Pokémon: Forever Wounded

Talk

The assassin had the ropes tightened on him and he winced. No sympathy from any of the three in front of him, the ones that had just taken him to a more private room. A classroom that was not currently in use. Dimly lit. Carmine hauled a cassette player over that she found in storage, and took a tape that she had found lying around in the would-be killer's bag. Carmine pressed a button, some whirring, and a muffled conversation. Paul recognised his own voice first, before Kieran's uniquely lovable voice came in, the adorable sometimes monotone, sometimes not, rural Japanese accent. 

"Wowzers, you're tellin' me there's a unique kinda Pokémon out in the Terrarium, a Jumpluff?"

"Yeah, apparently. People call it shiny."

"I wonder why some Pokémon are like that."

"Who knows?"

The conversation continued like this for some time, a completely innocuous and unremarkable one, until Carmine stopped it, and said in her shaky, yet still intimidating voice,

"This came from a wiretap you installed. You said so yourself. Where did you get it?"

Silence.

"You say it was a one man operation, and yet you have technology like this? Don't fuck with me."

Silence again, as now Paul and Drayton appeared to be giving the assassin a look that read, 'tell her everything if you know what's good for you.'

Drayton's usually laid back appearance looked serious, staring deep into the man's soul. Paul gave the look of a stern, collected archetype of the Galarian seen so often in fiction, yet inside wanted nothing more than to tear his captive limb from limb. 

But he sat there, to the right of Carmine, with Drayton sitting to her left. They were not here to question the man. They were here to restrain Carmine from killing him before he talked. Paul didn't even know why they were doing this. Carmine wanted answers though, and she didn't think the school could get them.

Carmine awaited an answer still, and the captive looked rather smug in not giving one. Carmine got the packet of cigarettes she'd hidden, took one out, and lit one, holding it just below the captive's eye. Smoke hurt the man's eye as it sifted in. Carmine did not relent. She had no qualms about putting the man who had tried to hurt her brother in such agony.

"Who gave it to you? This was no one man operation, now who were you working for?" she fumed. She felt a pang of guilt for not being there, guilt she redirected into sheer hatred for the man that was tied up before her. She had plenty to feel guilty for, she had plenty she should feel guilty for but did not, but this was a case of neither.

No answer. This absolute demon. Thought he could come in and stab some kid the day before his 17th birthday and just stay silent? She flicked the cigarette a bit, sending more smoke into his eye.

No answer.

She drove it straight into his neck until it crumpled, and smoke rose from it. The captive had to scream, despite his training not to. It just hurt too much.

"More talkative now? I have a lot of time and there are a lot of cigarettes." She said, her hands already fiddling with a lighter and another one.

"I can't tell you, or my bosses will kill me"

She scoffed, and stared deeply into his soul, filled with no desire greater than to see this man expunged from the face of the earth, to see the world cleaned from the presence of men such as him. 

"And you think I won't? No one takes kindly to having their younger brother attacked by oxygen-wastes like you. Especially not me. I practically raised him. After our parents died, and our grandparents were never around, I did my damn best. I might have failed at times, and I've certainly done things I regret," she sighed, not knowing why she was telling this utter waste of space all this, "I never let him do things himself, no matter how much he wanted to do it, I shut him out like an outsider, and when he snapped at me, I yelled, to the point where-" she stopped herself, "no. I'm not going to blame myself for the reason you tried to hurt my brother," her eyes now blazed at his. Paul and Drayton taking the backseat.