UID: K1038-B2
Location: Fort Garreg (Human-Dominant Earth)
Time: 2100 Hours
There comes a moment in our lives where we begin to question the reasoning for our birth: Why are we here? What is our purpose on this earth? Will we ever achieve greatness? These questions burden us down and can make the crushing weight of life even more unbearable, leaving us to ask ourselves: Are we all destined to die a pitiful husk? Or will we live long enough to leave legends to our names?
Located the the region of Kanto, held within the prison camp of Fort Garreg, sat a curious looking bipedal creature: Standing at 4’ft tall, he had thick, long white fur that draped across the top of his head, chest, shoulders, arms and legs, a short dark gray undercoat covering the rest of his face and body, wide crimson eyes peering through a pair of silver reading glasses, two fluffy dipstick tails that tapered off to a point, and misshapen ears; the right ear long and curved, folding over itself, the left ear stubby and nearly obscured by his mane. His name was ‘Daemon Voltaire’, an experiment of Project Kasper: a secret military program that sought to hybridize psychic type Pokémon with various other types in an attempt to create super soldiers, Daemon himself being a genetically modified with the psychic powers of a Meowstic and an Absol’s ability to foresee disaster; a dark/psychic type never seen before, purely of human creation.
To the left of him sat a quadrupedal wolf/cat-like creature: she stood slightly over 3’ ft tall with a brilliant thick white coat, narrow crimson eyes, a scimitar-like tail and a chipped, crescent-shaped horn on the right side of her head, still razor sharp despite its weathered appearance. This was ‘Abigail Voltaire’ - an Absol, Daemon’s mother and the only person in the project who had shown any real care for him. They both sat at the bottom end of a set of bleachers, Daemon scanning the yard before him while Abigail adjusted the chaffing metal collar around his neck that subdued his psychic power.
“There we go, is that better?” Abigail asked.
Daemon replied, making small adjustments to the collar and breaking his gaze from the yard. “Yeah, thank you.”
Abigail gave him a warm smile, “Oh, one more thing.” she began as she unfastened the necklace she was wearing, handing it to Daemon. “Seeing as you turn eighteen this year, I wanted you to have this.”
Daemon looked down at the necklace presented to him: its pendant was a stunning, glowing sphere, no bigger than a golf ball, with colors of blue, white and black shifting within it - it was an Absolite: a mega stone made specifically to enhance an Absol’s power, a relic from Abigail’s past life. Although it was shoddily fashioned to a coarse string, it was the most captivating object he had ever laid eyes upon.
“But this only affects Absols,” Daemon began as he gingerly picked up the pendant, looking up towards his mother. ”Are you sure you want to give this to me?”
Abigail nodded, smiling and rubbing his mane. ”Positive, and who knows, even if it doesn’t have any practical use to you, maybe it’ll bring you good luck.”
Daemon smiled back at her, a tear forming in his eye. “Thank you so much, I’ll be sure to cherish it.” As he embraced her.
Their lives may not have been easy, some days could even be considered hell on earth, but they managed to find pleasure in the little luxuries prisoners like them were allowed. When Daemon wasn’t forced by his captors to use his powers against innocent humans and Pokémon alike for the purposes of “research”, when scientists weren’t running strenuous physical and mental tests upon him, he found solace in the brief moments of peace he had. It was the life he was born into, to him things were as usual as they could be. Little did anyone know that things would not be as ‘usual’, for a storm was approaching; one that no one, not even an Absol's disaster sight could foresee the full extent of. As thunder shook the sky and the wind began to pick up, an alarm arose from the speakers.
“Attention, the facility is now on lockdown, all inmates are ordered to return to their cells immediately and await further instructions!” Daemon and Abigail turned to the speakers as they gave their announcement.
Daemon looked up to the sky with a nervous look on his face. “Maybe it's just a bad storm?”
Abigail could foresee otherwise, “I can sense something big coming… and it's not a storm.” Speaking in an increasingly worried tone.
As she arose to face the eastern horizon, her eyes widened at the sight she was witnessing. A large, blinding rift slowly formed across the horizon, as if the gods themselves were tearing the very fabric of time and space itself. Everyone in the yard stood in absolute horror as the wind grew to a blistering pace, lightning splitting the tar black clouds now blotting out the moonlight as an alarm started to blare. Military personnel flooded out of the facility, weapons drawn and ready for whatever atrocity spawned from the tear in the sky. Several frigates of unknown origin appeared, followed closely by the dreadnought of a flagship, bathing the entire compound in shadow. Cannons along the lower hulls of the frigates sent down a dozen rays of white light at the behest of a deep, booming sound emanating from the flagship. The beams of light materialized into a platoon of heavily armed, heavily armored beings of mechanical origin, a second deafening sound from the flagship initiating their march towards the prison yard. The Fort’s soldiers opened fire upon the invading force, who promptly returned a hail of bullets that shredded through the soldier's kevlar like paper.
Abigail slowly backed away and whispered an order to Daemon as a hole was blasted through their concrete enclosure. “ Listen to me, I need you to be brave. On my mark, I want you to stay low, skirt the perimeter and run.”
Daemon, his eyes still transfixed on the iron-clad invaders marching in, took off behind the bleachers, he and Abigail using the pandemonium and shadows cast by the massive ships overhead to cover their escape. The invaders however turned towards them in an apparent moment of omniscience and opened fire. Narrowly ducking through the hail of bullets, Daemon and Abigail made it outside of the compound, past the field of corpses and into the woods beyond.
Running through the dense foliage and into a small clearing, Abigail frantically scanned her surroundings. Yet another alarm blared from the flagship overhead, signaling several beams of light to converge on their location. The materializing invaders, led by a larger, more heavily armored commanding officer, encircled and cornered the two, batons drawn and shields raised. Abigail’s protective instincts took over as she stepped in front of her son.
“Daemon, run! Run as far as you can and don't look back!” She yelled to him as she charged towards the platoon, slashing forward and knocking a few of them back. “Go, now!”
Without hesitation Daemon jumped over the collapsed phalanx and began to sprint back into the woods, most of the invaders breaking off to pursue him.
Daemon flew past the trees, hearing the faint sounds of combat behind him over his heartbeat pounding through his ears. Two loud gunshots could be heard behind him as a sharp pain gripped his arm and leg. He fell to the ground, looking back to notice a trickle of blood trailing down two grisly exit wounds. The soldiers caught up to Daemon, the one in front brandishing a sidearm at him, its barrel smoking.
“Cease fire!” Their officer in the back ordered the shooter. “He’ll want this one alive.” The tall, dark figure signaled to one of the soldiers to approach the bleeding hybrid.
“Beginning transmat sequence.” They announced over a radio, as a strange alien device emerged from the approaching soldier’s gauntlet. droning and glowing with a sickly green light.
In a state of panic and desperation, Daemon scrambled to his feet and rushed towards them, pouncing to claw at his assailant. Another soldier attempted to pry him off of their comrade, but Daemon promptly slashed at their arm and shoulder. His retaliation severed the wires affixed to their chest, releasing a torrent of light and sparks sending the surrounding group scattering.
Machinery within the robotic entity began to grind and whirr, smoke rising from the vents in their armor. In a split second an eruption of energy surged from its chassis, sending out a shockwave that caught Daemon in its radius. He could feel the energy flowing through his body, watching in horror as his very form was deconstructed into light and launched through time and space. The remaining soldiers jumped to their feet, scanning the area from any trace of the hybrid until a voice from the officers radio broke up the search.
"Come in, Alpha Leader. What’s your status?” The radio crackled.
The officer responded, “This is Alpha leader. The target has escaped. Prepare for extraction.” Signaling their team to move back towards the clearing, they swapped their radio’s frequency. “Alpha-2, we are converging on your location. Status report.”
A pained groan broke through the static. “This is Alpha-2… The Absol has evaded our grasp, no further signal can be detected.”
The officer cursed under their breath as they ran a hand through their fiery plume, looking towards the remains of their exploded comrade as they barked their orders. “Very well then, we’ve got a few casualties on our position, have them scraped up so we can scan their transmat gear. Our target has caused a critical failure in one of our suits and we need to figure out where the explosion sent him, now.”
The officer ended the radio broadcast, mumbling to themselves before returning to their platoon. “The little one may have escaped, but he won’t be able to evade us forever.”
