~400 PS Goal Reached! Bonus Chapter Unlocked!
We didn't reach 600 PS, so the 3 bonus chapters are still locked but the offer stands! If we hit 600 PS this week, I'll drop them right away! 🔥
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Thick ribbons of blood crawled across the white tile, turning the lab floor into a red stream.
White coats lay where their owners had fallen, mottled with bright stains.
Death hung in the air like a fog.
The researchers who once laughed while deciding which Pokémon lived or died had finally met their own harvest fuel for the nightmare they helped create.
Kael sat on the edge of the operating table, legs swinging idly.
A crimson drop slid from his fingertip and pattered into the pool below.
"Too easy," he murmured.
Against him, these human technicians had no resistance at all. Under the oppressive aura of [Leer] that cold, killing intent they couldn't even scream. They froze like lambs at the slaughter.
And just as he'd suspected: not a single partner Pokémon among them.
He exhaled softly. Becoming a Pokémon had made the sight of dead humans… different. No nausea, no recoil. But in his chest, a faint ache stirred and passed.
"They earned this," he told himself, dropping from the table.
His heavy frame splashed through the blood, red droplets spattering the stark walls.
If he was going to do this, he would do it all the way. No roots left to grow back. As long as he could avoid needless risk, he'd cleanse the entire underground base. No guilt. No hesitation.
A faint step in the corridor made him pause. Kael's eyes sharpened.
At last… a real battle?
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Not far from the lab, Dr. Darr sat in his office, pen scratching across paper, the room quiet as a held breath.
A primal warning gnawed at him the kind of danger sense you only earn by surviving too many close calls.
Something was wrong.
A restless noise filtered from the operating theater. Years with Duskbane told him exactly what that meant: a variable, and a bad one.
He rose and gestured to the partner assigned for his protection a Sandslash and crept toward the lab.
Drip~ Drip~
The corridor felt… wrong. Too quiet. He should have heard chatter by now, the usual clatter of instruments and clipped instructions.
Instead, only the copper sting of blood grew stronger with every step.
"Careful," Darr whispered, melting into the shadows as Sandslash reached for the door.
Screee—
The door eased open. Red light spilled across the threshold, and the lab beyond looked like a vision of the underworld. Darr's breath hitched—
BOOM!
A fist-shaped crater bloomed across the steel door, metal screaming as it tore. Shards erupted down the hall like bullets, the shockwave clearing the dust in a single blast.
Terrakion's might hummed through Kael's arm. The door wasn't a barrier; it was a target.
Whick-whick-whick!
Sandslash moved in a white blur, blades singing as it carved the incoming shrapnel aside, deflecting each jagged fragment from itself and its handler. Wind ripped down the corridor in the wake of its cuts.
Through the storm of steel came a darker shape Kael, a black monolith, eyes burning like coals.
Muscle bunched along his arms, veins standing out beneath midnight skin. Power tightened into his knuckles.
He struck.
Sandslash's eyes narrowed. Respect and caution. With a single piston-strong kick, it blasted sideways, abandoning the point of impact.
CRASH!
Stone cratered where Kael's fist landed, the floor webbing with deep cracks.
"Shame," Kael thought. That should've ended it.
He didn't have time to waste. The noise would wake the whole base. If he got bogged down here, numbers and guns would do what science hadn't.
"Yaaah!"
Only now did Dr. Darr's strangled shriek rip free, late to the moment the way terror often is.
Kael shut it out. He sank inward, letting the spectral current surge. Ghost-type energy flooded his channels, cold and razor-clean.
He snapped his gaze at Sandslash.
Invisible ripples pulsed from his crimson eyes clear as water, cutting as glass.
[Scary Face].
Sandslash landed from its evasive leap and faltered. A phantom scene flickered across its vision: a stern elder from its earliest drills, wrinkles drawn tight, voice about to lash down like a whip.
Instinct clamped its eyes shut.
"Wrong move."
The trance snapped an instant later just in time for Sandslash to see the black iron of Kael's fist filling its world.
THUD!
Backed by [Terrakion's Fortress Shoulder Guard], raw force detonated through chitin and into flesh. Plates cracked; blood sprang in a fine mist.
The yellow form tumbled, armor scraping stone, spinning end over end—
Kael didn't let it breathe.
His toe dug into the floor; shattered gravel skittered away. He flashed forward, speed coiling in a single line, overtaking the airborne target.
Ghost-type energy wrapped his fist, drinking the light around it until nothing remained but the outline of a blow.
The corridor tasted of grave-cold wind.
"[Shadow Punch]."
He drove it home.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access Patreon normally)
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