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Jessie

Later that night I lay in my bed after a night with Shaina. She had been so pleased with me and Hal saving her a sandwich: avocado-beef-tomato, her favorite, that she took requests for tonight, which was extremely unusual for her. I couldn't help but think of the night before, and requested an encore, which pleased Shaina to no end.

Yes, it had been a great day, early to get home so I could spend time with Hal and Shaina, and a great night to cap it off. I lay in my bed and a rare smile pulled at my lips.

"Jess?" said the most familiar and angelic voice I knew, and I turned to Hal who was standing at my bead side, clutching Po with one hand like a teddy bear and looking up at me sadly.

"Ya Hal?" I asked, and she started to blush and rub her toes at the floor in a uncharacteristically shy way.

"I had a bad dream about mommy." she explained. I knew instantly what she was feeling, what she had dreamed.

"Oh Hally," I crooned as I started to hug her gently. I could feel her start to sob without making a sound, her little shoulders heaving and little tears crawling down here cheeks.

It had been over a year now; it still hurt to think about it and it probably would never stop. I could still see, with perfect clarity, the way mother stood between this poor whore and the man who wouldn't settle for a one time deal, a man who was looking for a slave to take home. Mother was so confident, so strong, even as the man let out his Scyther. She stood resolute, firm in her beliefs and ready to defend those weaker than her, right up to the moment she lost the good fight, falling in a puddle of her own blood as her son and daughter stood by without weapons and were forced to run for their lives from the man who could commanded a monster to murder her.

I had been afraid, weaponless and weak, and I swore to myself it would be the last time.

"Shhh, Hal, it's Ok." I lied, because it was not ok, and this was the only thing that I couldn't fight, couldn't make better for her.

"I miss her," she sobbed, "and Daddy too." Her face stayed buried in my shoulders. Father had taken Mother's death worse than all of us. He locked himself in tiny room of the apartment we had rented with the last of our saved money and didn't come out for hours. When he did, he was a broken man, with no job, no wife and no way to do anything about it. He left the apartment that night, and we waited for days for him, but he didn't come back.

From there, Hal and I went through a hellish journey of allies, thieves, fights and dirt, were we learned how to cry silently so we wouldn't be found by the wild pokemon that prowled the nighttime streets and alleys like a jungle, were we learned how to defend what we had with our lives and with the few things we had left of our parents, and were we learned about how life in this fantasy land of pokemon could be just as dark and hard as any nightmare you could have, no matter what the games were like back home.

Hal's sobbing kept on, and I lifted her in my arms onto my bed. I let Po snuggle close to her and I wrapped us all in my covers the same way we had with thread bare cloth on so many lonely nights. This was a better place for Hal, and I had Shaina, the girl my mother died protecting, to thank for convincing Harriet that my old urban exploration hobby gave her a perfect messenger boy.

Hal soon wept herself to sleep in my arms, and I watched over her until I followed, content that we were safe and done with our long, painful journey, no matter how often we were reminded of it. We were staying here.

I didn't know how wrong I was.

******************************************

In the depths of the night, I woke. Hal and Po were still snuggled in my arms under the covers and the house stood silent, but I knew without a doubt something was wrong. Call it instinct, call it warriors reflex, but I suddenly knew that we were in danger.

I shook Hal awake quickly and as quietly as I could, hoping that who or whatever was coming wouldn't know we had woken up. Hal came to slowly, fluttering her eyelids sleepily, and then they suddenly shot open in fear. Her hand shot forward and launched a wave of raw aura energy so powerful you could see it light up the for a moment before crashing into something completely invisible only inches from the bed.

A trainer and his Gengar flew out of the empty space across the room and into the wall. The Gengar had been keeping his trainer invisible, and the trainer had been holding a big damn knife. I would have kissed Hal if I wasn't already up and wielding the small cross from my night stand at the ghost.

Now, ghost pokemon were tricky little buggers, they could turn invisible, most could pass though walls, and they were only hurt by energy, be it heat, electricity, or anything other than what I could swing at them. Of course I learned how to cheat, and when I had to get rid of the ghosts that used to lurk in our current living space, I found out that they were vulnerable to physical attacks when in the presence of faith.

The Gengar shrank back as I charged, trying to faze back into the wall like it could usually do. I picked him up with one hand and slammed him into the wall a few times violently, the cross letting me mash his face in. It wouldn't have worked if I was Jewish unless I had a Star of David, and the cross wouldn't have worked for most of the population here, who were mostly atheist, but it worked because I had faith it would, and that was worth a hell of a lot more than the symbol itself.

I smashed a few more times, probably more than necessary but I felt justified, and then threw the Gengar to the ground, unconscious. I turned to the trainer who was pinned to the ground by Po. It looked really funny actually, this little two foot fox pinning a five foot guy to the ground with one foot. I would have laughed if the guy hadn't just tried to murder me in my sleep.

I grabbed his neck and lifted him up against the wall with his feet a good foot of the floor. I stared into his eyes menacingly.

"What. The. Hell." I emphasized, and I swear the kid was going to have a heart attack.

"Wait, don't kill me!" he pleaded through his constricted airway, "It wasn't my plan, I didn't want to, but it was my job! I..." I threw him to the ground, breaking a few of his bones. I stomped on his chest and leaned over.

"Who wants me dead this time?" I growled as I dug my heel into his chest.

"He didn't want you dead," the kid said, "but he had to you would have stopped him."

"Stopped what?" I demanded. The kid struggled to breath under my foot.

"We... We're destroying the house. Harriet's too...too influential," he breathed "she's starting to become a problem..." I reached down and pressed on his neck with my fist slowly.

"Who is she a problem for?" I said, and the kid started to make a gurgling noise. It took me a minuet, to realize he was laughing.

"There's nothing you can do." He choked, "It doesn't matter what you do to me, It can't... it can't be as bad as what he'll do." Then his eyeballs rolled up in his head as he fell unconscious.

I lifted off of him and turned to Hal. She was scared, but not by the potential murderer, and not by what I had done, she had seen far worse. She just was looking up at the ceiling in fright.

"Jessie..." she said, "there's more. Lots, lots more."

I took her around to where my stuff was hanging and started belting it on, making sure not to forget the cross. Hal looked at me with a mix of fear and slowly dawning excitement that came before a fight. I smiled at her reassuringly.

"Then we'll just have to go greet our guest." I grinned, and pulled my blade from it's peg, letting the ring of metal hang in the air.

Now, it was business time.

Hal, Po and I crept up the stairs silently as possible, which for us was damn near silent. The stairway was as dark and familiar and lead up to an even darker hall. I stopped Hal and Po at the top and took a moment to concentrate on the energy around me. I felt a pressure in the middle of my forehead as I opened up my aura sight.

The hall in front of me was suddenly light: every edge seemed to glow slightly, and every intruder was surrounded by an aura that shone out like there own personal star. There were at least twenty of them dressed all in black military assault gear, littered around and surrounded by a mix of nervous yellow and angry red aura in different intervals. Each had at least three of the double aura's that a pokemon had that told their type and mood around their belt, coming out of their poke-balls. I saw a lot of fire type and fighting type auras, but few of the trainers had them out yet.

I turned to Hal and tried to communicate with Hal using my aura. Hal could communicate complete and complex sentence, but I had a hell of a lot more willpower behind mine.

<Stay here!> I 'said' and I could feel Hal start to protest, but I was already stalking the closest trainer. I could tell by the yellow color and way his aura was spread that he was on high alert. I used my own aura to distract him away from me, a sort of psychic tap on the shoulder that he probably interpreted as a slight bump in the night to the left of him.

The kid's aura spiked in the direction I had 'tapped' him as he spun away from me. That was the moment I darted behind him, wrapping one arm around his neck and mouth and another under one of his arms, blocking out his scream and air and immobilizing him completely. His eyes grew wide and his aura became pierced with a deeper yellow fear. I held him still as I poured my essence into his gaze, allowing me to see him as he truly was.

I saw a massive marble statue of him crouched, lovingly over a smaller statue of a child, and all over the statue's white skin were the most hideous black scars, each one filled with a picture and a word. I saw more few that had a picture of different people with the words rape, murder, and kidnap imbedded in them, but the scars were only on the person, like he was protecting something precious with his own soul.

I noticed three scars that were faint and red, like they were new but not yet inflicted. I looked closer, and saw a picture of one of the whores named Anna with the words rape and kidnap under her. Another picture was of the House with the word burn, and the last picture was of Harriet, beneath which was the simple word kill.

I ripped my essence out and realized I could smell the kid urinate himself. When I saw him, he saw me with all the clarity I did, and I would be the first to tell you I'm not a saint. I could never see what others saw of me, but almost every person who had reacted more or less like this poor, murdering child I had in submission in my arms.

I flexed slightly, cutting off his airway completely until he went limp. He'd live; I didn't have the hart to kill him because I knew what it was like doing horrible things to protect others. This was why I hated looking into another's soul like this: it made it really hard to kill them when I had to.

I lay the unconscious boy on the ground in the dark and started to work my way to Harriet's office around the intruders in the dark. I had to get to her before she was killed by this mysterious group, and I only hoped that Isis would be enough protection until...

I had just snuck my way to the stairs going up to Harriet's office when there was a sudden, violent crash and Isis blew threw the wall backwards into me, knocking us both to the ground. The Machamp Thor walked threw the hole and nodded to the closest invader.

"It's done, go loud!" He commanded, and then threw up the closest light switch.

Isis and I were up in an instant, charging the trainer and Thor before their eyes could adjust. The trainer when down under a blaze kick from Isis, and Thor staggered as I slashed across his chest. He stood stunned for a moment before giving me a look that said he wasn't going down that easily. Then he took a flying kick to the face from Po followed by one of Hal's best aura blasts. He flew back into and out the back wall of Harriet's office.

"I told you to wait at the stairs!" I scolded at Hal, who stamped her foot defensively.

"I just saved you a long fight with a Machamp!" she argued, "And besides, one of them was going to check on the man who tried to kill us, so Po and I had to..."

Just as I was about to learn what wonderfully violent things Hal had done (I'm a hypocrite, I know), Isis cried out and ran into the office

Hal, Po, and I fallowed her but stopped dead as she ran to the desk and fell over her dead trainer. She wept over Harriet's naked form still leaking cum and impaled on the wood by a long dagger identical to the one that I had almost taken to the chest earlier. The newest member to the House, and the apparent traitor lay motionless on the side of the room, burned badly and missing a large part of is chest. I was certain he wasn't about to get back up after what Isis had done to him.

I felt a part of me weep for Harriet. Sure she had been a bitch of a boss, but damn it all she had been my bitch of a boss and she had provided for Hal and me the home I couldn't find for myself. She had done a lot for us, even if she had been as malicious as possible while doing it.

Isis picked something off the desk and left her late mistresses side with her head hanging from her shoulders. Hal hugged her around the middle in sympathy they way only a child can.

"Oh, Isis" she sobbed as she buried her face in her stomach plumage. Isis just lifted her hand and offered me the flame patterned poke-ball in her hand, her poke-ball.

That almost broke me down crying. She had just lost her mistress, a pokemon's entire world, and she respected me enough to offer herself as my companion. I picked it up gently and saw the tears well up in her eyes as she sobbed right along with Hal for a moment.

Then the wall exploded as Thor charged us.

Debris flew in all directions as the wall blew open, surprising everyone but Po, who unhesitatingly threw himself at the Machamp's face. Thor casually caught the little guy between his two lower hands, completely enveloping him between his fingers at the same time Isis and I sprang at him. He reached out and grabbed Isis's ankle and swept her into me, knocking both of us and my outstretched blade to the side as he advanced on Hal.

I saw the shock on her face as she froze up in fear, her one fatal reflex to danger. I scrambled to get to Thor before he could get to her. Isis and I leapt to our feet; we had to stop him or...

And then Thor's lower hands suddenly exploded in a wave of raw energy and light that blinded the whole room. He staggered backwards only to take a flying double kick to the face from the now evolved Po. The impact hit him harder this time, as Po had almost doubled in size and more then doubled in weight, and he staggered back.

It was all the time I needed to leap after Thor and drag my blade across the back of his left calf, hamstringing the mighty fighter. He fell to one knee, and then Isis landed a flying blaze kick to the back of his head. The impact sounded like a cross between meat hitting a grill and a bitch slap from God as it burned and broke the back of his head.

He finally went down, and we knew he wasn't coming up again this time short of a poke-ball and a center. Hal sat where she had for the entire sequence and started to cry slightly. I walked to her and held her in my arms reassuringly.

"Shhhhh," I told her, "it's alright, it's over now."

"I'm sorry..." she sobbed, "...I froze up again... and I almost got you all killed." Her head was buried in my shirt to hide her tears.

"It's all right, we're fine now." I told her but she shook her head.

"I thought I was over it when I got that ghost man but..." she tried to complete her sentence but could only cry more. I held her head against me, trying to stem her tears. As powerful and all knowing as she was, she was still just a kid, and even with all the things she had seen, she needed me to fight for her, and neither the host of heaven or the pillars of hell would stop me.

Po the Lucario stood next to us respectfully as Hal finished her cry, the intimidating spikes on his chest and forearms reminding me of something in my bag. Po was a steel fighting type now, and so more susceptible to fire attacks, something I had started making a contingency for a long time ago. Hal leaned off me and onto Po, who was now just as tall as her, as I took my bag off my shoulders and rummaged through until I found what I was looking for.

I pulled out a small, black jacket about Po's new size and looked it over. It was mostly the same Houndoom fur mine was made of, but with bits of the impact vest I wore sowed on the inside (the cop I had won it off of had been almost twice my size), and with a pair of gloves of the same make in the pockets. I handed it to Po bluntly.

"You're gonna need this," I told him, "There's gonna be a hell of a lot of fire guys out there."

He donned the jacket; a perfect fit no less, and nodded as he pulled on the gloves. I wasn't so sure heaven or hell would stop him either as he stood protectively behind Hal.

Po, Hal, Isis and I looked to the hole still in the side of the office, and then the screaming started.

Shaina

I woke to screams. The dream I had been having was a wonderful romp with Jess in the woods so lovely and warm and... then it was pierced by the cries in the hallway.

I sat bolt upright, naked and in bed, to find Kay, my big protective boy, standing over me and staring at the door of the room with Nina standing behind him. Then the door suddenly burst inward, and in stepped a trainer and his very large Toxicroak.

I quickly tried to cover myself with the covers as Kay began to growl.

"What are you..." I started, before Kay let loose a roar and charged. Seventy pounds of enraged Persian flew at the invader only to be blown aside by the back of the Toxicroak's hand. Kay flew, twisting his body so his feet hit first, and as soon as he hit the wall, he pounced again, only to be stuck back once more. This time, Kay hit the ground and tumbled, but soon was up again.

Nina and I watched in horror as Kay continued to pick himself up and pounce again only to be stuck down. Each time he stayed down just a little longer.

"Kay," I cried as he hit the wall with a crunch, leaving a spider web of cracks, "don't get up..." I pleaded, but it vain. He slowly tried to rise again, even though he never learned how to fight, even though I had raised him from birth without any battles or training, even though he had no chance of winning, he rose with the intent of stopping the intruders that threatened his home.

Nina shivered beside me as Kay struggled to get up. The trainer nodded to his Toxicroak, who walked calmly over to Kay, and stuck him down again.

"No!" I pleaded, "Leave him alone, I'll do anything you want!" Kay still tried get up against all odds.

"I know," the trainer told me, but he didn't flinch as his pokemon struck Kay again, blood flying from the now open wounds on his body.

"No," I pleaded as Toxicroak started to strike Kay as he lay on the ground, "stop!" I yelled, as his fists glowing purple, injecting poison into the wounds. And then he stopped, leaving Kay a lifeless lump of beaten flesh on the floor.

"Kay..." I whimpered, and then the trainer pulled out a long, thin knife as he approached me. Toxicroak fallowed behind.

"Now," he said conversationally as Toxicroak grabbed the trembling Nina by the throat, "you're going to come with me or your dear pokemon is going to get the same treatment, fallowed by you." He grabbed me by the base of my hair and threw me to the ground, naked and unprotected. He picked me up and held me helpless with one hand behind my back. I could feel the cold steel of his knife on my throat.

"Now return your little cat to its ball and walk."

Jessie

The four of us ran out into the hall only to be met with more than a dozen trainers, all with various fighting or fire pokemon and each leading one of the girls out with a knife to there throat. Everyone in the hall stopped for a moment, subconsciously taking the suddenness of the situation in.

"Aw damn." I swore, and then all hell broke loose.

The trainers yelled in a cacophony of commands to attack and then ran off, leaving their pokemon to fight and yelling down the hallways that I wasn't dead at the same time that Isis and I sprang into action, charging the pokemon that stood in our way.

I let out a battle cry and slashed at the first mass that was in my way and leapt past the ring of them, now single mindedly trying to stop them from taking Shaina. Well, almost single mindedly.

"Jessie!" Hal cried from the midst of the crowed of pokemon behind me. I stopped on a dime and spun around instantly. Hal and Po were backed against the wall, Po defending Hal with everything he had while Hal took nervous pot shots with her aura whenever she could. Isis stood in the middle of three different fire pokemon, a Charizard and two Infernape, who were giving her hell.

I didn't hesitate a second to dive back in and help them, drawing as many of the pokemon to me as possible. I stuck and dodged and parried like a man possessed, only acting and reacting to the fight as it moved with only one thought on my mind: Shaina would have to forgive me for saving my sister.

I fought on, attacking only lightly on every target at once, not daring to take to long on one lest the others land more attacks. The Charizard backed too close to me while focusing on Isis and went down with a severed wing before going out with a heavy sky uppercut from her. Hal gathered herself and blew a Torkoal and Hariyama off the side of the railing and down two stories. Two more fell under my blade and I took a glancing ember to the shoulder, almost falling but staying up, all the time riding the line between failure and living.

Others fell, and soon only four pokemon were left. One of the Infernape's threw a flaming punch, and I hooked his arm in the inside curve of my blade, adding a quick twist that broke his arm, just the way the blade was designed to. As he cringed, I hooked my blade around his ankle and swung him into his already wounded twin next to him. The two tumbled on the ground. The momentum from the throw left me open for the Magmar to attack, but not before Isis knocked him sky high with a sky uppercut and then down with a drop double kick. The Magmar landed on top of the Infernape and both were blasted down the hall and through the window at the end by a double aura blast by Po and Hal.

I turned to the final pokemon, an Arcainine, and stared it down. It took one look at us and growled before it turned tail and ran for the door. Smart dog. No sooner had it left than I sprinted down the hallway to Shaina's room. I reached the door and stopped dead.

The door was off its hinges and Shaina's faithful Kay lay broken on the floor. I couldn't speak as Hal came in behind me.

"No," she gasped, and then ran to his side. She looked frantically around, and found his poke-ball on the floor. She held it in her hands and pointed it at Kay's body.

"Return!" she commanded, and a red beam of light flashed into Kay's body but only fizzled out over his blood matted fur. The poke-ball let out a single, small ding and went silent.

"Kay, return!" Hal pleaded, "Please return!" The poke-ball didn't react and Hal threw herself onto Kay's body, weeping over her lost friend. Isis came into the room and stood over Hal without hesitation, trying to comfort her the same way she had for her only a short while ago.

I felt my body tighten and I stormed out of the room. I would find these bastards and kill them, kill them all for destroying the one place I could call home, for attacking all I held dear. I stormed down the stairs and to the front door. I burst though, ready to track the people I sought over the roof tops and to the depths of hell if I had...

I felt a sudden shift behind me, and I spun around only in time to take a blade to the inside of each shoulder. I was knocked to my chest and down onto the street before I even had a chance to see what hit me. It was a Scyther as tall as me, covered from head to toe in black body armor, including its eyes. The things armor had only an opening for the nose and mouth, just so it could breathe and bite, and that meant it had caught me using only smell and sound.

The thing grounded his blades into my shoulder before picking me up and chucking me into the nearest back ally. I landed heavily next to the corps of the Arcainine that had left earlier. It was torn open, its eyes lolled into the back of his head that was now several feet removed from his body. I tried moving my arm, but it was no use, the tendons in my shoulders had been severed. Each of the wounds burned like hellfire its self, but neither arm would budge.

I looked up and saw the Scyther standing over me, readying a strike. I started to gather the aura blast that I knew would come too late, and his blade rose in the air before the Scyther was suddenly blown down the alleyway by an unseen force. The force slammed him against the far wall hard enough to leave cracks, and then let go as the Scyther flew off, running with its proverbial tail between it's legs.

My aura sight had turned off at some point, and I turned my head to the front of the ally expecting to see Hal. Instead I saw a lone figure, somewhere in height between Hal and me, colored in white and moon blue. Each elbows extended past his arm in a blade that was similar to a pair of tonfas. On each side of his head were white spikes, on the top was a large blue piece that reminded me of a Roman helmet, and from his chest protruded a red triangle of a horn. My savior was the pokemon Gallade.

"What...? I started to ask, but the wounds in my shoulders stopped me dead. They must have punctured the upper part of my lungs as well, because I started coughing up blood. The Gallade was instantly at my side, placing one hand right between the wounds in my chest and one on the middle of my forehead. I saw his eyes light up and suddenly felt a rush of energy go through my body. I suddenly felt so alive, like I could hike mount Everest and take on the armies of Persia all by myself and not break a sweat.

It wasn't until Gallade let go of me that I realized I had been having some sort of seizure. I lifted myself off the ground and Gallade slumped as if he had just run a marathon or two, but in a moment he was back up and perfect again. He stared at me intensely before I heard it.

<Dark One,> a voice that undeniably belonged to the Gallade echoed in my head, <you are an enemy of the Black Mantises?> He said more than asked, and I assumed he meant whoever had attacked us and left that armored Scyther for me.

"I am," I told him, "and who are you?" I asked respectfully to the one who had just saved my life. His voice came to me again.

<My name is Spade, and we fight the same enemy, we fight for the same reason,> his voice sounded solemn and cold, like a chilly winter morning at a church, <we both fight for loved ones lost.>