alleyways and avoiding any street that was even remotely lit. And the further they got, the more Sabrina actually realized what she was doing. She was leaving the Gym. Leaving the city. The ramifications of that choice terrified her, overwhelmed her. Was she really going to…? What the hell was she supposed to do from now on? Where would she go? Could she even survive on her own?


No… not on her own. If she was at his side… as long as they were together, she could go anywhere. That thought brought -for the first time since she could remember- a smile to her face. She felt more alive than ever before, emboldened by the knife-sharp cold winds running past her face.


After a few more minutes, however, the man with the cross stopped to lean against a nearby wall, wheezing.


“Let’s… let’s rest, just for a second. Okay?” His voice sounded uncharacteristically weak.


“We can’t,” she said, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “Not until we leave the city.”


“Ha… I guess you’re right.”


Tearing himself from the wall, he followed Sabrina’s lead -why wasn’t he the one in front?- for a good few minutes in which the girl was too focused on their immediate survival to realize the man was slowly falling behind. Until it was too late.


“Huh?” She finally noticed, and turned to look at him. “What’s wr…?”


One hand over his wound, the man slowly raised his head, black eyes meeting green. The expression on his face was one she’d never seen before, the most tragic of realizations slowly dawning on his pale face. Sad, so terribly sad…


Author notes: :)))
 
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