Chapter Seven: The Homosapien-Inator 5000

The “trip” back to the Absolute Zero Syndicate was almost a complete blur for Hope. She could just barely remember Sneaks trying to lunge at Scorch and Riptide, missing clear by a mile. She could remember the stunned looks on Cobalt, Tesla, and Violet’s faces as their newfound heroes were suddenly whisked away by two big, scary looking pokemon.

Strangely, Hope could remember Spike’s confrontation with Scorch and Riptide much better. She could clearly hear his roar as he sauntered up to Scorch and Riptide, face contorting into a snarl. “Let those kids go!” he had roared.

“And why should we?” Scorch had purred, a sickening smile crossing his face.

“Because they did nothing wrong, that’s why!” Spike snarled.

“Why should you be the one to decide whether what they did was right or wrong?” Riptide cooed. “That’s not your responsibility. That’s our responsibility as their parents.”

Spike clenched his fist and let out a long, low growl. He looked like he was trying to say something, but it seemed like something was holding him back. His livelihood was dependent on the AZS, after all, and speaking out against two of their highest-ranking members was a surefire way to lose that livelihood.

The thing she remembered most clearly, though, were Klaw and Dewey’s reactions. It was almost like they had reverted into infants, their pleading and begging slowly devolving into straight-up sobbing and wailing. Her heart ached for her friends, but she knew that she was powerless to help them. After all, there was no telling what Scorch and Riptide, let alone Polaris, would do to her if she spoke up. So she simply kept quiet, letting their screeches wash over her like waves crashing particularly hard onto a beach during a very violent storm.

Hope didn’t know how long it took for them to reach the syndicate. It might have been just a few minutes, or it might have taken almost a week. Everything just bled into each other, lines blurring into each other so much that Hope could barely distinguish what was around her. However long it took, they did eventually arrive back at the Absolute Zero Syndicate.

The first thing Hope noticed as they reentered the building were three familiar figures. The Pursuers were waiting in the main lobby for them, their arms crossed in anticipation.

Scorch and Riptide grabbed onto Hope simultaneously and flung her down on the ground in front of the Pursuers. She crashed to the floor with a thud! , immediately sending a ripple of pain up her right front leg. Hope tried to regain her footing, but the pain was so strong that she immediately fell back down to the floor again. Seeing this caused Scorch and Riptide to let out loud, maniacal laughs.

Crim looked down at Hope, his eyes narrowed. “So we’re just supposed to take her to the boss’s room, right?” he asked.

The boss being mentioned was enough to finally break Hope, and tears started falling down her face. She remembered what Klaw and Dewey had told her during their mission about Polaris’s obsession with humans and their supposed mystical powers. Now she was going to be at his mercy.

“What about the boys?” Shade asked, pointing to Klaw and Dewey with a sadistic smirk on her face. “Wouldn’t it be easier for you to punish all three of them at the same time? Why bother the boss?”

“The boss personally requested us to let him handle the girl’s punishment.” Riptide responded.

“And besides, she isn’t our child.” Scorch chimed in. “So having her in the mix might mess up our… father-son bonding time.” he continued, looking over his shoulder at said sons.

Klaw and Dewey had cried and thrashed around so much during the return back that it had expanded their energy, effectively causing them to pass out. Dewey was slung over Scorch’s right shoulder, and Klaw was slung over Riptide’s left shoulder. Their eyes were closed, but still very puffy from all of the crying they had been doing, and their bodies were limper than worn-out dolls.

Seeing her friends in this state made even more tears fall down Hope’s face. Klaw and Dewey had mentioned their fathers giving them the “special treatment” many times in the past, and now it seemed like they were about to go through it again. And she would be powerless to help them.

Dart let out a high pitched, nasally cackle, pointing to Hope as he did so. Crim looked over at Dart before looking back at Hope. “Dart says that you need to stop acting like a baby and suck those tears back into your eyes,” he said. “His words, not mine.”

Hope badly wanted to say something snarky to Dart, but she knew that even if she was in good shape, talking back would result in her losing a body part or two. All she could do was stare down at her front paws- one of which was now severely swollen from the fracture she had sustained earlier- with tears continuing to flow down her face.

Crim picked Hope up by the leg using one of his pincers. The leg that Crim just so happened to choose, though, was the one that had been broken. Another cracking noise resounded through the lobby, and another ripple of pain shot up Hope’s leg. She let out a small whimper as she tried to curl up and shield her leg from any more damage, but the way Crim was letting her dangle (watching her with amusement like she was a toy he was playing with all the while) made it impossible for her to do so.

“What are we waiting for, friends?” Crim asked Shade and Dart. “Let’s take her down to the boss’s room.”

Hope tried to straighten herself up again, but her efforts were immediately made for naught when Crim whipped around and began walking, Hope still dangling from his claw and Shade and Dart not too far behind.

Scorch and Riptide began walking away as well with Klaw and Dewey still slung over their shoulders, talking excitedly and letting out the occasional maniacal laugh the whole while. All Hope could do was stare in horror and sadness as her two best friends were taken around the corner and soon disappeared, heading off to have who-knows-what done to them by their own fathers.

As Hope was being carried down the stairs and through the hall, Crim lifted his pincer so that Hope could make eye contact with him. “I do have to say, it’s rare that someone goes against Scorch and Riptide’s orders within their first day at the syndicate. I unfortunately must give you credit for that.” he muttered, his eyes narrowing intensely. “But I still don’t get why the boss is paying so much attention to you out of all pokemon. First you having an audience with him when you first arrived, and now he insists that he should be the one to punish you alone…”

As he kept walking, Crim’s eyes narrowed even more, to the point where they were practically slits. He kept on staring at Hope intently, looking her up and down. “Now that I think about it, Scorch and Riptide never told us where you came from.” he murmured. He tried to make his tone sound friendly, like a teacher asking a new student to share some fun facts about themself, but there was a slight edge to his tone that betrayed his true intentions- his intentions to dig deep into Hope’s psyche and expose all of her deepest, darkest secrets.

Hope remembered what Klaw and Dewey had said about Polaris and his obsession with humans. It was safe to assume that every other pokemon within the Absolute Zero Syndicate had bought into Polaris’s conspiracy theories about humans and their special powers. And that included Crim and the rest of the Pursuers.

Considering that Polaris already knew her secret, it may have been futile for Hope to keep hiding that she was a human from the other members of the Absolute Zero Syndicate. But she didn’t want to give up the last semblance of freedom that she had. She didn’t want everyone in the Absolute Zero Syndicate to have control over her life.

Crim’s gaze still remained firmly trained on Hope. His eyes never broke contact with hers, piercing into every part of her psyche.

After what felt like four eternities, Crim finally opened his mouth.

“…Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens to her after the boss is done with her.” Crim said, looking at Shade and Dart. “Don’t want to… jump to conclusions just yet.”

Dart let out a grotesque cackle of affirmation, and the Pursuers continued their navigation.

Hope had no idea how to feel about these new developments. At least Crim had stopped staring her down, but what he said about ‘waiting until after the boss was done with her’ made her feel even more queasy. And from the part about ‘not jumping to conclusions’ made it seem that he had an idea of what she really was.

The group was fast approaching Polaris’s room now, walking through the same hallways that Scorch and Riptide had led Hope down just a day ago. She had been very uneasy that first day, but there had at least been a dash of curiosity about the situation sprinkled in. Now all she felt was dread, swirling around and sticking to the edges of every organ in her body like the pollution tar puddles in Dead Space.

The massive crystal door with the giant AZS symbol emblazoned on it was fast approaching now. Hope was becoming even more anxious now. Thoughts of what Polaris would do to her were now swirling through her mind, each successive one more gruesome than the last. The fear was almost enough to make the throbbing pain in her leg completely disappear. She curled up as tightly as she could, trying her best to make the bad thoughts go away.

The anxiety had gotten so strong that Hope didn’t even notice that they had actually reached the door, and that Crim had grabbed on to the door handle and swung it open.

When Hope next looked up, they were standing in the middle of Polaris’s room. The boss himself was sitting on his throne, sipping a glass of Oran Brew and looking very pleased with himself. Next to him was a large machine of some sort. It appeared to be made out of pure steel and had three major parts. The bottom was perfectly cube shaped and had two buttons on it- one white and one black- and an odd appendage extended from the frontmost side of the cube, looking like a large human hand. On the top side of the cube was a flat rectangular monitor.

“Lovely to see you again, Hope.” Polaris’s eyes narrowed with delight. “Let’s begin, shall we? Crim, place her down next to the machine.”

Crim silently did as told, placing Hope down (gently this time, thankfully) next to the machine’s hand-like appendage.

“This,” Polaris said, inching his grubby little body forward so he could “gesture” to the machine, “is the Homosapien-inator 5000. My pride and joy.” A sick “smile” crossed his tiny mouth. “The Homosapien-inator 5000, when attached to the head of any pokemon, can read and manipulate their brain waves. You may not know this, young Hope, but my research shows that humans are-”

“Extremely special and have special powers that let them control other pokemon.” The words fell out of Hope’s mouth without her even realizing, but at this point she didn’t even care. She was tired and in pain. So, so much pain.

Polaris’s eyes widened, but they quickly narrowed as he “smiled” again. “I see that Klaw and Dewey have told you what my work is about. Foolish little whelps.”

If Hope was in better shape, she would have tackled Polaris right then and there for insulting her friends. But alas, she was not in good shape, so all she could do was lay there.

Polaris continued, “Anyways, I am going to use the Homosapien-inator 5000 to see if I can activate your latent human powers by manipulating your brain waves. And when I do…” An odd expression crossed Polaris’s face. “I can control you and use your powers for myself! I will finally be able to take over the continent, rule it as its supreme overlord, and finally fulfill my birthright! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Polaris continued laughing maniacally while Hope, Crim, Shade, and Dart simply stared at him. The expressions of Crim, Shade, and Dart’s faces were more akin to amusement. Hope’s expression, on the other hand, was filled with nothing but terror. That machine can control my mind ?!, she thought to herself. This was bad. This was really, really bad.

“So she was a human after all…” Shade whispered to Crim and Dart.

Dart let out another sickeningly high-pitched laugh.

“Dart’s right. Let’s wait until the Homosapien-inator 5000 has been tested.” Crim whispered back. He wasn’t looking at Shade and Dart, though; he was looking straight at Hope, his eyes narrowed in a mixture of disgust, anger, and… fear ? If all of this propaganda was true, then Crim being scared would actually make a lot of sense, but regardless, it was still a bit funny to Hope that someone as powerful and scary as Crim would be afraid of her.

Polaris’s expression had hardened. “Crim, move the probe onto the girl’s head.” he ordered, his voice suddenly becoming flat and dropping down an octave. “Shade, Dart, go over to the side of the machine.”

The Pursuers quickly complied with Polaris’s instructions. When Crim pushed the probe onto Hope’s head, it immediately dug into her fur and tightened, causing her head to pulse with pain.

“Now, Dart. Press the white button.” Polaris commanded.

With a nasally cackle, Dart raised his long red claw and jabbed it into the button.

Hope’s skull was immediately filled with pain. Her vision became like a disco ball- bright colors were constantly flashing. A fuzzy feeling began to pervade her entire head, like she was a stuffed toy being filled to the brim with cotton, and her non-broken legs began to shake violently.

Then, everything began to fade out. A bright white light began to glow brighter in the center of her vision. It drew closer and closer to Hope, and it seemed to be… speaking .

Give up, little one , it seemed to be saying. Just look right into me and all of this pain will be over.

That sounded so tempting to Hope. Between the probe digging into her head, her broken leg, and the thought of what Scorch and Riptide were doing to Klaw and Dewey, she was in a lot of pain, both physically and mentally. She just wanted it to be over more than anything.

She relaxed her body and let the light inch closer and closer.

Wait a minute!

A voice suddenly started yelling. It sounded like Hope, but it was also definitely not Hope. The voice sounded a bit deeper- like an adult woman’s voice instead of a girl’s voice- and it had a distinct reverbnation to it.

That “light” is Polaris trying to take control of your mind! , the voice cried out. Don’t go toward it! Fight back and break free, no matter how painful it may be!

Hope’s resignation quickly disappeared upon hearing these words, and in its place was a fiery determination to resist the light. She started to push back the light. It was incredibly painful, but she tried her hardest.

The light began to fade away slowly. It became smaller and smaller, shrinking back farther and farther.

Finally, the light disappeared, and Hope dropped to her feet, panting heavily.

She was back in Polaris’s room, with Polaris and the Pursuers staring down at her. The Pursuers looked stunned, but Polaris’s expression was very neutral.

A drop of red liquid splattered onto the floor, landing down right in front of Hope. Stunned, Hope gingerly raised and pressed her right paw to her forehead. It was damp and sticky. When she removed her paw from her forehead and looked at it, she saw that it was now covered in the same red sticky liquid.

Blood .

Seeing her paw all bloody made an intense wave of fear shoot through Hope’s body, even more intense than the one that had gripped her when Polaris revealed the intentions behind the Homosapien-inator 5000. Hope was absolutely terrified of blood. She didn’t know how exactly she knew that, but some primordial instinct within her was telling her to be terrified of the metallic smelling red liquid.

“…You’re more resilient than I thought you would be.” Polaris finally said after a long period of silence. “That’s just fine by me, though. This is the first time this machine has been put to use, after all. And besides, we’ll have plenty more opportunities to break you yet.”

Hope blinked slowly. “W…what do you mean by that?” she asked, her voice still groggy from what she had just gone through.

“Oh? Did Scorch and Riptide not tell you? How rude of them.” Polaris chuckled. “After that little stunt you and the runts pulled, we decided that it would be best to permanently isolate you from them.”

The world seemed to stop spinning right then and there.

“I have prepared an unused guest room where I will be keeping you while we conduct more trial runs.” Polaris continued. “Meanwhile, those boys will finally be molded into the enforcers that they were born to be! Everybody wins!”

Polaris kept on rambling deliriously, but his words just sounded like white noise to Hope. She was going to have to go through this pain again and again and again. And she would have to go through it in complete isolation, without her friends there to support her through it. And they would be going through just as much pain as she would.

It almost made her wish that she had gone into the light.