Howdy Serebii people. Now what I have here is one of my oldest fanfictions rewritten (and finished for that matter). It's a horror story and will be posted in two installments since its pretty long. The first part is going to be pretty short, second one not so short. I'll rate it a strong PG-13 for violence and language. If I'm feeling up for it, maybe I'll throw some sexual content too. Nah just kidding, but yeah read! And reviews are always welcomed in fact solicited
The desert is hot.
As undoubtedly groundbreaking as this observation is, there really is no better way to describe the sweltering abyss of sand. The two Sandslash trekking through the treacherous expanses were but mere brown specks in a sea of tan. The older, female one held the younger freshly evolved male whose eyes were fluttering madly to stay conscious. He made a motion to the other, as if he wanted to speak. She brought her ear to his mouth as he mustered the energy to speak.
“How much longer…”
“I don’t know, Son. But they’re still following us. We must flee, and you must hold on! We’ll rest once they end their pursuit,” Delilah reassured her son.
“They won’t end it anytime soon, will they?” Hector asked with a smile before breaking into a coughing fit.
“Save your energy son, we must march,” Delilah affirmed, holding her son even more firmly with one claw, while shielding them against the onslaught of the fiery sand storm with the other.
The days when his father returned from battle were training days for Hector. These sessions were never helpful; in fact, they most likely deteriorated his health further. But Saber was determined that his legacy would live on through the blood of his only son.
“Follow my orders! Kill the vermin!” Saber shouted, grasping his son’s shoulders and spewing saliva onto his face.
“Please…please…” Hector tried to withdraw himself into a ball before his father struck his back.
They were in their home as always. Hector wasn’t allowed to leave the underground pit they called a home. Most of the tribe was under the impression that he had died as an infant when it became apparent that he was a sickly Sandshrew. His death either had to be faked or brought upon by the Trainers. In the Xondrian tribe, you were a strong warrior, a fruitful child bearer, or a corpse tossed into the sandstorms.
The Trapinch was on its back, breathing shallow and twitching. It was struck several times in the belly by Saber who weakened it in desperation. Hector was deathly frightened of all creatures that could move. “Grasp its throat, and bite! It can’t hurt you now!”
Hector’s eyes were bloodshot and his hide chapped and dehydrated. Fearing his father more than the battered creature, he took one step forward and held out a claw reluctantly. He took another step forward while his father hissed a steady stream of orders. One of the Trapinch’s eyes turned to face the Sandshrew. It began to bulge, and the creature started to squeal in horror.
“No…no!” Hector fell on his limbs and began to sob. Within a second, he felt the blunt force of his father’s claws crashing on his head.
Every training day was as unsuccessful as the one before it. And yet Saber, the most promising lieutenant of the Xondrian Army, continued to train his son. Every Sandslash wanted his first born son to one day slay dozens of enemy Flygon, and Saber wasn’t an exception. But he was also driven by his adoration of his wife. He genuinely adored her and viewed her as more than hips that could bear a child. It was partly because of her pleads that he tried so hard to turn his son around.
A normal Sandshew evolves into a Sandslash in three or four years. It took Hector twice that time—due primarily to the lack of combat. Both Saber and Delilah were able to watch it happen—they had thought he was dying. The weeks leading up to it he had become more pale and skinny and constantly broke into coughing fits. After two days of arrested paralysis, he began to radiate with shining white light. But when the light dissipated, Saber’s tolerance came to an end.
“HE HAS NO SPINES! Enough! I will raise him no more!”
“Please…have mercy…he’s your son!”
“MY SON? No son of mine would be born as a sickly feeble runt and evolve with no spines! You bred with enemy generals, you whore!”
In a moment’s flash, Delilah was on the floor, clutching her bruised face and sobbing madly at her husband’s rage. “I love you no more! You failed to produce me a strong son!”
Delilah’s wails were broken and hushed as Saber began to stamp her chest repeatedly. Hector couldn’t bear to hear the sound of his mother dying any longer. For once in his life, he would be brave.
“Leave her alone! It’s me you hate!” Hector leaped out of the vase he hid in and glared at his father, choking back his tears at the sight of his battered mother. Delilah lifted up a claw feebly.
“Run, Hector…”
Before he could respond, his father’s snarling face whipped to face him and in a moment’s time Hector was pinned to the wall, neck clenched in his father’s maniacal grip. What little courage he had mustered had evaporated—he was now writhing for his life pathetically swiping at his father’s claw driven by his deepest survival instincts. As the grip tightened, the spineless Sandslash’s eyes began to bulge and skin turn purple.
“I should have done this the day you were born!” Saber hissed as his face bore in closer, watching the soul fade from his son’s eyes.
Hector began to stop gasping for air as the world began to slip away from him. The stone walls of his home one tan blur…his father’s putrid breath odorless…the sobs of his mother gone…
And then it was over. Saber’s claw unexpectedly let go and Hector slid to the ground, consciousness slowly returning. The minute or so he was deprived of oxygen still had its toll as Hector laid there in delirium, images of a rocky ceiling shaking and stirring above him. His mother’s sobs were louder and more pronounced now. She came over to her son and he felt her claws gently press on his shoulders.
They were oddly warm. And wet. So wet.
His gut constricted and blood drained out of his face as his consciousness came hurtling back. Standing over him was his crying mother. He looked to his shoulders and saw a pair of scarlet claws gripping them.
Blood. They were drenched in blood. It gleamed malevolently as the rays of the setting sun pierced the cracks in the stone building they called a home.
Behind his mother was his father, sprawled lifeless on the floor with two gaping wounds in his back. Hector began to scream.
The scorching sun blazed overheard ever so unbearably. It was an alien beast to Hector who had never stepped out his shelter before now. He was under the impression it was a great fire pokemon determined to slowly burn him to death in this prison of sand. Breathing erratically and heavily, the Sandslash looked up into the sky, squinting at the awesome power of the sun. Oddly enough, there was a moving black speck in the sky. Upon close inspection—it appeared to be some sort of flying beast.
Hector stopped for a moment, relieved for a brief respite from the grueling march. He continued to eye the strange creature that was now gliding in a circle above them. Blinking in confusion, he continued to stand there—perplexed at the ability of a pokemon to fly.
Having continued to march onwards, Delilah stopped when she realized her son wasn’t by her side. Her eyes were soon drawn to the bird when she saw Hector’s curious gaze. When the creature was low enough to become more visible, Delilah’s eyes bulged in horror. Upon seeing his mother’s fright, a feeling of dread began to chill throughout Hector’s blood. “That beast is a scout for the Xondrian Army! Hide!”
They began to rush towards some dead shrubs several hundred yards ahead of them. The bird continued to fly overhead as they leaped into the mass of prickly, dead plants. Hector began to whimper as anxiety began to overcome him. Gripping his mouth shut, Delilah buried both of their heads in the sand, praying silently that the bird had not seen them.
Hunger, exhaustion, and terror—all potent in their own accords. But it was their lethal combination that sent Hector’s eyes rolling into the back of their sockets and his consciousness into nothingness.
“You filthy whore! Turning your claw against your husband!”
A sickening smash and a cry of pain. Were they free? Were they in the lands beyond the mountains?
Ah, the fantasies of a delirious mind. No memories, unable to comprehend what’s going on around them.
“So that little spineless runt is yours, eh? You killed one of the greatest warriors in our tribe for THAT!”
Another smash of claw on flesh accompanied by the crack of bone. His chest was tight…gripped firmly by some horrid monster. His mind returned to him.
Delilah was ensnared in the arms of a monstrously large Sandslash with a three foot blade in place of his right claw. Her face was badly bruised and her mouth bloody as another Sandslash—a woman—continued to beat her as ferociously as she could. Hector opened his mouth to scream before an aged, dusty claw clamped around his mouth and the other claw tightened around chest.
“Let’s take her back to the city, Tsarzina! Make a lesson out of her!” cried the elder Sandslash that gripped Hector.
Tsarzina turned to the old Sandslash and Hector. Her face was badly burned with only one visible feature—a bulging eyeball with a glaring red pupil. She had closed her eye and began to snicker maniacally in her contemplation. Her eye snapped open shut and she began to move towards Hector, her twisted, jagged claw held forward. The spineless Sandslash tried to escape the grip, but it was unyielding. The female Sandslash had terrified him more than the monstrous one who was guffawing in delight. He could see his mother writhing madly in desperation.
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t have to give you and Bakudon the trouble of carrying this slime back to our city, Mhando,” Tsarzina muttered as she stroked the edge of her claw gently against Hector’s blood-drained face. “After all the desert is a harsh place, yes?”
The other Sandslash nodded furiously, servile to their crazed leader. A small smile curled in the remnants of Tsarzina’s lips.
“I think the message would get across just as well if,” she paused dramatically, “we just brought back the whore’s head!”
Immediately Hector and Delilah gave terrified howls, muffled by the claws of their captors. Their attempts to escape had grown two-fold as they kicked and thrashed with all their might. Tsarzina’s eye grew cold and hateful as she slapped Hector—immediately ending his struggle. Delilah gave another muffled cry and she too stopped her fruitless escape efforts and broke down into sobs.
“As for you…” the point of her claw pierced Hector's forehead softly, drawing a thin line of blood, “I’ll bring back the mangled remains of your body after I personally carve out the innards and drain the blood!” Tsarzina declared, slapping Hector once more and hysterically laughing. She whipped herself around and charged towards Delilah, snapping her claw out towards a large slab of rock nearby.
Bakudon proceeded to drag Delilah towards the rock and for a brief moment, as the abnormal beast tossed her into Tsarzina’s grip, Delilah was able to plead, “Don’t hurt him! Kill me but let my son be!”
They ignored her cries and Tsarzina slammed the desperate Sandslash onto the slab of rock, her head pressed down into the sand. Mhando moved right in front of the impending execution to give Hector a front row seat to the spectacle. He was unable to close his eyes, unable to comprehend what would happen next. For the most fleeting of moments, Delilah lifted up her head a few inches—peering into her child’s eyes with a smile. A smile of such unusual joy in the most desperate of times. It was instantly buried back in the sand with a forceful smack of Tsarzina’s claw.
Bakudon stroked the edge of his blade-like claw against a nearby rock. His small beady eyes were locked on Delilah, burning with a demented strain of lust. His wide grin showed many missing teeth. Upon Tsarzina’s order, he drug his massive body towards the two women. At that moment, Hector suddenly became detached—his mind feeling strangely numb and his body going limp. His senses blocked out everything but the image of his mother—laying there in the floor of the sandy inferno.
He did not see Bakudon raise his blade like claw high. He did not see the agony in the monster’s face as he struggled to hold the heavy appendage with the normal one as he precisely aligned the blade with Delilah’s neck. He didn’t hear the jeers and laughter—as if the other Sandslash were simply splashing each other in an oasis. Nor did he see the blade plummet downwards or hear the grunt of relief.
All he saw was red. His tongue grazed against the sweet warmth of the scarlet liquid soaking his face. It was almost like berries.
Malevolence
Part I
Part I
The desert is hot.
As undoubtedly groundbreaking as this observation is, there really is no better way to describe the sweltering abyss of sand. The two Sandslash trekking through the treacherous expanses were but mere brown specks in a sea of tan. The older, female one held the younger freshly evolved male whose eyes were fluttering madly to stay conscious. He made a motion to the other, as if he wanted to speak. She brought her ear to his mouth as he mustered the energy to speak.
“How much longer…”
“I don’t know, Son. But they’re still following us. We must flee, and you must hold on! We’ll rest once they end their pursuit,” Delilah reassured her son.
“They won’t end it anytime soon, will they?” Hector asked with a smile before breaking into a coughing fit.
“Save your energy son, we must march,” Delilah affirmed, holding her son even more firmly with one claw, while shielding them against the onslaught of the fiery sand storm with the other.
The days when his father returned from battle were training days for Hector. These sessions were never helpful; in fact, they most likely deteriorated his health further. But Saber was determined that his legacy would live on through the blood of his only son.
“Follow my orders! Kill the vermin!” Saber shouted, grasping his son’s shoulders and spewing saliva onto his face.
“Please…please…” Hector tried to withdraw himself into a ball before his father struck his back.
They were in their home as always. Hector wasn’t allowed to leave the underground pit they called a home. Most of the tribe was under the impression that he had died as an infant when it became apparent that he was a sickly Sandshrew. His death either had to be faked or brought upon by the Trainers. In the Xondrian tribe, you were a strong warrior, a fruitful child bearer, or a corpse tossed into the sandstorms.
The Trapinch was on its back, breathing shallow and twitching. It was struck several times in the belly by Saber who weakened it in desperation. Hector was deathly frightened of all creatures that could move. “Grasp its throat, and bite! It can’t hurt you now!”
Hector’s eyes were bloodshot and his hide chapped and dehydrated. Fearing his father more than the battered creature, he took one step forward and held out a claw reluctantly. He took another step forward while his father hissed a steady stream of orders. One of the Trapinch’s eyes turned to face the Sandshrew. It began to bulge, and the creature started to squeal in horror.
“No…no!” Hector fell on his limbs and began to sob. Within a second, he felt the blunt force of his father’s claws crashing on his head.
Every training day was as unsuccessful as the one before it. And yet Saber, the most promising lieutenant of the Xondrian Army, continued to train his son. Every Sandslash wanted his first born son to one day slay dozens of enemy Flygon, and Saber wasn’t an exception. But he was also driven by his adoration of his wife. He genuinely adored her and viewed her as more than hips that could bear a child. It was partly because of her pleads that he tried so hard to turn his son around.
A normal Sandshew evolves into a Sandslash in three or four years. It took Hector twice that time—due primarily to the lack of combat. Both Saber and Delilah were able to watch it happen—they had thought he was dying. The weeks leading up to it he had become more pale and skinny and constantly broke into coughing fits. After two days of arrested paralysis, he began to radiate with shining white light. But when the light dissipated, Saber’s tolerance came to an end.
“HE HAS NO SPINES! Enough! I will raise him no more!”
“Please…have mercy…he’s your son!”
“MY SON? No son of mine would be born as a sickly feeble runt and evolve with no spines! You bred with enemy generals, you whore!”
In a moment’s flash, Delilah was on the floor, clutching her bruised face and sobbing madly at her husband’s rage. “I love you no more! You failed to produce me a strong son!”
Delilah’s wails were broken and hushed as Saber began to stamp her chest repeatedly. Hector couldn’t bear to hear the sound of his mother dying any longer. For once in his life, he would be brave.
“Leave her alone! It’s me you hate!” Hector leaped out of the vase he hid in and glared at his father, choking back his tears at the sight of his battered mother. Delilah lifted up a claw feebly.
“Run, Hector…”
Before he could respond, his father’s snarling face whipped to face him and in a moment’s time Hector was pinned to the wall, neck clenched in his father’s maniacal grip. What little courage he had mustered had evaporated—he was now writhing for his life pathetically swiping at his father’s claw driven by his deepest survival instincts. As the grip tightened, the spineless Sandslash’s eyes began to bulge and skin turn purple.
“I should have done this the day you were born!” Saber hissed as his face bore in closer, watching the soul fade from his son’s eyes.
Hector began to stop gasping for air as the world began to slip away from him. The stone walls of his home one tan blur…his father’s putrid breath odorless…the sobs of his mother gone…
And then it was over. Saber’s claw unexpectedly let go and Hector slid to the ground, consciousness slowly returning. The minute or so he was deprived of oxygen still had its toll as Hector laid there in delirium, images of a rocky ceiling shaking and stirring above him. His mother’s sobs were louder and more pronounced now. She came over to her son and he felt her claws gently press on his shoulders.
They were oddly warm. And wet. So wet.
His gut constricted and blood drained out of his face as his consciousness came hurtling back. Standing over him was his crying mother. He looked to his shoulders and saw a pair of scarlet claws gripping them.
Blood. They were drenched in blood. It gleamed malevolently as the rays of the setting sun pierced the cracks in the stone building they called a home.
Behind his mother was his father, sprawled lifeless on the floor with two gaping wounds in his back. Hector began to scream.
The scorching sun blazed overheard ever so unbearably. It was an alien beast to Hector who had never stepped out his shelter before now. He was under the impression it was a great fire pokemon determined to slowly burn him to death in this prison of sand. Breathing erratically and heavily, the Sandslash looked up into the sky, squinting at the awesome power of the sun. Oddly enough, there was a moving black speck in the sky. Upon close inspection—it appeared to be some sort of flying beast.
Hector stopped for a moment, relieved for a brief respite from the grueling march. He continued to eye the strange creature that was now gliding in a circle above them. Blinking in confusion, he continued to stand there—perplexed at the ability of a pokemon to fly.
Having continued to march onwards, Delilah stopped when she realized her son wasn’t by her side. Her eyes were soon drawn to the bird when she saw Hector’s curious gaze. When the creature was low enough to become more visible, Delilah’s eyes bulged in horror. Upon seeing his mother’s fright, a feeling of dread began to chill throughout Hector’s blood. “That beast is a scout for the Xondrian Army! Hide!”
They began to rush towards some dead shrubs several hundred yards ahead of them. The bird continued to fly overhead as they leaped into the mass of prickly, dead plants. Hector began to whimper as anxiety began to overcome him. Gripping his mouth shut, Delilah buried both of their heads in the sand, praying silently that the bird had not seen them.
Hunger, exhaustion, and terror—all potent in their own accords. But it was their lethal combination that sent Hector’s eyes rolling into the back of their sockets and his consciousness into nothingness.
***
“You filthy whore! Turning your claw against your husband!”
A sickening smash and a cry of pain. Were they free? Were they in the lands beyond the mountains?
Ah, the fantasies of a delirious mind. No memories, unable to comprehend what’s going on around them.
“So that little spineless runt is yours, eh? You killed one of the greatest warriors in our tribe for THAT!”
Another smash of claw on flesh accompanied by the crack of bone. His chest was tight…gripped firmly by some horrid monster. His mind returned to him.
Delilah was ensnared in the arms of a monstrously large Sandslash with a three foot blade in place of his right claw. Her face was badly bruised and her mouth bloody as another Sandslash—a woman—continued to beat her as ferociously as she could. Hector opened his mouth to scream before an aged, dusty claw clamped around his mouth and the other claw tightened around chest.
“Let’s take her back to the city, Tsarzina! Make a lesson out of her!” cried the elder Sandslash that gripped Hector.
Tsarzina turned to the old Sandslash and Hector. Her face was badly burned with only one visible feature—a bulging eyeball with a glaring red pupil. She had closed her eye and began to snicker maniacally in her contemplation. Her eye snapped open shut and she began to move towards Hector, her twisted, jagged claw held forward. The spineless Sandslash tried to escape the grip, but it was unyielding. The female Sandslash had terrified him more than the monstrous one who was guffawing in delight. He could see his mother writhing madly in desperation.
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t have to give you and Bakudon the trouble of carrying this slime back to our city, Mhando,” Tsarzina muttered as she stroked the edge of her claw gently against Hector’s blood-drained face. “After all the desert is a harsh place, yes?”
The other Sandslash nodded furiously, servile to their crazed leader. A small smile curled in the remnants of Tsarzina’s lips.
“I think the message would get across just as well if,” she paused dramatically, “we just brought back the whore’s head!”
Immediately Hector and Delilah gave terrified howls, muffled by the claws of their captors. Their attempts to escape had grown two-fold as they kicked and thrashed with all their might. Tsarzina’s eye grew cold and hateful as she slapped Hector—immediately ending his struggle. Delilah gave another muffled cry and she too stopped her fruitless escape efforts and broke down into sobs.
“As for you…” the point of her claw pierced Hector's forehead softly, drawing a thin line of blood, “I’ll bring back the mangled remains of your body after I personally carve out the innards and drain the blood!” Tsarzina declared, slapping Hector once more and hysterically laughing. She whipped herself around and charged towards Delilah, snapping her claw out towards a large slab of rock nearby.
Bakudon proceeded to drag Delilah towards the rock and for a brief moment, as the abnormal beast tossed her into Tsarzina’s grip, Delilah was able to plead, “Don’t hurt him! Kill me but let my son be!”
They ignored her cries and Tsarzina slammed the desperate Sandslash onto the slab of rock, her head pressed down into the sand. Mhando moved right in front of the impending execution to give Hector a front row seat to the spectacle. He was unable to close his eyes, unable to comprehend what would happen next. For the most fleeting of moments, Delilah lifted up her head a few inches—peering into her child’s eyes with a smile. A smile of such unusual joy in the most desperate of times. It was instantly buried back in the sand with a forceful smack of Tsarzina’s claw.
Bakudon stroked the edge of his blade-like claw against a nearby rock. His small beady eyes were locked on Delilah, burning with a demented strain of lust. His wide grin showed many missing teeth. Upon Tsarzina’s order, he drug his massive body towards the two women. At that moment, Hector suddenly became detached—his mind feeling strangely numb and his body going limp. His senses blocked out everything but the image of his mother—laying there in the floor of the sandy inferno.
He did not see Bakudon raise his blade like claw high. He did not see the agony in the monster’s face as he struggled to hold the heavy appendage with the normal one as he precisely aligned the blade with Delilah’s neck. He didn’t hear the jeers and laughter—as if the other Sandslash were simply splashing each other in an oasis. Nor did he see the blade plummet downwards or hear the grunt of relief.
All he saw was red. His tongue grazed against the sweet warmth of the scarlet liquid soaking his face. It was almost like berries.
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