a/n: written for PFC's /Stigma on Darkness/ competition.

[azazel]

.:.

(absolute removal)

.:.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl with pale-blonde hair, grey eyes, and skin the color of ebony flecked with constellations of light freckles.

The little girl wanted to be strong.

So, she made a wish.

"Grandma?"

The elderly woman, turns, smiling, to the attentive, bright-eyed child sprawled on the floor with a coloring book. "Yes, dear?"

"There's something I read about. I wanted to ask if you knew about it."

"What is it?"

The girl fidgets. "It... it was called..." She twists her lips, fumbling over the syllables with her child's tongue and her child's teeth. "A-za-zel. Azazel. There was a picture of a monster in my book and it said that it ate souls. Grandma, is it a god?"

The woman stiffens. "No, Cynthia. It's not a god."

"What is it, then?"

"The devil."

The girl, she lived in a village that had a large cave at its center and a weathered shrine scrawled in archaic symbols and prayers, laden with prayer tags and mystical stones and charms and enchantments to bind good spirits the area. So the craft was taught to man by the Creator, and so, the people of this fairytale land kept the ancient traditions alive even as the rest of the world turned to a new kind of magic called Science, which was stronger than the Old Magic but took apart the world and broke it down into numbers and formulas and theorems that turned the world into a blank landscape of binary.

This girl was a brave girl. She wanted to slay dragons one day and sail across the seas and meet a merman who would give her strings of pearls and a kiss on the cheek.

This girl held out faith in the fairytales of her youth.

Every year, she and the rest of Celestic Town's close-knit community gather in the cave with the painted pictures of crude shapes and forms that were done when the world was still new. It is the town's only attraction, and every year, tourists flock to the cave to take pictures and give offerings to the Old Gods. But only the town itself has this yearly ritual of three hours of prayer and devotion.

Grandma tells her that it is sacrilege to forget the gods. "They shaped this earth, this galaxy, and the universe itself," she chides when Cynthia whines and clutches at her bedsheets. "Without them, the world would not function the way it does."

"The world doesn't function all that great, anyway," Cynthia mutters.'

Grandma pats her on the back. "Someday, you will understand why we did this." Her face becomes somber. "All over Sinnoh, these customs are dying out. Celestic Town is one of the only places that remain which still performs these rites. They are more precious than all the wealth buried under the land."

"Why don't we get rid of them, too?"

Grandma whispers, "Because when we forget, the Gods die."

"But we have other things to replace them with."

Grandma shakes her head disapprovingly. "No, dear. We don't."

(but she's wrong, actually. she's lying.)

One day, she decided to go on a journey like Alice did in Wonderland. She wanted to meet a Buneary with a watch and a pair of twins and a kindly White Queen to show her on her way. Grandma was the Red Queen, of course, because she didn't want her to go.

But all children have to grow up someday, and that time was now.

She leapt into the rabbit hole-

Her first Pokemon was not the Garchomp shown next to her in countless League posters and advertisements.

She walks through brush and scraggly grass, Wurmple and Bidoof scattering at the sound of her footsteps. She checks her watch. It is exactly twenty-eight minutes to midnight. The moon is full and white and shining like a light bulb.

There's a crumbling mound of stone underneath a withering rowan tree. She feels something tugging gently at her mind, at her body, urging her forward.

Her fingers wander to the stone in her bag, the one that hums with a mythic energy of its own.

Grandma once told her that magic still lived.

She wonders about the stone tower.

Then, with steady, muted steps, she walks to the tower, takes the stone out, and inserts it into a niche set in the flaking grey brick. It slides in, and the crack on the stone glows purple and yellow and green and blackblackblack.

Something that smells like rotting leaves whispers,

"Hello."

Frightened, she sends out Gabite, and it is at that moment that the tower becomes undone and a cloud of sinister vapors rises into the air. Decay and death, a funereal odor, and the cracklings and rustlings of insects long-dead stirring after centuries of withdrawal. Most of them are nothing but dust now.

She sees a gleam of white bone, a pair of eyes, gnashing, fanged mouths set into a flickering face, and she screams.

The girl met a Cheshire Cat who disappeared and reappeared like smoke. He had a sly, phantom grin and claws that could cut through her skin and down to the muscles and tendons and into her chest.

The Cheshire Cat offered her a cake.

She took it and ate it.

The Cheshire Cat laughed.

She sends it out against a stocky boy wearing ripped jeans and a t-shirt that bulges across his chest. The boy sends out a Machoke crossed with muscle and thick scars. The Machoke snarls.

Her Pokeball opens, light spills out, coaelesces, and then it stands before her. It hums to her veins a pleasant lullaby, like a pre-sleep buzz that fizzes like soda.

The thing is an odd one. It has a face that changes all the time and looks like purple fire, and a single, winding branch of energy connected to the stone she got from the wandering man in the forest which she then inserted into the crumbling tower and got this.

"Command me," it says, plainly and as clear as day. She blinks. It grins like a wolf.

"Have me attack."

"Come now, are you deaf? Use me."

"Order me to do what you want."

"Let. Me. Destroy."

She points her finger at the Machoke. "Defeat it."

The thing cackles, a horrid death-rattle of inhumane noises juxtaposed into one, and then it darts forward like a shadow and falls about the humanoid and its trainer with a whirring mouth full of whirring razor teeth-

(there is blood. and scraps of flesh, and a torn t-shirt.

but then the cheshire cat hisses and they all disappear down a portal full of swirling shapes and incomprehensible mutterings.

she's alice and she doesn't know what to do anymore.)

Then, there was a tea party where she drank blood and ate hearts and became insane.

-and it bangs at her eardrums, a ringing gong. The thing is staring at her in her sleep.

She bolts up in her sleeping bag, her face flushed and sweaty, her blonde curls tangled and damp. Her eyes wander and lock onto the rippling whorls of violet mist floating around her, encircling her like a protective circle-or a noose.

"What are you?" she asks.

It rolls its eyes like she's stupid. "I'm the devil, of course."

She wins another match with the new addition to her party.

The girl reels back in horror as soon as she sends out her Pokemon, and the ghost makes short work of it afterwards.

(because she's deduced that it's spectral in nature, but also quite vicious. very dark, almost.)

As her Kirlia falls, the girl points a shaking, accusatory finger at her Pokemon. "That..." she stammers. "Where the hell did you get it?"

Cynthia doesn't understand the question.

"Don't you know?" her opponent hisses. "It's evil."

"No, it's not," Cynthia retorts. "It's strong. You're just jealous that it beat you."

"I'm gonna tell my mom about you," the girl wails, and runs away with her fallen Psychic-type, tears coursing down her face.

Cynthia shrugs and goes to the Pokemon Center, but even normally friendly Nurse Joy's friendly face seems a little straiend when the analysis machine runs through the ID of her Pokemon and comes up with the name 'Spiritomb' on the registration screen.

(the nurse seems all too eager to be rid of the blonde girl and her demon.)

Later, she curls up in her bed, takes out Spiritomb's Pokeball, and clutches it in her hands like it's a lifeline.

(below, there are angry voices, light, and whispered prayers. rites of exorcism.)

"So that's your name," she murmurs. "Spiritomb. It's quite a lovely name, you know."

It replies, in a voice horribly like her grandmother's and not like her grandmother's, "I'm very glad you think so, dearie."

She wakes up lying on the middle of an unfamiliar rode paved with moss and soft soil.

For some reason, her clothes smell like ash.

There was a Jabberwocky who breathed fire and ate the heads of the bad people. Suddenly, she was not Alice but the Red Queen, commanding her serpent to do battle for her on a chessboard littered with 108 bodies and 108 broken tiles.

"Grandma, I think something's going on."

"What's wrong? Are you alright?" Grandma sounds panicked.

She bites her lip.

"The devil's traveling with me and he burned down a town."

Silence on the other end.

Then, the line disconnects and there is only the click and the hum and the pretty female voice saying, "Your call has ended. Please try again."

(grandma doesn't call for a long time after that.)

(in the meantime, she makes her way through the gyms, winning match after match.

she's ecstatic. so is the imp in the plastic ball.)

She is finally facing her final Gym Leader, Bertha. The old woman is wearing a scarf the color of sand and a lab coat and she has a Hippowdon that makes the earth quake and the skies tremble. Its a massive, bestial thing with a gaping maw of a mouth and pores that shoot out sand in churning tornados. Grit is in her eyes, dirt is in her hair.

Spiritomb dodges and ducks like the wind, its head moving in time with the warp and weft of each attack. Cynthia barks a command and it gathers energy in its mouth, a black hole gravity and makes her lose her breath for a split second before there is a burst of air and a shadow ball goes shrieking across the ceiling, coming down with a thunderous crash upon the chthonian beast. Sand goes flying and Hippowdown roars in pain.

"Dark Pulse!" she shouts, and the demon screeches, tendrils of wavering dark energy gathering into a single point as small as a speck of dust, then firing outwards in a sweeping ray that slices through the metal of the domed battle area and striking Hippowdon in its flank.

It goes down and Cynthia is declared the winner.

The old woman smiles kindly at her, though not without a trace of unease, as she hands her the Badge.

"Wherever did you get that Pokemon, dear?" she inquires. "It's very strong."

"I found it," Cynthia answers defiantly. "And then I caught it. It's served me well ever since."

Bertha lowers her voice to whisper and asks, "Are you sure it wasn't the other way around, dear?"

The bad thing is, even she's not entirely sure.

There was a battle. Chessboard pieces broke into clouds of red and white. The Red Queen howled and sent her Jabberwocky forth.

The White Queen closed her eyes and waited for the end.

No one really won.

She doesn't know why or when, but she's gained a reputation.

Everywhere she goes, she's denied entry. People actually stop and cross themselves when they pass her on the street. She walks, innocent and demure in a white blouse and skirt, Spiritomb's Pokeball clutched in her sweaty fingers.

It sings.

The old lady at the local medicine shop near Sunyshore City's coast goes pale when she sees her walking towards her stand. She puts up Spell Tags, Revival herbs, spices and incenses for warding away evil.

Suddenly, she feels a surge of hatred for these superstitious, weak people. For a second, she finds it within herself to hate, to really hate her grandma and her outdated traditions and the intolerance the old lady has for her and her streak of victories.

For a second, she feels as though she could rip the gods straight out of Heaven and claim it for her own.

"Do it," the voice in her head cooes, soft and babying and tender and crooning and serpentine-

(that night, she cries herself to sleep because she smells like ashes again.)

Her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed. Infected cuts and sores line her arms. She's bleeding everywhere, a tracery of dark veins pronounced underneath the alabaster whiteness of her flesh.

In front of her, the League looms.

Four rooms. Four combatants. One throne for one Champion.

She takes her first step up the stairs after spitting on the ground and uttering a few words in a garbled, harsh tongue.

Alexei, Steel-type specialist.

She sends out her Garchomp first, who Flamethrowers nearly all of his team until he takes the drake out with a Hyper Beam from his Steelix. The metal snake slithers and hisses, steel joints creaking.

"Go."

Spiritomb appears, as wicked as ever, and looks to her for instructions impatiently. By now, she has become familiar with this routine and utters two orders.

"Hypnosis. Then Dream Eater."

Alexei doesn't have a chance to counter with a counterattack of his own before a ring of psychic energy encapsulates Steelix in a sphere of somnolent empathy, forcing its mind to shut down and lulling it to sleep. Just as quickly, vine-like tendrils burst from Spiritomb's yawning mouth and latch onto the steel-wyrm's body. Energy, white and incandescent, flows into the tubers and into the phantom, who, in turn, lets out a shrill cry.

Withered, the snake collapses.

Victory one.

Aurora, Ice-type specialist.

Her Froslass does away with Roserade, but even the Mistress of the North is no match for the devil she carries around in her pocket.

"Hypnosis. Dream Eater."

It feeds, and it grows stronger.

Victory two.

A hideous amalgamation of faces, leering and ghostly, a phantasmagoric projection of fear displayed across the molten walls of Roy's room.

Rapidash whinnies and topples like a domino.

Victory three.

It's hilarious how easy Lillian is to beat. A Psychic-specialist, she never even has a chance due to Spiritomb's immunities to all her telekinetic attacks.

Victory four.

The Jabberwocky drew ever closer, tongue twisting in its mouth like a snake.

Before the Champion's court, she gazed at the sliding doors patterned with glowing lights and the white floor with its white checkerboard tiles and felt a sense of deep loathing.

"What do you want?"

"I want to make them pay."

"What do you want to do?"

She realizes now, it was never the tower that beckoned to her. It was the adventure itself, the desire to be free. Freedom. Celestic Town was a prison full of old people with old norms and old cultures that were making her rot from the inside out. She needed this. She needed to see the world. She needed to shape the world with her fingers.

She needed it. Finding Spiritomb was only the key that enabled her to take such bold risks, things she never would have done before.

Now, she laughs at her old virtues and morals, at the outdated code of olden days and olden gods.

She smiles like it's the simplest answer in the world.

"I want to paint their bodies red."

(and she did. oh, she did. she was like a witch, then, with her dress stained so much that it was nearly black and her fingers caked with redness that smelled of sugar and rust, and her hair a mess of wriggling serpents.

she danced around a purple bonfire.)

She's sick of it. The fucking traditions, the prayers and offerings, the stupid shrine in stupid, narrow-minded Celestic Town. She wants to watch it all burn down, burn to the very ground and return to the earth from which it came.

She's learned that there are no gods but the ones you make for yourself. In the wilderness, in the Not-Real-Universe, there is darkness and men must carve for themselves pagan idols made from stardust and blood.

She knows. Because she has a new god now.

To hell with her grandmother and the rest of Celestic. To hell with Space and Time.

All she wants now is chaos, utter and complete chaos. She wants the universe to be pure dark.

She calls her grandma one more time.

"You won." There is no pride in the words, only sadness and fear.

"I did, Gran. I won." Her lips, ruby-red, curl upwards.

She hears Grandma's sigh. "You never called me Gran before."

"I know. I've changed."

"You have."

There is an anguished stretch where neither of them speak. When Grandma breaks the ice, her throat is hoarse and raspy and it sounds like she's been crying.

"I saw you on TV."

"Did I look pretty?" She fingers the hem of her new black ensemble, touches the onyx tassles in her floor-length mane of blonde. She feels like Rapunzel. "It's a new fashion choice for the times, but I think it looks very nice, don't you agree?"

"You've changed." Grandma's voice cracks.

"You said that already." Her grey eyes are flinty, her nails stabbing into the plastic handle of the phone.

"Well?" she continues, drumming her fingers impatiently. "Anything else to say?"

"No," Grandma croaks. "I-I have nothing more to say to you. You're not the granddaughter I raised."

"What am I, then?"

"Not Cynthia."

She laughs, a hard, cold sound in the empty space of the airport. "You know, I remember what you said about the devil so long ago."

Her lips peel back, exposing white, sharp teeth. "You were wrong. There is something to replace the gods."

Her mouth, shaping the words. "Azazel. Absolute removal. That's what you get when you eradicate the divinity, right? Nothingness."

The hand at the other end trembles, the phone slams down onto the receiver, and it's that moment when Grandma hung up all over again.

She doesn't care anymore, though. She simply pats her pocket, feels the stir of a hundred souls, and sighs happily.

Then, her black coat swishing around her stiletto-clad feet, she makes her way onto her flight.

It's only the beginning of her new adventure, after all.