If I Can't Take Your Pokémon, Can I Have Your Heart Instead?

Continental Crush

Warning: This chapter contains a mental breakdown 

It was not hard to take his pokemon. 

Childe knew the way to them by heart, where all the keys and passwords were. He had walked these halls more times than he could bear to remember. The only real obstacle was the churning in his heart. 

But Childe was given his harbinger mask for a reason. It was very impractical and he would never actually wear it for anything serious, as the eye holes were too small and blocked his vision. It was also very uncomfortable, and it kept slipping down his face. It was purely symbolic, to let everyone at Team Rocket know that he was someone important and of his immovable heart of stone that allowed him to perform his job well. This mission would be completed no matter how much he disliked it. 

He crept around the lab, trying not to think too much about how much he hated himself. He makes it to the room where the pokemon are resting in their pokeballs, but something is wrong. The stand where the pokeballs were contained was oddly unguarded. It felt like a trap. There was no way that Zhongli would leave his most prized companions in all the world under no protection at all, except for all the other little tricks in the lab. Was there something he wasn't seeing here? 

Childe thought back to the day Zhongli had showed him his pokemon. What did he do again? He merely touched the case and the pokemon came right out. There was no password, no lock, nothing. Was it a fingerprint mechanism? No, Zhongli had been wearing gloves. It couldn't have been the gloves, those were too easy to damage. 

Childe decides to risk it and reaches his hand out for the case. There was no hope for him and Zhongli anyway, once he had realized what he was willing to do. His heart breaks a little more as he realizes that his initial worries were about what Zhongli would think instead of successfully completing the mission to support his siblings. He had to get his priorities straight. His family was the most important thing in his life, and he needed to get his act together. He was being selfish. It was his own fault for finding hope in a heart attack, for thinking that he was ever worthy of something as good as him. 

His hand makes contact with the case. Immediately, he is met with a blinding light. After scurrying around the lab in the dark, it was quite unpleasant. However, it was only the pokemon being released from their pokeballs. And then Childe realized. 

The pokemon did not have a defense mechanism protecting them because they did not need any protection. The way the case worked was that as soon as someone touched it, the strongest pokemon in the world would be released. No intruder would ever stand a chance. 

The pokemon looked confused, but Lycanroc happily bound up and nuzzled Childe's leg. He was going to cry and rip out all his hair. This was really too easy for him. He wished it had been more difficult. At least then he might have more of an excuse for failing. 

"Hey girl," he croaks out as he pets Lycanroc's head. He scoops up their pokeballs. 

"I'm going to need you guys to get back in here, okay?" he whispers, and the pokemon oblige. They trusted him. He was friend-shaped, he had a good heart, and he was their master's most beloved. What could go wrong? 

Lycanroc was the first to disappear back into her pokeball. Lycanroc, who had been wary of him at first but came to trust him because Zhongli did. Childe feels like he's been impaled as he thinks about how Lycanroc was right the whole time. 

He spaces out as his hands act on their own, putting the pokeballs in a bag for easy transport. 

"Explain." 

His heart stops. It feels like his body took a screenshot. 

He collapses to the ground, shaking violently. It feels like there is an earthquake, but when he looks around, it is just him.