NPC: Clara Redwood's Story

From her small, barred window, Desiree could see other faces coming to see what was happening as well, all peering through similar bars. Everyone seemed confused, unsure. That meant she wasn't the only one to end up here by mysterious means. That meant it wasn't just some weird memory loss, unless everyone else had lost their memories as well. That just didn't seem likely.

"Hey," she finally spoke once she was sure her voice wouldn't shake, gripping the bars and trying to see as many people as she could, which wasn't too many. From one she could see someone sticking their arms out. Likely female, by the shape of them. "I don't know what happened, but we all seem to be here without much of a reason. I... well, I'm Desiree, and as far as I can remember I didn't do anything to end up here either." Some of her short brown hair fell into her face, but she left it there to hide her eyes that threatened to spill over with tears. Despite her sure voice, the girl was utterly terrified. Her knuckles were white from their tight grip on her bars, trying to keep them from shaking. "They took our Pokemon, so they're asking for trouble... damn there has to be a way-" she cut off when she saw the two from before, coming to take away another victim. Taking a few steps back, she prayed to any god that could be out there, any thing that might listen that it wasn't her turn. Maybe it was wrong to condemn someone else, but right now, what matter was getting out and finding her pokemon.

Maybe something listened, because there was the sound of a different door opening with a clang. There was the sound of scuffling, and as Desiree watched with horror, they dragged some new girl away while she tried to fight against them. Letting out a small sigh of relief, she let her forehead rest against the cool metal bars. "We need to get out of here somehow..." she spoke fairly softly. Coming up with an idea, she carefully slid one arm out of the bars as far as she could, reaching down to wear the outside handle was and feeling around. Unfortunately, she couldn't feel what she was looking for. "Hey, can anybody with long arms reach down to the key hole? I might still have a bobby pin we can try and pick the locks with!"

"Please refrain from escape attempts," a calm, low female voice spoke. Almost disturbingly silent, a strange form in a brown cloak appeared in front of Desiree's door. She could only see the lady's mouth, her head completely covered in what almost had to be a bed sheet with how far it extended out to the left and right, covering some odd shapes. Extremely long, dark brown hair spilling out from the hood was the only other defining feature of this person under their cloak. "Professor Redwood would not be pleased, and I will have to stop you." Without waiting for any more answer, the woman turned and walked back to wherever she had come from.

"Well you can tell the kind Professor that he can stick it..." Desiree muttered back angrily, sticking out her tongue childishly. Carefully, she pulled out the bobby pin that kept her hair pushed behind one ear and began to fiddle with it, debating is she should risk an escape attempt, not know if the woman was still there, watching.

Alexander Ashfist

Alexander saw many people starting to wake and move to there bars, being dragged to there cells, there faces obscured for the most part. He could only see a few faces. Too his left the man in his cell was panicking. Though the mess of noise he got his name was Kyle. He moved over to the left side of his cell and put his good hand though the bars so it should be able to be grasped. "Alexander Ashfist, do not be worried my friend we will get out of here" The person in front of him was a girl with white hair. Said her name was Savannah. she seemed quite graceful though confused. "And you young lady, ill get you home to your parents, when we get out of here"

The girl next to her was Desiree, she seemed quite calm given everything that was going on. On the other side of the white haired girl was some young blond haired girl who seemed to be suffering. feeling bad for her he simply tried to give her an encouraging smile.

It was clear that even though there were others in the sound of all this it was hard to pick them out. Moving equipment, other captives moaning, or yelling from panic he could not make anything else out. One thing was clear though, all of them where confused and scared, many in pain. It was odd though, he understood that he had fallen and the attack from behind had hurt him but what about everyone else, many seemed unharmed but where suffering.

They must have done something to them. They have a large abound of people here this is no small operation There must be a reason they needed us but it looks like it is to test something out but what? a new drug? could be human trafficking but they would have no reason to harm us then. looking around he knew things would get worse of no one got any of there questions resolved. As Alexander was about to speak up he saw the girl Desiree try to pick the lock for her cage. No what are you doing! not when everything is so busy there is no wa- Alexanders thoughts where cut off as a woman stepped in front of her cage.

"Please refrain from escape attempts,Professor Redwood would not be pleased, and I will have to stop you". the woman spoke. She had some weird antlers on her head. probably just some odd seance of fashion. from where he was he could see her eyes from the side but knew they were cold and uncaring. They sent a chill down his spine. Alexander did not like that woman.

As much as he would like to be quite and draw as little attention to himself he knew he could not. "Of course not your little professor probably wants all us in good shape for his little experiments." he said in a hushed tone. then he took a break in and spoke loudly "Hey everyone who is locked up like myself, let me give you all my educated guess. You all like myself have been kidnapped, spirited away. We are not here by accident and there is probably no way out."

He paused for a brief moment giving those paying attention a chance to process this. "The good news is that they most likely have little to no intent to harm us directly but use us as some sort of test subjects. they have taken our Pokemon and have no intent to return them I am guessing. Isn't that right mam?" he asked the woman in a lab coat trying to get her to look at him and forget about the young lady she was speaking too. He quickly shoot her and everyone else who could see him a smile. and thought to himself Fuck, we are in deep shit

Before Walter could say anything to any others, a woman crossed down the corridors. A woman whose feet clamped with a wooden sound as they planted against the corridor tile. Adorned on her head appeared to be… antlers… Walter found the antlers oddly familiar, but he could not place where he had seen them before. The woman called to the other cells as well as Walter’s own. “Please refrain from escape attempts,” the words were spoken as if this were an everyday warning, “Professor Redwood would not be pleased, and I will have to stop you.”

The distant laughing had still yet to cease.

All of a sudden, a set of keys rattled outside his cell. The click rang across the solid cinder block walls of the tiny chamber, as well as Walter’s ears. The heavy iron door swung open. Walter glanced up. There she stood in the doorway… Wait, no. Walter couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. They were dressed entirely in white, with face-covering sterile masks, hoods, and goggles.

With a snap of their fingers, the first one summoned forth a group of four more. Walter was a fit trainer, but even he could not fight back against four older people of at least equal strength. His arms were strapped firmly, and he found himself being dragged between two of the strangers. Through the corridor, two pulled Walter along, with two walking close behind, and the apparent leader up ahead by a few paces- well out of Walter’s reach.

The laughter grew in volume as Walter passed a cell. He caught a single glimpse through a barred, plexiglass window. A young woman lay on the ground, losing her lovely black hair at a ferocious pace. Her gaping, grinning mouth indicated that she was the source of the insane laughter.

Walter’s thoughts immediately went to his Gym leader, Flannery. Was she here as well? Were any of the others here as well? He didn’t want to think about it, but the thoughts flooded his mind regardless. He was the only one to slip and drop several ledges from the mountain… But he couldn’t have slipped. The ground he stood on was solid while he was taking that picture…

His train of thought came to a crashing halt as he was thrown onto an operating table. Then he knew exactly what happened with the laughing girl… Something… something that involved this table… something that will now happen to him. Walter screamed and squirmed in defiance, but his mouth was quickly gagged with a thick cloth. Everything else was strapped down tight. He rattled in futility against the far tougher bonds, before finally tiring out and inadvertently allowing a person in white to roll back his track suit sleeve and extracting a sample of Walter’s own blood. The needle- thank goodness- looked and felt sterile; Walter didn’t even feel a thing. "Sample 121, P. Walter," one voice commented before a pen scribbled on an unseen notepad. "DNA extraction successful, transporting sample to test labs."

Soon afterwards, the doctors turned him over. His face wedged into a horseshoe-shaped pillow, forcing him to constantly stare at the clean, white tile floor. From the edges of the pillow, he saw white boots take steps around him. The laughter, though muffled by the operating room doors, still echoed throughout the complex. Walter shut his eyes and wept. He wanted to get out. He wanted to find out who else was in here, and get them out too.

Time passed for what felt like hours. Walter finally drained his tears long ago, and was about to wonder if they had left him for dead when some footsteps returned. “You got another lyric for us, man?” One asked very casually with a laugh, as though these same individuals were chatting it up around a water cooler.

“Lemme think,” the second voice replied. After a long pause, he added, “I did that really good one for J. Mara... Ah, I know! All in all it’s just another brick in the Wal.”

This resulted in a great eruption of laughter from several others. “Haha! Very fitting!” A third scientist replied as the source of the second voice plunged an equally silky-smooth needle into Walter’s neck.

—

Walter was left in a padded cell. He felt only a little sick, but his vision was not blurry. He felt sort of relaxed. The long time on the operating table was unusually tiring, so the young man remained lying there on the comfortable padded floor for a long while. The laughter was closer, and still had yet to cease. Strangely enough, Walter felt only relaxed by the laughter.

The relaxed feeling seemed to grow at an unusual rate. Soon enough, he realised that he was going numb all over. With all his will, he raised his left arm, and saw said arm crumbling away as if made entirely out of sand. The sand swirled and pulsed at his heartbeat- which spiked in utter panic. Walter swore. With the sudden surge of adrenaline, he forced himself to sit up. Once up there, he saw that his right arm and both his legs were dissolving into the sand-like substance as well.

He tried to scream, but he felt his neck go numb as well. His head seemed to naturally drop forward, and he saw that the rest of his body was dissolving. He could not scream. He could not do anything. He was too numb to even breathe.

Despite the horror, he still held onto the notion of getting out. In fact, the most unusual part about all this was that despite being numb, he could still feel he had his appendages. As his head dropped to the floor to splash in the small puddle of sand, he willed something- anything to move. His one uncovered eye watched as a patch of sand began to move of it’s own accord, and lift off the ground. The collection of sand formed what looked to be some kind of pathetic excuse for a gaseous hand.

Walter finally gave up at that point. He was too numb. He couldn’t feel anything, not even fatigue. His uncovered eye wandered around the limited field of vision, between the crumbling skin around him and the tiny dunes of what his body became.

"Help!" he tried to squeeze out between his dry, numb throat. There was no air to push, though. He didn't imagine anyone could hear.

People could hear, though. Walter did not know that he technically functioned normally.

Mat

"No idea why we're here. I just woke up in this tiny cell. One thing I do know is that we have to find a way out here! This is horrible!"

Someone answered his question. Well, it wasn't much of an answer but a response nonetheless. There were a number of people speaking now. Their words were hard to distinguish from all the rest of the sounds of people yelling and calling for help. It was quite difficult for him to really talk to anyone. Something happened to drag his attention away from the noise however. Their keeper, or at least one of their keepers, appeared somehow before one of the cells. A mysterious woman in a brown cloak which covered her almost completely. The cloak seemed to conceal what looked roughly like a large upside-down clothes hangar in shape. What it was he couldn't really tell.

She had come to quell the plotting of the prisoner in the cell just a couple doors down from his on the opposite wall. The girl inside had been going on about something to do with a bobby pin. Mat just receded from view of the window in his door and slumped back against the wall on his bed panel. They got some pretty well hidden sentries here. I could of sworn I didn't see her approach before that girl tried to open her door through the bars in the window. He pondered while more people continued to talk between the cells while men trafficked prisoners up and down the halls.


After about roughly half a minute of sitting around he got bored so he stood back up again and went over to the window in his door to watch what was going on a bit more. More men were taking other prisoners out of their cells while the rest of his neighboring cell mates continued chatting about the confusing mess they had all found themselves stuck in. He didn't have much to offer on the matter.

"Since everyone's handing out their names I'm Mat. Nice to meet you all, shame about the steel bars and foot thick doors though." He tried to be friendly despite the looming shadow of what was being done to them hanging close over each of them. The last thing anyone needed right now was more screaming for help and cries of despair.

Of course, she couldn't quite reach the lock with the bobby pin, and even if she could barely reach far enough it wouldn't be a good angle to actually pick it. When she heard one of the guys diagonal from her speak to the woman again, Desiree knew she'd made a mistake and the woman had not actually left. Her mistake was to freeze, and almost immediately her hand was smacked harshly, sending the bobby pin flying down the hall. With a small yelp of surprise and a little pain, she quickly pulled her now red hand back into her cell. The woman stood there again, and she could nearly feel the freezing stare from under that brown hood, although no words were spoken in their stare down. Hearing the sound of footsteps approaching again, she knew she had really messed up now.

"This one has been causing trouble," the woman told the guards simply, then walked away. Sure enough, there was the sound of clanking as a key turned in her door. Desiree took a few steps back, hunching over a bit in a defensive stance, making herself smaller. The moment the door, started to swing open, she did her best to make a break for it, charging around the two men and barely dodging a hand reaching to grab her. Momentum drove her to the left, but she knew that was a mistake the moment she saw the woman at the end of the hallway, just beyond the doors. What could one lady really do though?

It turns out, a lot, when that lady isn't entirely human. She pulled that wide, brown hood away from her head, revealing a pair of Stantler horns, which Desiree could put 2 and 2 together to deduce these as the cause of the vertigo that had knocked her out before arriving here. Quickly diverting her eyes, she was still on a set course to push past, when suddenly the ground seemed to warp under her feet, and everything seemed to start spinning. Confused and unaware of the illusion, she took a step wrong and felt her ankle roll beneath her own weight, sending the girl tumbling to the floor. Instantly the hall returned to normal and the guards were picking her up by the arms. She looked up at the woman with a scowl, luckily finding that her horns were covered again by the hood. Half dragged, half hobbling along with the guards to avoid feeling like her arms were being wrenched mercilessly from their sockets, she finally gave in to the situation and accepted fate.

They arrived at some kind of lab setting, where she was tossed like a rag doll onto the table and quickly strapped down. There was some murmuring voices, and the sound of a terrifyingly malicious chuckle. "I hear you're quite the troublemaker," came the voice of an elderly male. A silhouette appeared above her head, preparing some sterile needle with a test tube. "Well, we have ways to deal with that." Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, she waited for something awful to happen. All that came, though, was the cool metal of the needle and the slight prick as it entered one of the veins on the inside of her elbow. It only lasted a few long seconds before it was pulled out and the wound was dabbed with sterile alcohol and quickly bandaged over. "We'll be right back with your results then."

It turned out, right back was a painfully long time, leaving her simply strapped down to uncomfortable metal table. Eventually, though, she heard footsteps returning to the room. "All finished. Quite the interesting sample you are! Now, let's wrap this up here." There was the sound of medical supplies clinking, and the the flicking of a needle. The silhouette returned with a very long, sharp looking needle. Her eyes widened, but she knew struggling would make everything worse, so she gritted her teeth once more and allowed her head to be lifted up. There was another prick on the back of her neck, but this one was definitely more painful, the sensation travelling up through the back of her head in a very finely precise movement. There was pressure as the contents of the syringe was released, and then with a quick motion the needle was drawn back once more, and the entry wound was cleaned gently and some sort of bandage was place there, just under her hair. The world was spinning slightly, and the pain in her head was sharp. She could feel herself being unstrapped, but she couldn't gather the strength to sit up on her own. A pair of strong arms scooped her up and carried her off, back the way they had come, but to a different door now. Inside was an entirely padded cell, where she was unceremoniously dumped.

Once the door had shut again, she struggled to force herself to sit up a bit, but her arms shook as she did so. It was the best she could do to drag her body to a wall and use it to prop herself up, panting heavily. Her head felt like a mass of throbbing pain on her neck, her eyes closed to shut out the bright light that only made it worse. Every inch of her felt like it was crawling, but she couldn't do much about it. Eventually, if there was any god out there it finally took pity on her and allowed her to pass out.

As Kyle sat in his cell he saw someone's arm bend around the corner of his cell. The man in the cell next to his introduced himself as Alexander Ashfist, and assured him that they would get out of this place, and that there was no reason to worry. It actually helped somewhat, he was confident that they would make it out of here somehow. Kyle resolved to try, and calm down, trying not to let his fear get the best of him. Kyle with a smile took the hand, and shook it. "I'm sure you're right. Gotta be optimistic in times like this, right?" There was no point in being doubtful about escaping, he just had to do his best to keep a clear head, and eventually he would find a way out. He'd be sure to come back for the others, and help them escape as well.

He watched through the bars of his cell, there was a mysterious girl, with a large sheet over her head carrying something large on her head, walking around the cells. She didn't seem to be the one in charge, but it was certainly her job to keep them from leaving. The girl known as Desiree seemed to try, and unlock her cell regardless, and Alexander seemed convinced they were here to be some kind of test subjects. The thought of being some kind of lab rat was not a pleasant one. Many of the others were taken, and undoubtedly had something happen to them. Kyle held out hope that he would escape before something happened to him as well.

Despite the strange girl paroling the cells Desiree still tried to escape making a run for it as soon as they came for her. She ran past his cell, and though he couldn't see much else, it was obvious that she failed, as he heard the sound of a dragging body. This was not good, there was no way out at this point, and trying to escape would bring nothing good. He let out a sigh. Escape it seems would take much longer than he thought it would.

Soon four men walked up to his cell, and unlocked the door. They walked towards him, clearly intending to take him somewhere. Kyle backed up somewhat, and threw his hands in the air as a gesture of surrender.[color=orange]"Well there's obviously no way out of here, and there's no point n resisting. I'll cooperate." the men looked towards the strange girl apparently looking for confirmation. They forcefully pulled Kyle out of the cell but instead of forcefully dragging him to wherever he was gonna go they allowed him to walk upright. Kyle breathed a sigh of relief, despite the circumstances he was just glad to be out of that horribly small cell. Two men positioned behind him, two in front to prevent him from escaping. They began to lead him to their destination, Kyle walking behind them. As he walked he saw inside some of the cells. Some were normal people, stuck against their will but otherwise unharmed. However other cells contained something less than human. They resembled Pokemon, one looking sort of like a Tangela, the other resembling a Ghastly, though they almost looked human in some ways. Whatever was going on here was not going to be good.

Soon they entered a room, in the center stood an operating table, and beside that stood some doctor, or researcher type people. At this point the guards had ceased being gentle, and forced him down on the table, forcefully strapping him down. An old doctor walked up to him with a needle, and a smile. "Good to see you've been cooperative. This shouldn't take long." Before Kyle could say anything the man plunged a needle into his vein, extracting his blood, then left the area. After what seemed like an agonizingly long time the man returned, and injected him with some kind of chemical. The needle itself didn't hurt, though shortly after he began to feel pain spread throughout his body, there was a pain starting in his head. He barely noticed when they took him off the table, and started carrying him back towards the cells. He grunted in pain as they carried him, throwing him in a new padded cell. Fortunately before he could panic about being back in such a small space he passed out.

She looked over and out the bars, her voice getting scratchy from not having enough water. There were many others, and her brain was confused, so confused with all this information. Nola let out a scream when her tail bone retched almost out of her skin- like she was getting a tail. Not to mention her hair was slowly turning a very light grey, and growing non-stop. Nola took a close look at the others, trying to keep her mind off of her pain.

One was a girl who stood out the most- mostly because she just tried to escape her cell, and a very- beautiful woman with horns, held her still, and forcefully placed the girl in her cage. Nola shudder, wondering why she thought of a cage. Another girl looked like a Tangela, with beautiful long black locks. Another one closely resembled a Ghastly, and she shuddered. Two guys in the prisons beside her were talking- probably introducing themselves, when one of them got taken away. Another girl got clothes from hat horned woman, and Nola sighed.

She was honestly getting bored, and hungry.. and her tail bone kept growing every five minutes. Nola curled up on the ground and whimpered, trying to fall asleep, but not doing so well. Her thoughts trailed back to her family, then the people here, and then she actually fell asleep. Nola was soon sleeping in her bed at home, with Wendy on the bed beside her, and her maids coming in and placing tea beside her, but when she woke up and tried getting out of her bed, she had woken up from her dream and yelped in pain, when her tail burst her skin open, and a stub of a tail was appearing.

Nola tied her hair up with a hair tie she had on her wrist, because her hair kept falling in her face. Soon she saw the antler woman approaching her with food and clothes. As she got closer, Nola examined her, she was so beautiful, her skin was pale, with literally no defects, and she had beautiful long white hair. Nola shook the thoughts out of her head, when the woman gave her the clothes, then the food, which Nola drank the water right away. She stared at the clothes and wondered how she'd get changed with privacy. She had soon grabbed her jacket and tied to the bars, and changed in behind that, only her legs showing, and her head.

Soon she was in the clothes, and realized it came with glasses too. She placed the glasses on the top of her head, and stared down at her clothes. She was only wearing a bandeau for a top, which she thought was too revealing for herself, and threw her jacket on. She had shorts on that puffed out at the bottom, and had sash on it, with a butterfly pin. She looked at the last piece of clothing and saw it was a scarf, a very long scarf. She shrugged and put it on. She then stared at her food and gobbled it all down.

She looked at her pants a second time, and saw there was a hole for her tail, which was still growing and almost the size of small twig, it was also growing white fur on it, which- thank god- didn't hurt. As for her hair, it was still growing, and Nola sighed.