The bond between Pokémon and Trainer often reflects shared traits, influences flowing both ways. This connection deepens with time, becoming more apparent, sometimes in unexpected ways.
And right now, fueled by its trainer's crazed commands and perhaps its own lingering fear and anger from the earlier fight, the Raticate seemed to shed all semblance of reason. Its eyes glazed over with a near-feral madness as it charged towards the catwalk stairs, ignoring the danger, focused solely on reaching Xiu.
"Fire."
Xiu whispered the single command, his eyes fixed on the charging Raticate.
Instantly, from the shadowy corner near the stairs where Abra had positioned itself earlier, another sharpened branch shot forth, aimed true. Just like before, it struck the target mid-charge.
But unlike the Beedrill, the Raticate didn't fall. The wooden spear struck its thick, surprisingly resilient hide and bounced off, skittering harmlessly across the concrete floor.
Xiu frowned slightly. He hadn't anticipated that, giving a subtle mental nudge to Abra as a second spear launched from the shadows.
Again, it deflected off the Raticate's surprisingly tough exterior. This time, however, Xiu saw why. It wasn't just tough hide; the Raticate's thick layer of fat acted as a cushion, absorbing most of the impact's force, while its sleek, coarse fur helped deflect the pointed tip.
Seeing the traps fail, the bald man below let out a whoop of ecstatic relief and fury. "You see that, kid? Useless! You're dead meat now!"
Xiu showed no outward reaction to the taunt or the failed traps. He watched calmly as the Raticate scrambled up the metal stairs, preparing to leap onto the catwalk. Just as it gathered its powerful hind legs to jump, Xiu murmured another word, quiet but distinct.
"Click."
A sharp, mechanical sound echoed through the cavernous factory, seemingly coming from directly above the stairwell. The bald man instinctively looked up, searching for the source. High above, nestled in the rafters in a blind spot near the top of the stairs, a heavy concrete slab, precariously balanced, tipped over the edge. It plummeted downwards, aimed directly at the Raticate just as it launched itself into the air.
CRUNCH!
The impact was brutal. The Raticate was slammed back down onto the metal stairs beneath the crushing weight of the concrete, the sound echoing sickeningly. Dust and debris rained down, obscuring the immediate aftermath.
The bald man stared, momentarily dumbfounded. He yelled his Raticate's name, his voice cracking with desperation.
As the dust began to settle, they saw the concrete slab had shattered into several large pieces upon impact. Beneath them, pinned to the stairs, lay the Raticate, twitching weakly, clearly still alive but severely injured. It struggled feebly, trying to push the heavy concrete off itself.
Seeing his Pokémon survive, the bald man felt a surge of desperate hope. But it vanished the next second.
Because Xiu casually jumped onto the fallen debris, planting one foot firmly onto the largest piece of broken concrete, pinning the struggling Raticate securely beneath it. Any hope of escape was instantly extinguished.
Expressionless, Xiu bent down and picked up another jagged chunk of broken concrete lying nearby.
The Raticate, sensing its impending doom, began to squeal frantically, thrashing beneath the weight, its cries sharp and desperate. But it couldn't dislodge the slab of concrete nor Xiu's foot, thus it couldn't even escape the inevitable. Xiu raised the concrete block. And brought it down. Hard. Directly onto the Raticate's head.
Again. And again. Methodically. Brutally.
Below, the bald man watched, horrified, then enraged. He started forward, intending to rush up the stairs, but Abra floated silently into view beside Xiu, raising one hand, pointing directly at the man.
Another sharpened branch shot from the shadows. This one found its mark. It pierced clean through the bald man's thigh. He screamed, collapsing to the ground, clutching his leg as blood quickly pooled around him. He writhed on the factory floor, howling in agony.
Xiu paid him no mind. He continued his grim task, smashing the concrete block repeatedly onto the Raticate's skull until all movement ceased, until the resistance beneath his foot stopped entirely.
"Huuuh..." Xiu finally tossed aside the concrete block, now slick with gore and brain matter. He took a long, steadying breath, looking down at the mangled remains. "Should always wear a helmet," he muttered softly to himself, "when climbing stairs..."
The Raticate's head was unrecognizable, a gruesome mess of shattered bone, pulp, and blood.
Ignoring the continued agonized wails of the bald man below, Xiu knelt beside the Raticate's body. He reached into the bloody ruin of its mouth and carefully extracted two large, curved bone fragments – the Raticate's massive incisors. Wiping the gore off on a relatively clean patch of concrete, he examined them curiously.
"They say these teeth can bite through steel," he mused aloud. "Wonder if that's actually true."
Pocketing the teeth, Xiu suddenly turned his head, looking down towards the factory entrance where the mustached man stood frozen, utterly terrified by the brutal display he'd just witnessed.
"Thinking of leaving?" Xiu asked softly, his voice carrying easily in the sudden quiet. "Isn't it a little late for that?"
The mustached man's legs buckled. He practically fell to his knees, hands raised in supplication. "Brother! Please! Let me go!" he sobbed, his voice trembling uncontrollably. "This… this wasn't my idea! It was all him! It really has nothing to do with me!" He was blubbering now, incoherent with fear.
Xiu slowly descended the stairs, Abra floating silently beside him. "What's the hurry?" He asked, his tone unnervingly calm as he approached the terrified man. "I still have some questions for you." He ignored the mustache for the moment, walking instead towards the bald man still clutching his bleeding leg.
The bald man's face was chalk-white from blood loss and shock. The ground around him was soaked red.
"Quite a mess you're in," Xiu observed conversationally, stopping before him.
Surprisingly, the bald man glared up at him defiantly, then spat weakly towards Xiu's feet and turned his head away, refusing to speak.
"Stubborn," Xiu noted with a faint smile. "You know, without pressure on that wound, you've probably only got three, maybe five minutes left before you bleed out. Don't you value your life?"
"Hmph!" the bald man snorted weakly. "Loss... is loss. In our line of work..." He trailed off, panting.
"Oh?" Xiu's smile widened slightly, a hint of mockery in his eyes. "Putting on a brave face? Admirable, in a way. In that case," he added smoothly, "allow me to accommodate you."
Before the bald man could even process the words, let alone react, Xiu signaled Abra. Another sharpened branch shot from the shadows, this one piercing the man's throat with deadly accuracy.
"Ah... ah..." The bald man clawed uselessly at his neck, eyes wide with disbelief and terror. His hands couldn't staunch the sudden, massive flow of blood. His defiant glare dissolved into raw panic. He reached out a trembling hand towards Xiu, a silent plea in his eyes. Thirty seconds later, he was still. He died never understanding why the kid had taken his tough-guy act literally.
Xiu stood up, dusting off his hands, and turned towards the trembling mustached man still huddled near the entrance. "And you?" he asked, his smile returning, pleasant yet chilling. "Ready to talk?"
"Ah!" The mustache scrambled backwards like a cornered animal, crashing blindly against the rusted metal door, rattling it futilely. He seemed to have forgotten it opened inwards.
"Tell me," Xiu said, walking slowly towards him, "who are you really? Why were you following me? Answer satisfactorily, and perhaps… perhaps I'll let you walk out that door."
The mustache stared at Xiu, then at the body of his partner, then back at Xiu, tears streaming down his face. "G-gangsters! Just local thugs!" He stammered out, words tumbling over each other in panic. "We saw you a few days ago… that Scyther… looked valuable! Thought… thought we could make some easy money…" Every step Xiu took, the man flinched back further, pressing himself against the unyielding door.
"The ones who broke into my cabin? That was you too?"
"Lock picking! I can pick locks!" the mustache blurted out, desperate to be useful, to cooperate. "Old-fashioned locks like yours… ten seconds, tops! Yes, that was us! We followed you after that…"
In a torrent of panicked confession, the whole story came out. They weren't part of the Hunter Organization, just opportunistic local criminals. They'd seen Xiu training Scyther near his apartment, noted his youth and apparent poverty, and marked him as an easy target with a potentially valuable Pokémon. They weren't stupid, though; they'd stalked him out for days, observing his routine, confirming he was alone, seemingly without powerful connections.
Their mistake was assuming Xiu hadn't noticed them. Already paranoid about potential retaliation from the Hunter Organization after the park incident, Xiu had been hyper-vigilant. He'd spotted their clumsy surveillance almost immediately and, suspecting they might be connected to the larger threat, had deliberately led them here, to this abandoned factory he'd scouted earlier, setting his crude but effective traps.
The whole encounter… it had been a misunderstanding, born of greed and mistaken identity, leading to a brutally disproportionate response.