Pokémon: Out of the Woods | A Galar, Unova & Sinnoh Fanfiction

Chapter 71: The Saviour

High over the bustling streets of Castelia City, a lone cleaner on a Corviknight wearily scrubbed the windows of the towering skyscrapers that made his hometown so famous. Not that he could afford to live in his hometown anymore. When his shift finally ended, he would return to his cramped basement apartment in Virbank City. It was probably a health hazard. It never really dried out from a flood four years ago. That was the price Abaddon Alnwick paid for being brainwashed in to Team Plasma by his father, Herod Harmonia Gropius, better known as Kent Alnwick.

Abaddon actually got the shortest sentence of all Herod's seven children, born to become his Seven Sages. Of course, that didn't include Jahzeel or Gideon who successfully fled, or Noah who was killed when the Plasma Frigate self-destructed. Those three would have faced life without parole. It didn't matter that Gideon only acted out of fear of his father. As Reira pointed out to Hazel, he was responsible for thousands of deaths as one of the Plasma Frigate's gunners. Noah was a lost soul, but he wasn't exactly afraid of Herod. He simply didn't know any better.

Abaddon, however, was the first to see the light and turn on his father. The only things he hurt were the windows he smashed when he took off from his job at Castelia University on Herod's command. He usually only spied on Burgh, the Gym Leader, as a librarian at the university where he taught Fine Art.

Before Abaddon abandoned his librarian's desk, he grabbed four photos. Two were of his children, Hypatia and Pythagoras, nicknamed Pattie and Py. One of the others was of Py's son, Lacey. The final one was of Pattie's son, the baby she threw in the river: Rigel.

By the time Rigel was born, Abaddon had long been cut off from his children. His manipulative ex, Ofelia, only wanted him because he looked vaguely like N, who she became obsessed with when they were both in Team Plasma. She drilled Pattie to procreate with Neptune, because he was N's son, while drilling Py to bully him because he was Hilda's son. There was nothing Abaddon could do. He was terrified of Herod ever discovering his children's existence. If they were discovered, they would be locked up on the Plasma Frigate and, as far as Abaddon was concerned, that was a worse fate than anything Ofelia could inflict on them.

So he watched from a distance as they destroyed themselves. Py forced his way into his dream of being a famous quarterback by ruining the careers of everyone in his way. One man, one of Amber and Trip's best friends, was nearly killed by the raging Tauros that Py paid another man to set on him. Then, in the chaos of the Plasma Frigate freezing Unova, he pushed his mother off the roof of their house. He finally met Abaddon again amidst the destruction in Castelia City, where he flew to save Lacey's mother from Abaddon's sister, Jessie. He admitted everything to the International Police. They were arrested together. As for Pattie, Abaddon never saw her again. She took her own life at 37, a year before he was released from prison.

Though Py had nothing to do with Team Plasma, he was jailed for much longer than his father: 27 years and six months. It had been 24 years. He was being released on parole that afternoon. By the time Abaddon got home, he would finally be reunited with his son and his grandson, too, because Lacey married Victor's daughter two years ago. He had never visited Py in jail. When his beloved father in-law was so brutally, suddenly killed, he decided to give his own father a chance. He would drive him home.

As bittersweet as it was, it should have been a joyous day that Abaddon awaited for a long, long time. Jahzeel would say he waited an eternity for world domination. Abaddon waited an eternity for some semblance of normality. Yet even if it could be normal when his 53 year-old son looked much older than his years in his fluorescent orange uniform, even if they could somehow forget the collateral damage of Herod's Team Plasma; Jahzeel's Team Plasma troubled Abaddon for a reason only he knew.

It was 24 years since Herod's Team Plasma went down, but 28 years since Jahzeel deserted them. Abaddon was the Admin on duty when he fled. He wanted to stop him, but Jahzeel silenced him with threats and ever since he was released from prison, his last conversation with his brother replayed over and over in his mind.