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One Way Out - Chapter 6

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS RACIST ABUSE AGAINST SHINY POKÉMON, IN BOTH A PHYSICAL AND VERBAL MANNER. IF THIS TYPE OF CONTENT DISTURBS YOU, READING THIS CHAPTER IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED.

At that precise moment, I wasn't sure what to say. Especially if one gave regards to the incident that had occurred just an hour or two ago. These guys all had extremely solid stories, and I had feared the worst if I said anything that they deemed vulgar, or anything that creeped them out. Or in a double whammy, both.

But after about a minute, their eager stares soon developed into rather concerned ones, showing signs that they were worried about me being nervous, at least, that's what I thought. Soon Nico patted me on the back in a rather sympathetic manner and asked me: "You okay, Vito? You've frozen like a statue!" this comment pretty much confirmed my theory.

Well, fortunately this slap on the back was what ultimately resulted in me getting up at long last - albeit slowly and in a fairly restrained manner - and balancing my arms down on the dull wooden table below me, and I cast a long, hard gaze at all of the members in our clique: Nico, Matt, Nathan, Delrin, and Marcel.

As soon as I cast my long gaze at them, their concerned faces remained visible, and soon I realised that I had to speak for these concerned frowns to be wiped away. My mouth finally opened, and the following words came out: "H-hello. My name... is Vito Angelo."

And to my relief, those frowns etched on the faces of my companions, suddenly disappeared and were instead replaced by smiles and grins of happiness and in a way, relief of their own. This applied especially to the case of Delrin, who judging by his number on his jumpsuit, was no longer the fresh meat of the group. But I fell into their trap!

"Hello, Vito!" They all cheered out in greeting towards me. And at this point, I couldn't help but bare a wide, wide grin of my own, finding this whole thing both hilarious... and also relieving. That may sound corny to some, but eh, anything's better than just being beaten and smacked around every single hour of every single day of every single month!

Soon, I regained my mental composure, and I continued my little introduction. "I am Inmate #879. I was arrested... for robbing an expensive jewellery store in Castelia City, and I'm serving eleven goddamned years in this place." As soon as they found out the sentence, they gave me some disbelieved looks. But I wasn't done. "And do you guys wanna know how long I've stayed in this Arceus-forsaken place?

And to my surprise, they all kept an eager posture - Marcel could have been an exception, as he gave a rather passive smile and nodded very slowly - and they nodded quite quickly. Smiling at this, I continued the ignited introduction.

"Two days. That's all. Two measly, stupid, stinkin' days." and to intensify my surprise, Matt, Marcel and Nico started tittering and snickering at this comment of mine, and soon they began applauding my rather half-hearted performance. And soon the remaining two followed suit and joined in the applause.

But soon this applauding was cut short by the slamming of a blunt object down on the table. It resounded with a loud thud, and caused all of our clapping to grind to a halt. We saw the perpetrator to be that of "Filthy Scissors", who leant over the table, and had a look on his face like I had killed his mother.

"Will you fucking retards shut the FUCK UP?!" he shouted at us, and soon we noticed that his voice was rife with an accent which not even your own grandfather could decipher. It was too bizarre for me to distinguish. But to be honest, this guy's accent didn't really bother me, but his rude behaviour certainly did.

He then focused his attention to Delrin, shooting him a rather sadistic smirk, like he was his plaything or something like that. He then enquired in a heartless manner to the Shiny Pokémon: "So, damaged any government property lately, you Shiny bastard?" And then things turned ugly.

The Charmeleon did not respond, and the Scizor only widened his sadist-esque smirk and in the space of a near second, he belted the Charmeleon in the chest with the wooden baton he held in his hand like it was his son. Delrin never saw it coming though, and it knocked the wind out of him as he was catapulted off the bench, and was lucky not to crack his skull, as his head collided with the wall behind him, and the sound of it was enough to make me cringe.

But did Filthy Scissors care? You guessed it. He didn't. He kept waiting for a response, and when the Charmeleon did not respond, he just continued to hammer away at the Charmeleon's gut and chest, whilst screaming all sorts of heinous, horrific profanities at him. The whole thing was like in slow motion. But Nico tried to get up out of his bench seat, but before he could stop the bastard and his tirade of abuse, the Bug type was ready for him.

In another split-second, he reached into his far left pocket, and out came a revolver, which had a menacing glisten to it, the silver lining of it glistened in the rather dull light that was positioned above our table. He didn't hesitate from pointing the barrel of the revolver in our group's direction, with his finger poised over the flimsy-looking trigger, and an errant twitch of his index finger could've sent us into an eternal silence.

He then barked at us: "Any of you wanna try and be a hero for your little SHINK buddy here?!" and in a reluctant stand off, the Nidoking could do nothing but back down, as a single bullet could take down any Pokémon, especially within the same point blank range that Filthy Scissors was holding his at. But he kept taunting us with remarks such as: "COME ON!", "Step right up!" and a few others. But they all pointed in the same direction, which was to shut us up.

Defeated, we simply gave in to the officer's brute-style tactics, and soon let out a long, cruel cackle at us, clearly revelling in our displeasure, and this especially applied to the case of Delrin, who was still on the floor, shielding himself and trying to absorb the pain that he had sustained from that mugging.

"Now sit down!" he shouted at us before placing his revolver back into his pocket, and near-immediately walked off, as if he expected the group to suddenly attack them. But that moment never came. Instead, our minds were focused on comforting the poor Shiny Pokémon who had fell afoul of Filthy Scissors.

Nico and Matt were the first on the scene, rushing over to help the grovelling Charmeleon. The fire-type was curled up, not really acknowledging the effort of the two. But soon the rest of the group - including me - assisted in helping Delrin up.

"Delrin, are you okay?!" I frantically asked the Shiny Pokémon, developing serious concern about the damage he might have sustained from both the blows and the fall. The face that greeted me sowed an expression of pure confusion, like his memory had been wiped clean or something like that.

Delrin did respond, but I couldn't really make out what he was saying, as the contents of the speech was mostly slurred, and the only thing that I could probably decipher from the response was something that sounded like "Don't worry." But to be honest, there was no way that I could know that whether he said this was true or not.

Soon, after a few minutes of silence, Marcel suddenly started escort Delrin out of the room, and turned to face me. He said: "Vito, come with me. I need some help with Delrin." Under normal circumstances, I would have insisted that someone else do it, but with a condition as unclear as Delrin's, this thought never entered my head.

I immediately rushed over, and did what the Gabite told me to. I grabbed onto the Charmeleon's right arm, and we began to escort the poor guy down the corridor, surprisingly gaining no attention from the guards, as they were either trying to spark up some cigarettes with their buddies, or simply did not acknowledge our presence, no matter how obvious it might have sounded.

Marcel then whispered to me in a rather down to earth manner: "Listen, newbie... We can't rat these guys out, or else they'd kick our asses... So we're gonna have to tell them that Delrin slipped, and hit his head hard on the floor. That sound clear enough?" and at first, I nodded. But then a rather concerning thought developed in my mind.

"Wait... What about Delrin? What if he tells the truth?" I asked quietly, not wanting to get the attention of the guards we walked past. But it was like Marcel had anticipated this question, as he responded in a much more confident tone: "Don't worry. He knows the drill. The same thing happened with Nathan a month ago, and I told him the same thing I told you. He won't rat them out. That'd be suicide. If the screws don't get us, then the dominant Pokémon will."

"Why?" I asked, being close to near bewildered by the mechanics of this prison's 'secret code of law'.

"Heheh... Well, being a snitch in this place is pretty much a death sentence. This means that by squealing on others, you can't be trusted by any Pokémon that comes into contact with you, and seeing as how the snitch chose to squeal, they'd see you as a threat for their 'activities' and would do whatever it took to get you." and with that comment, I finally gained some understanding of the subject, no matter how morally gruesome and morbid it sounded.

The thing that got me about Marcel, was how he gave a weird combination of attitudes to both our clique, and myself. One moment he's a stone cold killer, the next he's an analogical figure you could mistake as a distant uncle or an old friend.

Soon we were heading towards the medical part of the building, where I could see a Red Cross sign strewn across several doors, and on dusty signs above me. But as soon as I glanced into each door window, an empty room greeted my sight, implying that no-one was there.

But soon, I noticed a light coming out of a door window at the end of the corridor.

Seizing the opportunity, we both made our way towards it, with Delrin in tow. And to our pleasure, we found a Chansey inside the room, perched onto a tall chair.

Not wasting any time, we knocked frantically on the door, and we were relieved to hear a quick response of "Come in~!" from the person inside. The voice itself had a rather calm and soothing tone to it.

We then opened the door and brought in Delrin, who was still in a dazed state. Upon noticing this, the Chansey got up out of her chair and went over to us.

"Hello? What happened to this poor guy?" she asked, before taking him from our hands and placing him onto a gurney in the corner of the room, and slowly spread out his limbs, so that she could have a clear look at the damage the Charmeleon had sustained.

We both shot glances at each other, before Marcel faced the Chansey and told her: "Well, Delrin here got into his usual clumsy attitude, and ended up slipping over just as he was about to go and wash his tray up. The poor bastard nearly cracked his skull from the hard floor!"

The Chansey stared at us, before slowly nodding and saying: "Well... That's unfortunate. Usually Charmeleons are extremely aware of their senses... But I guess that there can be exceptions. Leave him here with me, and as long as I don't see any signs of a concussion, he should be back in his cell for when the lights go out."

Well, that was all we could do on our end, and so we left Delrin in the trust of that nurse, and we soon exited the room and headed down the same alleyway that we came from.

But what about what happened earlier? What happened to Kaz? Hang on, those will come later. For now, my mind was focused on tying things off with Marcel, and getting back before Evening Roll Call.

Sounds boring, right?