HOME | DD

Description
Chapter Thirteen: Interception
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“We wished to create a weapon to end the conflict before it started, a weapon more powerful than anything we could have dreamed of ... And by Arceus’s jewel, did we succeed. The results were more horrifying than I could ever imagine. Despite their best efforts, the containment teams have failed to quarantine the incident ,and the death toll is still rising... I am stepping down from my position. I cannot live with this guilt."

---

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She was a monster. The epitome of evil and at the very heart of corruption, greed, and malice. Some called her criminally insane, others spread rumors of her insatiable lust for killing, and even more plead to their Legendary of choice to remove her from the realm of the living with divine fire and lightning.

She heard every one of their calls. What other choice did she have but to remove them? They called her an anathema of the world, so she lived up to their rumors by psychically imploding their children.

Was it too much? She knew the answer, but the lust drove her to do it again and again. She delighted when the peasants screamed curses at her name, when they had called her a scourge upon the earth. The held the province under her sway for months, yet there was nothing the Kingdom or their Federation could do to remove her.

Where had it all gone wrong? In her spare time, she had pondered this question. She knew that she was a moral abomination, but she was never one to ‘color inside the lines’ with morals, anyways. Sure, they were good in idea, but she found that doing the complete opposite was far more rewarding. And she craved the reward, even if it was soaked through with crimson blood.

She suspected it was when she had evolved, though even her advanced mind could not figure out the exact root of the problem. The Legends saw fit to make her misaligned, so what could she to do except fulfill her purpose in this world? And if that purpose dictated that she systematically slaughter every creature on four legs in her territory, then so be it.

She was the most advanced being in the entire world, and she knew it. They had called her a monster. And she loved the title.

It had been a fluke that the incident happened. Her brilliant plan to obtain unlimited power backfired to give her the bane of her existence. She was able to control him like a puppet and she took full advantage of him. She abandoned her usual killing fields and, like any patriot, her immense hatred of the enemy drove her to devote herself to the Colonies and their directives.
It didn’t take long for everything to fall apart on that fated mission. The amount of things that went wrong was much too high to be a mere coincidence. She was nothing now--a shred of consciousness held together by raw hatred that drifted on the very fringes of the corporeal world. She knew exactly who had done this to her, and she spent every available joule of energy she came by thinking of exactly how she would dismember him piece by wonderfully bloody piece.

“I know who you are, Charmeleon. You and I are quite the same, deep down. We don’t trust anyone, do we? We don’t belong here. I saw what it was you kept secret. Right before everything went wrong, I got a glimpse of it. I will find you one day, human. And make no mistake, the pressure will crush you this time.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s for the best, honestly,” she sneered as she swatted aside Wire’s battered conscience with a mere flick of her will. He groaned as he tried to get up again, but it was no use. His psyche sunk to the floor of his mind in defeat.

“Traitors have a special place down there. Have fun in hell,” she screeched as the entire room went dark and fire shot up from the floor, illuminating Nexus’s twisted form in a demonic haze.

Wire’s entire body jolted awake as he opened his eyes. Artificially produced gasps wracked his system, trying to regain order in his mind. It was a nightmare. Nothing more, he tried to reassure himself, but even now, his body couldn’t cope with the fact that he was free.

His ocular lenses dilated and focused themselves as they adjusted to the dim morning light. Shifting his great pylons of legs slightly, he pushed himself up into the air where he quickly took stock of his surroundings: the granite stone walls, the smells of damp straw and sweat, the small acropolis of predominantly wood buildings that rose above the rest of the camp like an island in the sea, the sounds of the two hundred and six inmates that resided uncomfortably within the thick stone enclosure. He initiated the audio recording equivalent of a deep breath --completely arbitrary as his body did not require air in the slightest, but the noise was comforting in an odd way.

He was still at the prison. Still honoring the agreement that she signed while in control. Still under the rule of the Colonial government. Free from her, but at times he wondered if it was entirely worth it.

Stop that! Of course it was worth it! You are free of her! his rational thoughts yelled at him from across the remaining void that had isolated him for years on end.

Her piercing metallic laugh lingered in his ears even though it had been several days since his blessed forced severance. Wire shook his head in an attempt to get the thought out of his head, though nothing seemed to work. Not matter what he did, they always came back, the crimes he committed under her control.

Wire rotated his body and moved his legs to warm up the stiff joints. He had only returned to the Colonies three days prior, and his superiors were not pleased with his report of the loss of Nexus and the failure to kill his target. Outwardly, he expressed his own disapproval of the situation and continued to promise his services to the Colonist’s cause, but on the inside, the only thing that kept him from leaving was the threat of being reunited with Nexus. The Mismagius drove a hard bargain, but he knew it was well worth it.

“Hey! You! Metagross!” Wire’s attention was turned from his thoughts as he heard a voice call to him. He halted his patrol of the wall and looked over the inner side to the ground below. A small purple creature hailed from the bottom of the wall. Probably yet another prisoner looking to try and bribe me to set them free, Wire thought to himself as he began to continue his walk away from the prisoner.

“W-Wait! I saw you! You fought Salient, didn’t you? You brought them back to the Square! Didn’t you?” the desperate Pokémon shouted from the ground below. Wire froze mid-step as the smaller Pokémon doubled over in a coughing fit.

His body moved instinctively, tightening like coiled springs, releasing, and flinging his heavy body off the wall. His four steel legs slammed into the dirt inches away from the inmate, sending earth and other particulates spraying into the air. Wire lowered his head so he could see the inquiring Pokémon up close.

“What do you know of them? Tell me,” he commanded, barely avoiding having his voice channel glitch and cause a stammer. The wheezing inmate in question looked in no state to be answering any questions: his frame seemed to be much thinner than a normal Sableye’s --according to Wire’s database. He was matted with dried blood, and the creature had a single dirty rag wrapped around his head covering his left eye.

“A-allow me to introduce myself, please. My name is Aleck, I was a merchant in Loyalty Square before being rudely carted off to this interment sconce. I knew the members of Salient, and I heard what you did to them. News travels fast, especially in this prison,” Aleck said as a smaller coughing spell overtook him. Wire was intrigued, to say the least and decided to indulge the Sableye with an answer.

“I was under the influence of … a nightmare. I was forced to hurt them among other things, but I tried to save them afterwards. You said you knew them; what happened to them?” the Metagross implored from the sickly Sableye. He quickly glanced around, Too many other Pokémon around to remain unnoticed, he judged. “Why don’t we take this somewhere more secluded? I need to know what happened,” he told Aleck.

Before waiting for an agreement from the former merchant, he summoned forth the psychic energy that composed his being. His red eyes glowed bright yellow and in a flash of brilliant white, both he and the startled Sableye were in the middle of a stone room deep within the bowels of the center of the camp. Wire focused another psychic pulse and aimed it at the Luminous Orb that hung in an iron fixture from the ceiling. The glassy sphere immediately burst into light and illuminated the place.

Wire cringed a bit at the room once it was revealed: several demented-looking, iron instruments were arranged carefully on shelves, a metal chair complete with numerous rusted, metal chains and clamps sprouted from it like a flower bloom from Erebus, and the formerly grey stone of the floor was stained a dull red from a substance Wire could only assume was blood. He looked at the Sableye. Both of his small claws were held close to his face and his small body trembled in terror. Wire immediately cursed his choice of secluded places in the camp.

“Please, relax. I am not here to harm you. I just want information. Please, tell me what happened to the Charmeleon, the Jolteon, and the Riolu,” Wire ordered while trying to appear as non-threatening as he could, though, as he was a steel tank in a room full of torture devices, that attempt failed miserably. Aleck shot backwards and tried to pry open the thick metal door that sealed the room shut.

“The door is locked on both sides. Also, this room is completely sealed, so the oxygen levels will swiftly deplete unless you cooperate with me, please.” Wire informed him as he slowly tapped the stone floor with one of his massive metal legs. Gasping from his attempt to claw the door open, Aleck slowly turned around to face the giant blue automaton. Wire noticed that the eye that was showing glinted with something that he registered as anger. The Sableye walked up to the Metagross and tapped a single claw on his face plate.

“Listen here, I don’t know who you think you are, but I’ve been beaten and taken against my will too many times. I’m drawing the line here! I was hoping to simply talk to you, but now I’m not feeling so inclined to do so,” Aleck retorted. Wire merely brushed his claw off his face, nearly gouging out Aleck’s remaining eye with his spiked foot.

“Please, I just want to know what happened to them. Are they alright? Did the Charmeleon survive?” Aleck simply scowled.

“Well, I guess I don’t have a say in the matter, do I? Let me start. Leo, the Charmeleon, and his two friends were suddenly teleported into the middle of the town square a few days ago. By you, I suppose? Anyways, they were taken into custody by … our officer. They were cleared to leave the next day, apparently completely healed.” Aleck answered at last, his breath becoming slightly more drawn out than usual.

Wire tried to process all of what the Sableye was saying. If this statement is true, then it means that … my liberator held up his side of deal. Th-- Thank, Arceus that they are alive.

The crushing weight of guilt that had consumed him over the past few days was lifted slightly. He swiftly teleported himself and Aleck back to the courtyard. He had to prepare. He would find them, and he would help them out in any way he could.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You know, if I had just used a Water Pulse before you kicked my legs out, I would have had you!” Noah yelled boisterously at Jay as they dined on the rough tables outside the mess tent at dinner the next day. The Riolu looked up from his bowl of steaming broth that seemed to swim with unidentifiable ingredients --Ramses refused to divulge the contents when they had asked.

“Sure, sure. You just can’t admit that I finally beat you in a fair battle, can you?” Jay asked, a wide grin forming on his face as Noah slammed both of his fists down on the table.

“That was not a fair battle! I had already been through two battles before I faced you. I’d hardly call that fair!” Noah snapped. Leo watched with a slight bemusement over his own bowl of the potentially hazardous meal as the two Pokémon kept up their argument over the legitimacy of Jay’s victory.

Noah had woken up early that morning and, much to their dismay, was excited as ever to begin the day and seemed not to suffer any fatigue from his knockout during the match yesterday. Leo had been reluctant to leave his hammock. He wasn’t stuck in a pleasant dream; in fact, he hadn’t had a single dream at all, and he wanted to enjoy every minute of the uninterrupted sleep.

Neither the Dewott nor Torrent were going to let him relish the pleasure of beneficial rest. By the time the sun was cresting the horizon, he --along with Jay, Noah, and Kelly-- were given training work moving filled crates across the camp. Leo was certain that he’d be sweating if he had the ability to do so.

The muscles in his arms and legs burned with a dull, aching pain in protest of the strain they had been subjected to. Leo knew that it was good for him to put some training on his new body, but it didn't help the horrible feelings that came with it.

Jay seemed to share his feelings, but did not voice them as he continued his banter with Noah. Leo summoned courage and gulped down the watery substance in his bowl as he tried to ignore the chilling feeling that accompanied it. Leo looked to the opposite side of the table where the three members of Team Emerald were conversing among themselves. The team had been sticking near them ever since they arrived at Camp New Rain, training with or near them, eating at their table at meal times. It was as if they were determined to become their friends by association alone.

Leo couldn’t help but feel slightly unnerved by their constant presence. Sonic was nice enough; he was always the least talkative of the trio. But when he did, he seemed to connect the most with them. Leo had only talked to the guy a few times, but he could almost count him as a friend after those conversations.

However, Blade and Elliot were a different story. The Grovyle and Absol seemed to have some sort of psychic connection between them, always nodding silently to each other, whispering conversations behind crates or tents and always hushing their voices as soon as he approached them. They tried their hardest to put on a friendly facade, as when Blade ran into him yesterday, but Leo couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling about those two.

You have absolutely no basis for your distrust of them, his thoughts scolded, but yet the feelings remained and only seemed to intensify with every passing hour. If he hadn’t been preoccupied with his ailing sanity, he might have taken the initiative to investigate his gut feeling of unease.

Jay and Noah continued to argue; they now seemed to be shouting at each other from across the table. Leo had tuned them out several minutes ago. The last few days had been torture. There was no other way he could phrase it. It all started when I saw that ... thing, in the cafe. It had all gone downhill from there. Nearly killed, hallucinations, run out of town, burned, exploded, ambushed, beaten. How the hell am I still alive? An interesting question, but not one he had an answer for. Just how had he survived?

He put his claw to his chin and closed his eyes. What has happened to me? He opened his eyes once again and looked down at the dull white claws. He moved them one after the other. Nothing in the past few days alarmed him as much as this. He vaguely noticed it during some of the quiet times back in their base at Loyalty but had never paid it too much heed until now. He was certain that he would always remember, but the memories had grown foggy.

He couldn’t remember what human hands felt like. Hands were not the only thing that had undergone this memory dump. Leo was almost clueless as to what hair felt like anymore, but the horn and scales he was currently fitted with almost seemed --dare he even think it-- natural. The sense of being tall at some point, the feel of human skin, wearing clothes. With every passing day these memories seemed more like distant figments of his imagination.

Oh God, what if ... What if I imagined it all? The thought was chillingly horrifying. And what was worse was that he had plenty of evidence to back it up. His mind obviously wasn’t in a position to argue for the memories’ validity, and even if it was, Leo doubted he would believe it. And, besides that, the only other thing that had specifically told him he was human was the Mismagius.

What if ... What if it was all-- His thoughts were rudely interrupted as Noah’s voice cut across them like a sharp knife.

“Earth to Leo! Come on, man! We gotta go!” The thoughts of uncertainty faded away to be sorted out at a later time as Noah waved a black paw in front of his face. “Let’s go! Get up!”

“Wait a moment!” Leo shouted as he slowly hopped off the log stump at the table, wincing slightly as the tip of his tail thumped against the wood. “What’s happening? Where is everyone else?” he asked as he noted that every soul other than Noah seemed to have disappeared from the mess area. Even Kelly and Jay were gone.

The Dewott shrugged. “There’s been some news. Apparently, someone’s here at the camp. Looks like a government guy --real stuck up Pokémon. Torrent called an assembly a few minutes ago. I’m not sure how you didn’t hear it,” he reported as suddenly he grabbed Leo’s wrist. Without waiting for a further reply or comment from the Charmeleon, Noah ran through the narrow alleyways between the tents dragging Leo behind him.

The front gate of the camp was a madhouse in the loosest sense of the word. The crowd surrounding the entrance was so thick that Leo couldn’t see past the first row of Pokémon. It was the first time he had seen the entirety of the camp assembled in one place.

Noah was not deterred by the seemingly impregnable mob and, still dragging Leo by the wrist, he wormed his way through the mass. Leo could only apologize tersely as he was forced to step on the feet of several Pokémon as well as the unexpected branding more than few of them received from his tail. Noah continued to push past the Pokémon, somehow managing to shove an Aggron out of his way without being crushed.

Soon enough, they were in the front row of the scene and Noah finally released his iron grip on Leo’s wrist. Kelly and Jay both watched the scene directly to his right, while Noah winged his left. Torrent stood scowling in the front of the crowd, Quark at his side with an equally sour expression. Now that he was at the front himself, he could see exactly why.

There was a Magnemite floating just inside the camp. From his tone and the amount of buzzing that interrupted his dialogue, Leo could tell that the machine was immensely irritated.

“ZBT! General! Why are you being so uncooperative? ZT! Need I say again that I have a warrant from Governor Richelieu? ZT!” he exclaimed as he waved a sealed letter held in his right magnet.

“You’ve already told us that quite a few times, Officer Rho,” Torrent hissed. The Magnemite muttered something darkly to itself.

“General, I have to search the camp. ZZT! We have suspicions that a few of your recruits might be fugitives. SZT!” he said with a harsh burst of static. He tried to move forward into the camp, but Leo felt the crowd thicken and form a wall against the officer.

“I see no reason why to doubt the sincerity of any of my recruits,” the Feraligatr said tersely, his patience seemingly at an end.

“ZBT! But, the warrant! I have a legal right to search this establishment! ZZT!” the officer, Rho, whined.

“Tough luck. Now leave, before I have my boys here escort you,” the general growled as two monsters seemingly made entirely out of red and dark blue stone on either side of Torrent took a menacing step forward.

Rho apparently took the hint and, much to Leo’s satisfaction, turned around and started floating back towards the exit. As he passed, Rho’s central eye locked onto Leo.

The Charmeleon wasn’t entirely sure what happened in the next few instances, but he found himself laying on his back and his scales emitting an oddly delicious cooked smell as thin, black smoke slowly wafted from his body. He cautiously lifted his neck up, a sudden numbness in his muscles making it difficult to move at all. He closed his eyes and memories from seemingly long ago in Loyalty prison came back to him in earnest --he had been electrified, again. Luckily, his body seemed to be developing a slight resistance to it, but not nearly as much as he’d like.

“Leo! Are you alright?” Kelly yelled from above him over the vast chorus of other loud voices. Leo reopened his eyes and saw her standing over him along with several other recruits he hadn’t met, a look of genuine concern spread across her face. He managed a clumsy nod and tried once more to elevate his neck to see what was happening in the crowd before him.

The Magnemite seemed to be buried under the muscular arms of Torrent, who kept picking up the small, steel Pokémon and threw him into the rocky ground. Quark hovered just outside the range of Torrent’s rage as he produced a weak, purple, psychic field that kept the throng of soldiers from joining in on the beat down.

“Treason! Traitors! BZZT! I’ll send you all to Sawgrass Town for this! ZT!” Rho screeched as Torrent threw another punch on his central eye, the general ignoring the sparks the officer was shooting off.

“I’d like to see you try, you piece of scrap metal,” the Feraligatr growled as he dented the front of the screaming officer. Dull, metalic, gonging noises resonated from the fight with each blow Torrent landed.

“I’ll watch them BZT! eat you alive! ZZT! You are all damned!” Rho cursed as Torrent decided to take a new approach to the brawl. He lifted the weakly-sparking Magnemite in his hand and raised the damaged Pokémon close to his face.

“If you ever come here again, I will rip you in half. And, if you even look at any of my recruits the wrong way, I will make sure you never see again. Understand?” Torrent asked, his voice dropped to a chilling whisper. The entire mob around Leo seemed to have the sound sucked out of it as they awaited the Magnemite’s response. Rho said nothing as he meekly hovered off of Torrent’s hand towards the gate of the base.

Based on his previous experiences with the species, Leo was hardly surprised when halfway to the camp entrance, Officer Rho decided to turn around and fire a pulse of electricity from his twisted magnets. Torrent spun around as soon as he heard the tell-tale cackle of energy. He raised his arm and caught the full brunt of the blast with his limb.

The yellow beam of energy forced Torrent back about three feet before dissipating. Torrent, to the apparent horror of the quaking guard, simply shook off the attack and faced him. He let out an almost primal roar as he pounced on the Pokémon. The entire crowd started cheering as Leo was suddenly hoisted on top of the mob, one of the Pokémon below must have sat him on their shoulders.

“BZZzT! They’ll slaughter you BZT! and your families! BZZT!” Rho cried as Torrent’s claws tore into his casing. Bolts of electricity jumped between the two fighters, though the Feraligatr did not seem phased by it in the slightest.

“No. They. Won’t!” Torrent yelled. With each grunt, he tore another piece off of the screaming officer. Leo couldn’t look away at the savage display. Even though a small part of his mind wanted to go in and stop the fighting, the majority of his head cheered along with the crowd. Leo forgot about the damage he had received and tried to lean forward on the Pokèmon’s shoulders he sat on to get a better look at the Magnemite’s brutal dismantlement.

The corrupt officer gave one final, ear-splitting screech as Torrent rended him in two. Sparks and wires flew across the clearing as the general flung the broken pieces of Rho’s core to the ground. The whirling mechanisms inside the core spun and sputtered smoke and sparks as they tried in vain to preserve themselves. Leo saw thin, blue streams of data stream out of the broken processor and fade into the air. Thick black smoke poured from the split core as the erratic movement gradually subsided.

“Now ... Everyone. Pack up camp. Not a drill this time ... Orders came in from Silver. We’re moving out. Tonight,” the blue reptile breathed heavily as faint lines of electricity continued to trace across his heaving body. With a groan, he slowly limped back into the camp. The crowd stood completely still for a moment before dispersing like frightened bugs exposed in a light.

Leo found himself plopped on the ground inches away from Rho’s still-sparking brain. Only the three Pokémon he knew in this world remained behind with him. Jay went up to the shattered hemisphere and kicked it with his foot.

“You know? I’m starting to like it here. How about you, two?” the Riolu asked casually as he examined a bit of sparking wire. “I mean, it’s been only three days and Torrent’s already killed a Magnemite that was hunting us.”

“I don’t understand how you think that’s a good thing. It’s still murder, even if they were hunting us,” Kelly whispered, her voice almost emotionless. She nudged the broken fragments of Rho away from Jay’s feet and further desecration.

Leo didn’t answer him immediately. Sure, he was completely ecstatic that a Magnemite was dead, but something with that didn’t entirely sit right with him. It might have been the final shred of his morality crying out to him that murder was wrong, but Leo pushed the feeling back into the back of his mind. I am happy about this, right? I should be happy. But, why do I not feel that way?

“I ... I don’t know what to think. Torrent ... he honestly scares me ... I’ll keep my distance from him,” Leo said slowly as he circumvented the debris of the Magnemite. “Is he usually like this, Noah?” The Dewott worked alongside Kelly to shift away the Magnemite fragments into a single pile near the dirt wall of the encampment.

“No.” The Dewott crossed his arms. “He has a bit of a temper, but never this bad. It’s because of what happened with Gear, I’m sure of it,” Noah explained, his normally cheery personality wavering for a few split seconds. Sounds of moving crates and collapsing cloth tents filled the air.

“It’s not a good sign,” he told them shortly before turning away towards the center of the camp. “Now let’s go. We have to pack up. Nightfall will be here sooner then you’d believe.”

Again, Leo wondered how time could possibly move so fast. The half of the day that had gone by seemed like an endless cycle of moving crates onto a series of wooden sleighs and packing every shred of personal belongings into backpacks.

By the time the sun had begun its descent into the western horizon, Camp New Rain as he had known it was no more. The orderly rows of faded tents were dismantled and carefully folded into tight rolls. He had assisted with the movement of every essential crate onto a fleet of wide wooden sleds. The mess tent was no more and the crude tables made from stumps shoved into the grassy thicket, as was anything else not considered vital to sustain a battalion of Pokémon until they reached their undisclosed destination.

Back at the site of Noah’s tent, they all swept the area, making sure there was nothing left behind. Jay used a spare bag Noah had swiped from somewhere to stow the odds and ends that had survived the flight from Loyalty. An orb, a small length of rope, a couple badly bruised apples and nearly smashed berries, and the worn map Jay kept with him at all times. Both he and Kelly had nothing except her Pecha Scarf -still covered with faint blood stains from Leo’s wound-and his key.

While Kelly and Jay sorted through the meager item pool, Leo took a moment to examine the artifact again. It had been some time since he had last paid a good deal of attention to it. The blue crystal appeared unchanged --although it was a bit dirty-- a small comfort to the Charmeleon. The smooth-cut key still hung as it always did from the gold band it was attached to. He slipped the key around his neck again, its reassuring weight on his chest bringing him an even greater degree of comfort.

“You’re always wearing that thing. What exactly is it?” Noah asked as he used his sharp shells to slice through a length of twine that held up the tent.

“It’s … a personal item. It was the first thing I found after waking up without my memories,” Leo replied as he slung his satchel over his shoulder and grabbed hold of the tent material. Together the two Pokémon tugged as the cloth came sliding off the frame.

“Hmm …Interesting. I don’t have any mementos like that, but if I had something as nice as that thing, I’d keep it under lock and key. Try to ignore the bad pun,” Noah said with a chuckle. “Never noticed that scar on you. What’s that from? Looks like it hurt like hell.”

“Actually, I didn’t feel it all too much,” he said with a small smile. Technically, it was not a lie. “You remember that Metagross Jay told you about? That’s where I got it.” Leo gave one final tug on the cloth as it lifted off the framework completely. Noah immediately went to work folding it into a series of increasingly smaller rectangles.

“Oh yeah, I remember. That entire story does seem a little far-fetched. But I believe it after seeing that scar. It’s surprising how much they can tell about a person. I’ve got one right here,” he said while pointing to a discolored line in the blue skin in the middle of his chest. “Would you believe me if I told you that I got this sucker fighting in a gladiatorial pit against members of the Cult of the Second Mew?”

“Umm … No?” Leo answered, unsure of what the Dewott was expecting from him.

“Good.” That was all Noah said with a wink as he suddenly picked up the rolled up tent canvas and walked off. Leo simply stood there as he tried to process the cryptic, nonsensical answer. It’s probably a matter best left alone. He’s so far off the deep end he might as well be in an oceanic trench, his thoughts told him comfortingly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note: This chapter is split into two parts. Link to the next one is below.

Description
Chapter Thirteen: Interception
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“We wished to create a weapon to end the conflict before it started, a weapon more powerful than anything we could have dreamed of ... And by Arceus’s jewel, did we succeed. The results were more horrifying than I could ever imagine. Despite their best efforts, the containment teams have failed to quarantine the incident ,and the death toll is still rising... I am stepping down from my position. I cannot live with this guilt."

---

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She was a monster. The epitome of evil and at the very heart of corruption, greed, and malice. Some called her criminally insane, others spread rumors of her insatiable lust for killing, and even more plead to their Legendary of choice to remove her from the realm of the living with divine fire and lightning.

She heard every one of their calls. What other choice did she have but to remove them? They called her an anathema of the world, so she lived up to their rumors by psychically imploding their children.

Was it too much? She knew the answer, but the lust drove her to do it again and again. She delighted when the peasants screamed curses at her name, when they had called her a scourge upon the earth. The held the province under her sway for months, yet there was nothing the Kingdom or their Federation could do to remove her.

Where had it all gone wrong? In her spare time, she had pondered this question. She knew that she was a moral abomination, but she was never one to ‘color inside the lines’ with morals, anyways. Sure, they were good in idea, but she found that doing the complete opposite was far more rewarding. And she craved the reward, even if it was soaked through with crimson blood.

She suspected it was when she had evolved, though even her advanced mind could not figure out the exact root of the problem. The Legends saw fit to make her misaligned, so what could she to do except fulfill her purpose in this world? And if that purpose dictated that she systematically slaughter every creature on four legs in her territory, then so be it.

She was the most advanced being in the entire world, and she knew it. They had called her a monster. And she loved the title.

It had been a fluke that the incident happened. Her brilliant plan to obtain unlimited power backfired to give her the bane of her existence. She was able to control him like a puppet and she took full advantage of him. She abandoned her usual killing fields and, like any patriot, her immense hatred of the enemy drove her to devote herself to the Colonies and their directives.
It didn’t take long for everything to fall apart on that fated mission. The amount of things that went wrong was much too high to be a mere coincidence. She was nothing now--a shred of consciousness held together by raw hatred that drifted on the very fringes of the corporeal world. She knew exactly who had done this to her, and she spent every available joule of energy she came by thinking of exactly how she would dismember him piece by wonderfully bloody piece.

“I know who you are, Charmeleon. You and I are quite the same, deep down. We don’t trust anyone, do we? We don’t belong here. I saw what it was you kept secret. Right before everything went wrong, I got a glimpse of it. I will find you one day, human. And make no mistake, the pressure will crush you this time.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s for the best, honestly,” she sneered as she swatted aside Wire’s battered conscience with a mere flick of her will. He groaned as he tried to get up again, but it was no use. His psyche sunk to the floor of his mind in defeat.

“Traitors have a special place down there. Have fun in hell,” she screeched as the entire room went dark and fire shot up from the floor, illuminating Nexus’s twisted form in a demonic haze.

Wire’s entire body jolted awake as he opened his eyes. Artificially produced gasps wracked his system, trying to regain order in his mind. It was a nightmare. Nothing more, he tried to reassure himself, but even now, his body couldn’t cope with the fact that he was free.

His ocular lenses dilated and focused themselves as they adjusted to the dim morning light. Shifting his great pylons of legs slightly, he pushed himself up into the air where he quickly took stock of his surroundings: the granite stone walls, the smells of damp straw and sweat, the small acropolis of predominantly wood buildings that rose above the rest of the camp like an island in the sea, the sounds of the two hundred and six inmates that resided uncomfortably within the thick stone enclosure. He initiated the audio recording equivalent of a deep breath --completely arbitrary as his body did not require air in the slightest, but the noise was comforting in an odd way.

He was still at the prison. Still honoring the agreement that she signed while in control. Still under the rule of the Colonial government. Free from her, but at times he wondered if it was entirely worth it.

Stop that! Of course it was worth it! You are free of her! his rational thoughts yelled at him from across the remaining void that had isolated him for years on end.

Her piercing metallic laugh lingered in his ears even though it had been several days since his blessed forced severance. Wire shook his head in an attempt to get the thought out of his head, though nothing seemed to work. Not matter what he did, they always came back, the crimes he committed under her control.

Wire rotated his body and moved his legs to warm up the stiff joints. He had only returned to the Colonies three days prior, and his superiors were not pleased with his report of the loss of Nexus and the failure to kill his target. Outwardly, he expressed his own disapproval of the situation and continued to promise his services to the Colonist’s cause, but on the inside, the only thing that kept him from leaving was the threat of being reunited with Nexus. The Mismagius drove a hard bargain, but he knew it was well worth it.

“Hey! You! Metagross!” Wire’s attention was turned from his thoughts as he heard a voice call to him. He halted his patrol of the wall and looked over the inner side to the ground below. A small purple creature hailed from the bottom of the wall. Probably yet another prisoner looking to try and bribe me to set them free, Wire thought to himself as he began to continue his walk away from the prisoner.

“W-Wait! I saw you! You fought Salient, didn’t you? You brought them back to the Square! Didn’t you?” the desperate Pokémon shouted from the ground below. Wire froze mid-step as the smaller Pokémon doubled over in a coughing fit.

His body moved instinctively, tightening like coiled springs, releasing, and flinging his heavy body off the wall. His four steel legs slammed into the dirt inches away from the inmate, sending earth and other particulates spraying into the air. Wire lowered his head so he could see the inquiring Pokémon up close.

“What do you know of them? Tell me,” he commanded, barely avoiding having his voice channel glitch and cause a stammer. The wheezing inmate in question looked in no state to be answering any questions: his frame seemed to be much thinner than a normal Sableye’s --according to Wire’s database. He was matted with dried blood, and the creature had a single dirty rag wrapped around his head covering his left eye.

“A-allow me to introduce myself, please. My name is Aleck, I was a merchant in Loyalty Square before being rudely carted off to this interment sconce. I knew the members of Salient, and I heard what you did to them. News travels fast, especially in this prison,” Aleck said as a smaller coughing spell overtook him. Wire was intrigued, to say the least and decided to indulge the Sableye with an answer.

“I was under the influence of … a nightmare. I was forced to hurt them among other things, but I tried to save them afterwards. You said you knew them; what happened to them?” the Metagross implored from the sickly Sableye. He quickly glanced around, Too many other Pokémon around to remain unnoticed, he judged. “Why don’t we take this somewhere more secluded? I need to know what happened,” he told Aleck.

Before waiting for an agreement from the former merchant, he summoned forth the psychic energy that composed his being. His red eyes glowed bright yellow and in a flash of brilliant white, both he and the startled Sableye were in the middle of a stone room deep within the bowels of the center of the camp. Wire focused another psychic pulse and aimed it at the Luminous Orb that hung in an iron fixture from the ceiling. The glassy sphere immediately burst into light and illuminated the place.

Wire cringed a bit at the room once it was revealed: several demented-looking, iron instruments were arranged carefully on shelves, a metal chair complete with numerous rusted, metal chains and clamps sprouted from it like a flower bloom from Erebus, and the formerly grey stone of the floor was stained a dull red from a substance Wire could only assume was blood. He looked at the Sableye. Both of his small claws were held close to his face and his small body trembled in terror. Wire immediately cursed his choice of secluded places in the camp.

“Please, relax. I am not here to harm you. I just want information. Please, tell me what happened to the Charmeleon, the Jolteon, and the Riolu,” Wire ordered while trying to appear as non-threatening as he could, though, as he was a steel tank in a room full of torture devices, that attempt failed miserably. Aleck shot backwards and tried to pry open the thick metal door that sealed the room shut.

“The door is locked on both sides. Also, this room is completely sealed, so the oxygen levels will swiftly deplete unless you cooperate with me, please.” Wire informed him as he slowly tapped the stone floor with one of his massive metal legs. Gasping from his attempt to claw the door open, Aleck slowly turned around to face the giant blue automaton. Wire noticed that the eye that was showing glinted with something that he registered as anger. The Sableye walked up to the Metagross and tapped a single claw on his face plate.

“Listen here, I don’t know who you think you are, but I’ve been beaten and taken against my will too many times. I’m drawing the line here! I was hoping to simply talk to you, but now I’m not feeling so inclined to do so,” Aleck retorted. Wire merely brushed his claw off his face, nearly gouging out Aleck’s remaining eye with his spiked foot.

“Please, I just want to know what happened to them. Are they alright? Did the Charmeleon survive?” Aleck simply scowled.

“Well, I guess I don’t have a say in the matter, do I? Let me start. Leo, the Charmeleon, and his two friends were suddenly teleported into the middle of the town square a few days ago. By you, I suppose? Anyways, they were taken into custody by … our officer. They were cleared to leave the next day, apparently completely healed.” Aleck answered at last, his breath becoming slightly more drawn out than usual.

Wire tried to process all of what the Sableye was saying. If this statement is true, then it means that … my liberator held up his side of deal. Th-- Thank, Arceus that they are alive.

The crushing weight of guilt that had consumed him over the past few days was lifted slightly. He swiftly teleported himself and Aleck back to the courtyard. He had to prepare. He would find them, and he would help them out in any way he could.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You know, if I had just used a Water Pulse before you kicked my legs out, I would have had you!” Noah yelled boisterously at Jay as they dined on the rough tables outside the mess tent at dinner the next day. The Riolu looked up from his bowl of steaming broth that seemed to swim with unidentifiable ingredients --Ramses refused to divulge the contents when they had asked.

“Sure, sure. You just can’t admit that I finally beat you in a fair battle, can you?” Jay asked, a wide grin forming on his face as Noah slammed both of his fists down on the table.

“That was not a fair battle! I had already been through two battles before I faced you. I’d hardly call that fair!” Noah snapped. Leo watched with a slight bemusement over his own bowl of the potentially hazardous meal as the two Pokémon kept up their argument over the legitimacy of Jay’s victory.

Noah had woken up early that morning and, much to their dismay, was excited as ever to begin the day and seemed not to suffer any fatigue from his knockout during the match yesterday. Leo had been reluctant to leave his hammock. He wasn’t stuck in a pleasant dream; in fact, he hadn’t had a single dream at all, and he wanted to enjoy every minute of the uninterrupted sleep.

Neither the Dewott nor Torrent were going to let him relish the pleasure of beneficial rest. By the time the sun was cresting the horizon, he --along with Jay, Noah, and Kelly-- were given training work moving filled crates across the camp. Leo was certain that he’d be sweating if he had the ability to do so.

The muscles in his arms and legs burned with a dull, aching pain in protest of the strain they had been subjected to. Leo knew that it was good for him to put some training on his new body, but it didn't help the horrible feelings that came with it.

Jay seemed to share his feelings, but did not voice them as he continued his banter with Noah. Leo summoned courage and gulped down the watery substance in his bowl as he tried to ignore the chilling feeling that accompanied it. Leo looked to the opposite side of the table where the three members of Team Emerald were conversing among themselves. The team had been sticking near them ever since they arrived at Camp New Rain, training with or near them, eating at their table at meal times. It was as if they were determined to become their friends by association alone.

Leo couldn’t help but feel slightly unnerved by their constant presence. Sonic was nice enough; he was always the least talkative of the trio. But when he did, he seemed to connect the most with them. Leo had only talked to the guy a few times, but he could almost count him as a friend after those conversations.

However, Blade and Elliot were a different story. The Grovyle and Absol seemed to have some sort of psychic connection between them, always nodding silently to each other, whispering conversations behind crates or tents and always hushing their voices as soon as he approached them. They tried their hardest to put on a friendly facade, as when Blade ran into him yesterday, but Leo couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling about those two.

You have absolutely no basis for your distrust of them, his thoughts scolded, but yet the feelings remained and only seemed to intensify with every passing hour. If he hadn’t been preoccupied with his ailing sanity, he might have taken the initiative to investigate his gut feeling of unease.

Jay and Noah continued to argue; they now seemed to be shouting at each other from across the table. Leo had tuned them out several minutes ago. The last few days had been torture. There was no other way he could phrase it. It all started when I saw that ... thing, in the cafe. It had all gone downhill from there. Nearly killed, hallucinations, run out of town, burned, exploded, ambushed, beaten. How the hell am I still alive? An interesting question, but not one he had an answer for. Just how had he survived?

He put his claw to his chin and closed his eyes. What has happened to me? He opened his eyes once again and looked down at the dull white claws. He moved them one after the other. Nothing in the past few days alarmed him as much as this. He vaguely noticed it during some of the quiet times back in their base at Loyalty but had never paid it too much heed until now. He was certain that he would always remember, but the memories had grown foggy.

He couldn’t remember what human hands felt like. Hands were not the only thing that had undergone this memory dump. Leo was almost clueless as to what hair felt like anymore, but the horn and scales he was currently fitted with almost seemed --dare he even think it-- natural. The sense of being tall at some point, the feel of human skin, wearing clothes. With every passing day these memories seemed more like distant figments of his imagination.

Oh God, what if ... What if I imagined it all? The thought was chillingly horrifying. And what was worse was that he had plenty of evidence to back it up. His mind obviously wasn’t in a position to argue for the memories’ validity, and even if it was, Leo doubted he would believe it. And, besides that, the only other thing that had specifically told him he was human was the Mismagius.

What if ... What if it was all-- His thoughts were rudely interrupted as Noah’s voice cut across them like a sharp knife.

“Earth to Leo! Come on, man! We gotta go!” The thoughts of uncertainty faded away to be sorted out at a later time as Noah waved a black paw in front of his face. “Let’s go! Get up!”

“Wait a moment!” Leo shouted as he slowly hopped off the log stump at the table, wincing slightly as the tip of his tail thumped against the wood. “What’s happening? Where is everyone else?” he asked as he noted that every soul other than Noah seemed to have disappeared from the mess area. Even Kelly and Jay were gone.

The Dewott shrugged. “There’s been some news. Apparently, someone’s here at the camp. Looks like a government guy --real stuck up Pokémon. Torrent called an assembly a few minutes ago. I’m not sure how you didn’t hear it,” he reported as suddenly he grabbed Leo’s wrist. Without waiting for a further reply or comment from the Charmeleon, Noah ran through the narrow alleyways between the tents dragging Leo behind him.

The front gate of the camp was a madhouse in the loosest sense of the word. The crowd surrounding the entrance was so thick that Leo couldn’t see past the first row of Pokémon. It was the first time he had seen the entirety of the camp assembled in one place.

Noah was not deterred by the seemingly impregnable mob and, still dragging Leo by the wrist, he wormed his way through the mass. Leo could only apologize tersely as he was forced to step on the feet of several Pokémon as well as the unexpected branding more than few of them received from his tail. Noah continued to push past the Pokémon, somehow managing to shove an Aggron out of his way without being crushed.

Soon enough, they were in the front row of the scene and Noah finally released his iron grip on Leo’s wrist. Kelly and Jay both watched the scene directly to his right, while Noah winged his left. Torrent stood scowling in the front of the crowd, Quark at his side with an equally sour expression. Now that he was at the front himself, he could see exactly why.

There was a Magnemite floating just inside the camp. From his tone and the amount of buzzing that interrupted his dialogue, Leo could tell that the machine was immensely irritated.

“ZBT! General! Why are you being so uncooperative? ZT! Need I say again that I have a warrant from Governor Richelieu? ZT!” he exclaimed as he waved a sealed letter held in his right magnet.

“You’ve already told us that quite a few times, Officer Rho,” Torrent hissed. The Magnemite muttered something darkly to itself.

“General, I have to search the camp. ZZT! We have suspicions that a few of your recruits might be fugitives. SZT!” he said with a harsh burst of static. He tried to move forward into the camp, but Leo felt the crowd thicken and form a wall against the officer.

“I see no reason why to doubt the sincerity of any of my recruits,” the Feraligatr said tersely, his patience seemingly at an end.

“ZBT! But, the warrant! I have a legal right to search this establishment! ZZT!” the officer, Rho, whined.

“Tough luck. Now leave, before I have my boys here escort you,” the general growled as two monsters seemingly made entirely out of red and dark blue stone on either side of Torrent took a menacing step forward.

Rho apparently took the hint and, much to Leo’s satisfaction, turned around and started floating back towards the exit. As he passed, Rho’s central eye locked onto Leo.

The Charmeleon wasn’t entirely sure what happened in the next few instances, but he found himself laying on his back and his scales emitting an oddly delicious cooked smell as thin, black smoke slowly wafted from his body. He cautiously lifted his neck up, a sudden numbness in his muscles making it difficult to move at all. He closed his eyes and memories from seemingly long ago in Loyalty prison came back to him in earnest --he had been electrified, again. Luckily, his body seemed to be developing a slight resistance to it, but not nearly as much as he’d like.

“Leo! Are you alright?” Kelly yelled from above him over the vast chorus of other loud voices. Leo reopened his eyes and saw her standing over him along with several other recruits he hadn’t met, a look of genuine concern spread across her face. He managed a clumsy nod and tried once more to elevate his neck to see what was happening in the crowd before him.

The Magnemite seemed to be buried under the muscular arms of Torrent, who kept picking up the small, steel Pokémon and threw him into the rocky ground. Quark hovered just outside the range of Torrent’s rage as he produced a weak, purple, psychic field that kept the throng of soldiers from joining in on the beat down.

“Treason! Traitors! BZZT! I’ll send you all to Sawgrass Town for this! ZT!” Rho screeched as Torrent threw another punch on his central eye, the general ignoring the sparks the officer was shooting off.

“I’d like to see you try, you piece of scrap metal,” the Feraligatr growled as he dented the front of the screaming officer. Dull, metalic, gonging noises resonated from the fight with each blow Torrent landed.

“I’ll watch them BZT! eat you alive! ZZT! You are all damned!” Rho cursed as Torrent decided to take a new approach to the brawl. He lifted the weakly-sparking Magnemite in his hand and raised the damaged Pokémon close to his face.

“If you ever come here again, I will rip you in half. And, if you even look at any of my recruits the wrong way, I will make sure you never see again. Understand?” Torrent asked, his voice dropped to a chilling whisper. The entire mob around Leo seemed to have the sound sucked out of it as they awaited the Magnemite’s response. Rho said nothing as he meekly hovered off of Torrent’s hand towards the gate of the base.

Based on his previous experiences with the species, Leo was hardly surprised when halfway to the camp entrance, Officer Rho decided to turn around and fire a pulse of electricity from his twisted magnets. Torrent spun around as soon as he heard the tell-tale cackle of energy. He raised his arm and caught the full brunt of the blast with his limb.

The yellow beam of energy forced Torrent back about three feet before dissipating. Torrent, to the apparent horror of the quaking guard, simply shook off the attack and faced him. He let out an almost primal roar as he pounced on the Pokémon. The entire crowd started cheering as Leo was suddenly hoisted on top of the mob, one of the Pokémon below must have sat him on their shoulders.

“BZZzT! They’ll slaughter you BZT! and your families! BZZT!” Rho cried as Torrent’s claws tore into his casing. Bolts of electricity jumped between the two fighters, though the Feraligatr did not seem phased by it in the slightest.

“No. They. Won’t!” Torrent yelled. With each grunt, he tore another piece off of the screaming officer. Leo couldn’t look away at the savage display. Even though a small part of his mind wanted to go in and stop the fighting, the majority of his head cheered along with the crowd. Leo forgot about the damage he had received and tried to lean forward on the Pokèmon’s shoulders he sat on to get a better look at the Magnemite’s brutal dismantlement.

The corrupt officer gave one final, ear-splitting screech as Torrent rended him in two. Sparks and wires flew across the clearing as the general flung the broken pieces of Rho’s core to the ground. The whirling mechanisms inside the core spun and sputtered smoke and sparks as they tried in vain to preserve themselves. Leo saw thin, blue streams of data stream out of the broken processor and fade into the air. Thick black smoke poured from the split core as the erratic movement gradually subsided.

“Now ... Everyone. Pack up camp. Not a drill this time ... Orders came in from Silver. We’re moving out. Tonight,” the blue reptile breathed heavily as faint lines of electricity continued to trace across his heaving body. With a groan, he slowly limped back into the camp. The crowd stood completely still for a moment before dispersing like frightened bugs exposed in a light.

Leo found himself plopped on the ground inches away from Rho’s still-sparking brain. Only the three Pokémon he knew in this world remained behind with him. Jay went up to the shattered hemisphere and kicked it with his foot.

“You know? I’m starting to like it here. How about you, two?” the Riolu asked casually as he examined a bit of sparking wire. “I mean, it’s been only three days and Torrent’s already killed a Magnemite that was hunting us.”

“I don’t understand how you think that’s a good thing. It’s still murder, even if they were hunting us,” Kelly whispered, her voice almost emotionless. She nudged the broken fragments of Rho away from Jay’s feet and further desecration.

Leo didn’t answer him immediately. Sure, he was completely ecstatic that a Magnemite was dead, but something with that didn’t entirely sit right with him. It might have been the final shred of his morality crying out to him that murder was wrong, but Leo pushed the feeling back into the back of his mind. I am happy about this, right? I should be happy. But, why do I not feel that way?

“I ... I don’t know what to think. Torrent ... he honestly scares me ... I’ll keep my distance from him,” Leo said slowly as he circumvented the debris of the Magnemite. “Is he usually like this, Noah?” The Dewott worked alongside Kelly to shift away the Magnemite fragments into a single pile near the dirt wall of the encampment.

“No.” The Dewott crossed his arms. “He has a bit of a temper, but never this bad. It’s because of what happened with Gear, I’m sure of it,” Noah explained, his normally cheery personality wavering for a few split seconds. Sounds of moving crates and collapsing cloth tents filled the air.

“It’s not a good sign,” he told them shortly before turning away towards the center of the camp. “Now let’s go. We have to pack up. Nightfall will be here sooner then you’d believe.”

Again, Leo wondered how time could possibly move so fast. The half of the day that had gone by seemed like an endless cycle of moving crates onto a series of wooden sleighs and packing every shred of personal belongings into backpacks.

By the time the sun had begun its descent into the western horizon, Camp New Rain as he had known it was no more. The orderly rows of faded tents were dismantled and carefully folded into tight rolls. He had assisted with the movement of every essential crate onto a fleet of wide wooden sleds. The mess tent was no more and the crude tables made from stumps shoved into the grassy thicket, as was anything else not considered vital to sustain a battalion of Pokémon until they reached their undisclosed destination.

Back at the site of Noah’s tent, they all swept the area, making sure there was nothing left behind. Jay used a spare bag Noah had swiped from somewhere to stow the odds and ends that had survived the flight from Loyalty. An orb, a small length of rope, a couple badly bruised apples and nearly smashed berries, and the worn map Jay kept with him at all times. Both he and Kelly had nothing except her Pecha Scarf -still covered with faint blood stains from Leo’s wound-and his key.

While Kelly and Jay sorted through the meager item pool, Leo took a moment to examine the artifact again. It had been some time since he had last paid a good deal of attention to it. The blue crystal appeared unchanged --although it was a bit dirty-- a small comfort to the Charmeleon. The smooth-cut key still hung as it always did from the gold band it was attached to. He slipped the key around his neck again, its reassuring weight on his chest bringing him an even greater degree of comfort.

“You’re always wearing that thing. What exactly is it?” Noah asked as he used his sharp shells to slice through a length of twine that held up the tent.

“It’s … a personal item. It was the first thing I found after waking up without my memories,” Leo replied as he slung his satchel over his shoulder and grabbed hold of the tent material. Together the two Pokémon tugged as the cloth came sliding off the frame.

“Hmm …Interesting. I don’t have any mementos like that, but if I had something as nice as that thing, I’d keep it under lock and key. Try to ignore the bad pun,” Noah said with a chuckle. “Never noticed that scar on you. What’s that from? Looks like it hurt like hell.”

“Actually, I didn’t feel it all too much,” he said with a small smile. Technically, it was not a lie. “You remember that Metagross Jay told you about? That’s where I got it.” Leo gave one final tug on the cloth as it lifted off the framework completely. Noah immediately went to work folding it into a series of increasingly smaller rectangles.

“Oh yeah, I remember. That entire story does seem a little far-fetched. But I believe it after seeing that scar. It’s surprising how much they can tell about a person. I’ve got one right here,” he said while pointing to a discolored line in the blue skin in the middle of his chest. “Would you believe me if I told you that I got this sucker fighting in a gladiatorial pit against members of the Cult of the Second Mew?”

“Umm … No?” Leo answered, unsure of what the Dewott was expecting from him.

“Good.” That was all Noah said with a wink as he suddenly picked up the rolled up tent canvas and walked off. Leo simply stood there as he tried to process the cryptic, nonsensical answer. It’s probably a matter best left alone. He’s so far off the deep end he might as well be in an oceanic trench, his thoughts told him comfortingly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note: This chapter is split into two parts. Link to the next one is below.