Chapter Text
She had – quite frankly – lost track of time, which was a problem. Not as big as the other things, but still one that would come and haunt her at her point.
It had all started an indeterminate time ago, when a small army had descended upon her. She’d been found by one a few days beforehand, and had chased the human away. She’d freely admit she had not considered he’d come back with enough reinforcement to overwhelm her ten times over.
There was the distinct upside that at least it had been her and not either Terrakion or Cobalion… never mind Keldeo. Keldeo was entirely too young and untrained to deal with something like this, and both Cobalion and Terrakion would probably have been killed, or broken in truth, being either too proud or too stubborn to bend as needed.
Still, what these humans were intending with her was beyond her; after a few days – or what she assumed to have be en days – she’d realized their intend was to see her broken and while she desperately wanted to know why, a certainty she’d had was that there’d been little choice in the matter. Her first few attempts to break free had proven fruitless and what happened afterwards had hardly helped her have the strength to do aught about her fate. So she’d played a careful game to convince them they were ‘succeeding’. On occasion, it had been exceedingly hard to keep from cursing them out with telepathy, but that she’d managed as well… barely.
So now she was ‘scared’ of electric-batons and what she was pretty sure were guns, ‘flinched’ when male humans entered her room and cried out in ‘fear’ when hearing something hit metal.
Undignified, and her honor would likely not recover of the charade for a few decades, but it was working, on both ends and that was the important bit.
They thought that their intent of Virizion broken had been ‘successful’ and had now moved to the next step of their plan, and she’d been moved from a heavily fortified room to one that while of a similar aesthetic was somewhat more comfortable, mostly because she was no longer chained up the entire time.
Still unable to escape however, as a cursory circle along the wall showed those were still up to standard and the door might fall to her , but being recaptured would blow her cover and they might not fall for it a second time.
Limping a bit, both from their attempts at breaking her, and cramping from being left immobilized for a good while, she returned to the soft bit of the floor.
“Guys?” Virizion once more tried a personal telepathic connection with the other Swords, but either the complex was warded even without them knowing she could do this, or they were out of range. She hoped it was the second one.
There were footsteps outside of the door, but she pretended not to hear them until the door actually opened slowly.
It was a male, so up and to the far end of the room she went. One of her legs gave out, cramping after long disuse, which made it convincingly pathetic when she winced in pain and flailed a bit to regain her footing.
“See?” The male dressed in yellow and purple softly stated, looking behind him. She remembered him, though she had no doubt he didn’t know. Small mercies that she’d managed to pretend unconsciousness for a while after capture and he’d visited during that period, so she was aware exactly who was to blame for this entire… ordeal. “Even Legendaries are being hurt. Like this one; humans didn’t forgive it for wanting to protect Pokémon.”
She bit her cheek to keep from pointing out to him that her hurts had been on his orders. Let him believe she was his pawn for a while longer… he’d taste her blade soon enough.
A small form slipped forward, and for the first time in a while she wasn’t acting. She reared up a bit – nearly losing her footing from another cramp – at the sight of a small green-haired boy. A child. Why was there a child here?
“Oh no…” He looked at her with compassionate pity, before deciding to to come closer. “Hey, it’s okay, you’re safe now. Dad and the others saved you. I’ll take care of you, if it’s okay with you.”
He was so honestly innocent about it, that she was very sure he didn’t know that his dad was the one that put her in this state. | As if I’d trust you. | She couldn’t resist giving voice to her thoughts, even if it wasn’t telepathicly. She’d thought she’d had a good idea of what they wanted with her, but then they’d gone through all this trouble to make her ‘broken’ and now this child…
“That’s fair.” The child stopped a bit away. “Humans hurt you when you just wanted to do good, so why would you trust humans? But I’d like to help you regardless.”
Wait… |You understand me?| She blinked a few times, head low and trembling – more in pain than fear, but that was a technicality they didn’t need to know.
“Yeah, I grew up with Pokémon, so I can understand you all.” The child slowly moved closer. “Dad’s been saving abused Pokémon as he found them, and then asking me to take care of them, since I can understand them and all.”
Okay, she’d need a bit longer to figure out what was going on here, after all. Eyes narrowing, she backed away some, until she felt the rough stone of the wall against her side.
“Would it help if I introduce you to some of my friends?” The child offered.
Clearly, the adult had been planning for this, perhaps since his minions had tracked her down. She’d play his game then, and they’d see who would be successful in the end. |Maybe...|
The child beamed, as innocent as you please, heading back to his father. “It’s a short walk, if you can manage that.”
|I can.| Still, she had to act scared of a human that looked like she could just end him, so she didn’t actually move all that much from her corner.
“You’re scaring her, dad.” The child looked up, confirming at least that relation.
“So I am, apologies.” The adult reached down, patting the boy on his head. “I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if it needs anything.”
“Yes.”