Project Report, Case ETBA-0X001, Audio Report Logs.

"Sample obtained by foreign agents infiltrating Sinnoh city of Veilstone. Reports indicate that presence reacts to certain artefacts left in plain sight within city limits.

"Sample is dangerous and must be exterminated upon identification. Use of darkness or ghostly energies recommended to disable sample; fire to destroy.

"Know that ..."

(Tape plays nothing but silence).

"What the-?"

(Sounds of gunfire. Screams. Destruction of localised property.)

"You are doomed."

(Unknown voice. No system match.)

(Five seconds of silence.)

(Tape finishes.)

Pokémon

Plague

Adaptation

Sunrise.

It's one of the many things now that Farrody finds herself thankful for. The fact that she now loves the sun rising doesn't escape her notice; she remembers the days where she would be skirting around during the night, fearing the day and the exposure it would bring. She could be seen easier in the day. More people could see her and figure out that she wasn't just your average crook or cop. She remembers those fears like a child would fear monsters under the bed.

Now the monsters are all too real and currently shambling – mostly crawling and moaning - across the earth.

She sighs and runs a hand through her hair. She grimaces at the feel; wonders when the last time she actually got to wash it was. She can feel the little hairs on her legs growing ever longer and is certain she could rival a man for her under-arm hair.

Attractive.

She laughs a little to herself, wonders just why the hell she's thinking about personal appearance in such a time. She doubts the monsters care too much if she's wearing a new style of eyeliner or if she took the time to shave this morning. They just want feeding and they don't care what their prey looks like.

She reaches out and scratches the blue skin of the pokémon lying behind her. It resembles a large rhino, with extra spikes along its back and a long, thick tail curled around it. The pokémon snorts, opens a bloodshot eye and glances around the landscape.

"Everything's alright, Claire," Farrody says as she scratches the nidoqueen behind a large ear. "It's about time we head back to camp and see how things are faring, no?"

Her nidoqueen snorts a low, unconcerned breath. Farrody knows full well that her pokémon would rather they just rely on themselves, not letting themselves get caught up in another group. Every group they've come across so far ended with the same scenario; one person was bitten, they turned and then chowed down on everyone else.

Farrody promises herself that it's not going to happen again. She checked everyone once she found them, did away with the bitten – as much as she cares not to remember that – and checks everyone regularly. Survival is all that matters now, though it's still not enough to banish the thoughts she occasionally has. Remembering the faces of people when she told them their loved ones were going to die… the faces and screams they made when she put their loves out of their misery for them.

She shudders, holds her pokémon a little tighter and prays for an answer to it all. She remembers exactly how it started; the leaks from inside the police station – patient zero, as it were, was a rookie cop that spilt some of the very virus that she was hired to steal. Something happened with it and within a day he was deathly ill. Two days later, he was dead.

An hour after that, he was awake and chewing on his mother's face.

It's the worst case scenario that Elm mentioned to her, but she still can't believe what she's experiencing. It's something out of a film she usually ends up screaming at. The people on them always annoy her, doing such stupid things and never really focusing on their survival.

Now she's actually living it, she can understand why they would do such things.

Her little camp is near Tohjo Falls, just on the Kanjo border. She remembers running as fast as she could from Viridian as if it only happened minutes ago. She can still hear the radio announcements, cheering of places free of the infection.

Predictably, they ended up wastelands days later. One person with a bite gets in, then suddenly everyone's a little bit dead.

She still hasn't heard from her mother or her brother yet. Her stomach flips every time she thinks of them in this nightmarish situation. She's honestly uncertain what to pray for more; for them to be alive, but suffering in this hell, or for them to be dead and free of it all.

It's a thought that plays on many of her sleepless nights.

She pulls herself to her feet and leans against her nidoqueen for support. The pokémon grunts at her, stands on two thick legs and offers a shoulder for her trainer to lean on. Farrody shakes her head, tells her pokémon that she needs to remain strong and marches towards camp.

She is, after all, their makeshift leader. She knows they'll freak if they think she's under the weather and can't afford to let herself show weakness because of it. If they start to panic, they'll get careless. The get careless, they get dead.

It's already happened enough times, after all.

It takes less than a minute for her to return to camp. It's built into a little bit of the mountainside, with enough openness around for a quick escape, but little enough so that they can't be swamped by the monsters. The sounds of the waterfalls reach her ears and for a moment she considers taking a shower beneath one of them, to wash away the layers of grime she's covered in.

Then she remembers the dead things hiding in the water and reconsiders.

They've seen it enough times; the things don't need to breathe. They might need sleep – they've never seen one sleep, granted – but they know for certain they don't breathe. The things can walk on the bottom of a sea floor, slowly making their way towards more prey.

Unfortunately, they found out the hard way.

One young woman took her baby son down to the water front to bathe him in the sparsely-found fresh water. Within moments they were breakfast, lunch and dinner for the things lurking beneath.

Since then, they've been cautious about collecting water. They do it as frequently as they can, but try to prepare as much as they can beforehand.

But no method is fool proof, however.

Farrody sighs as she reaches the camp, sees the tattered tents – some more makeshift than others – and once again realises how little prepared they all were for all of this.

A little part of her wonders about her former partner in crime. She knows Liam was sent to one of Viridian's most secure prisons there was. It boasted a zero-per cent chance of someone ever escaping.

So the thought of one of the things getting in and turning doesn't do much for her hopes. Despite everything – the death threats and the sheer heartbreak he delivered to her that day – she still hopes that he's alive somewhere. It might be naivety or just idiocy, but she wants him to be alive, if only so she can confess and clear her conscience.

"It's not going to happen, is it Claire?" she whispers. Her pokémon looks down at her, shrugs and grunts an answer. Farrody laughs a little to herself, understands the answer perfectly and wonders if she's always been so easy to read. To her pokémon, she knows she has been. But that little paranoid spot in her brain that's been taking centre stage for so long bursts back into life, telling her that Liam always knew – that they all knew and they were all setting her up to fall.

It's stupid, she decides. She frowns, pushes the thoughts away and re-stakes a tent that's come slightly loose during the night. She hears noise from within, quickly tells them it's her and then moves on with her business.

She makes a count of the tents. Ten out of ten. Same as the night before. At least none of them have blown off during the night. She wants to start a headcount, but knows people need her sleep. Paranoia works well for her, keeps her alive, but only serves to piss other people off. Really, she should just blow off their anger and do so regardless, but she understands their need to sleep.

It's the only time that they're not constantly afraid of the things showing up.

Even now she feels her stomach bubble with uncertainty. There's at least three other people on watch, round the camp, with pokémon to boot. She knows how lucky she is, to have found a bunch of people that actually have trained pokémon. In the last camp, she was the only one that not only had pokémon, but knew how to train them.

They lasted all of two minutes when they were attacked.

She made it out by the skin of her teeth, saved only one man who then decided to blow his brains out later on because he couldn't live without his wife.

A little part of Farrody wishes that he'd just stayed alive, if only so that she could have thrown him to the things if she ever got into trouble. She squashes down the thought as quickly as she can. She knows in her past life she was torn between law-upholder and breaker. Now the end of the world's come, she finds her decision was made almost instantly; she signed up to protect and serve and she'll continue doing so, even if there's only one person left to protect.

"Hey."

She knows who it is without even having to think. Thomas. She doesn't know his last name and to be honest, doesn't care to. He won't give it up anyway. All she knows is that his entire family turned and he had to shoot them all.

Not exactly the best sixteenth birthday present someone could hope for.

"Hey." She plasters on the best smile she can, but it falls flat quickly. He still looks so young; shaggy blonde hair, a few spots and a couple of teeth that could probably do with braces. His eyes look so dead though; she can imagine a time when they shone with bright blue light, but now it's like looking into the depths of despair.

"Nothing out there I take it?" His voice is still wavering, through fear or just puberty, she can't tell.

She shakes her head. "If there was, we'd be moving. We're all clear again. You manage to sleep?"

The bags under his eyes reveal the lie behind his nod. "I think. A little. Between about three and three-ten."

She can't stop the frown that comes across her face. Something about him just brings out a nurturing instinct in her. Not like a mother, but more like an older sister. She sighs, rubs her thumbs under his eyes and attempts to smile again. "Next time we need to hit a town, I'll stop by a pharmacy and see if I can find some sleeping pills for you, okay?"

He raises a bushy eyebrow. "So I can be completely out cold while the rest of you are being eaten? I don't think so. I'm coming with on the next town run though. You need Tank, we both know it. He goes, I go."

Farrody's first instinct is to say no, to tell him he's just a kid. The words are on her tongue before she realises and she has to make an effort to snap her mouth shut. She remembers that she's dealing with a kid living in the new world. A little smash and grab is nothing compared to killing his entire family.

And more than that; he's right. Tank is his bronzong. It's an accurate name. Pokémon as hard as rock and steel seem to be more resistant to the monsters; they often end up breaking teeth and claws on the pokémon instead of rending flesh. So far, it seems like they're a little bit more immune to the entire thing. She's not sure if they are totally and knows that they shouldn't try their luck, but some things need to be done.

"Alright then," she says with a small sigh. "We'll most likely be heading out sometime in the next few days." If they're even still using the camp, that is. She runs her eyes over the little campsite – the wee little enclosure that feels like home – and makes plans in her head. They can escape through the caves if they come from the north and vice versa. The sky is what she watches the most, other than the people scratching at a cut a little too often for comfort. Any flier that happens to be infected is practically a flying apocalypse.

She shudders away the question of how they even manage to still fly. Flying's nothing compared to everything else – the teeth, the moaning, the unflinching stare into nothingness as they eat through everything and-

-Stop thinking! She balls her hands into fists and digs her nails deep enough to draw blood. She realises Tom has says something and flutters her eyelids a little, wondering if she's even caught any of it.

She comes up with nothing. "Sorry, I missed that."

He purses his lips, almost as if he's talking to a child. "I said we're ready to go at any time you need us."

"Good, good," she says quickly. She pats him on the head, laughs as he tries to wave her off with a fierce blush and makes her way towards her own tent. Further away from everyone, exposed to the surroundings and partially as the makeshift watch tent.

She tells herself she put it there because she feels like she has to watch over everyone.

Really she thinks it's so that she can slip away into the darkness if the want presents itself.

Not for the first time she finds herself staring out at the landscape beyond. She fingers binoculars hanging from her neck – where'd she get them again? Ah yes, that dead ranger three towns back – and fights with herself as to whether or not she should look through them. She knows that it will help. They need to spot the monsters as soon as they can.

But she doesn't want to break the little tranquillity her camp happens to have.

And really, she knows the bigger reason she doesn't want to use them.

She still searches for Liam on the horizon.

She's just not sure whether or not she's ready to see him – dead or alive.

Ever since his pokémon finally evolved into a sceptile, Gregory remembers that whenever he wakes up, he always smells the freshly-rained-on-grass smell that his pokémon holds. She usually ends up curling up beside him in his sleep, snoring slightly and protecting him, like a mother hen and her eggs.

It's why he's slightly confused when he doesn't notice it straight away.

He groans and holds his head, in shame rather than pain, remembering everything that happened before he lost consciousness. "I'm a moron," he groans to himself.

A little hiss from his side makes him jump. He twists around to find Sally sat there, staring at him with her yellow eyes and waiting to see if he's okay. Once she's sure he is, he finds himself wrapped in the sceptile's arms and breathing in the smell of the forest she carries.

"Where are we?" he asks the pokémon.

"Our camp."

He jumps around at the voice, sees the woman standing in the entrance of the tent and recalls that he's seen her before. Her hair is black, cropped short and with long red streaks that drift in front of her face. She dresses in a blue chequered shirt and loose black jeans, with a heavy pair of boots on her feet. Her nose is a little crooked and she seems to be scowling a little –hopefully not because of him! - but he can't help but feel a little flutter inside himself that he tries desperately to ignore. It will only create nerves and make him seem like a bigger moron, after all.

She strides towards him, crouches, places her hand on his forehead and checks his temperature without any forewarning. He stares at her, wonders just who she is –wants to know her a little more – and how badly he embarrassed himself in front of her. A little part of him dreams little imaginary situations where they can enjoy each other's company… a theatre? Contest hall… cinema.

Then like a physical blow, he remembers what he's seen and realises that the world probably isn't like that anymore.

"You can close your mouth, you do realise," she says with obvious amusement. "Boundaries aren't so much an issue when you might have had a zombie bite."

He shakes his head as quickly as he can. "No bites. I'm clean, nothing bit me anywhere. I can show you if you like." His eyes widen at her grin and he gags on his tongue a little. "I didn't mean it like that! I mean, maybe I could, if you wanted it but my brain just thinks things that don't sound that normal and I'm talking too much aren't I?"

The corners of her mouth widen in a little laugh. "Calm down. Breathe. I'm not going anywhere. Neither are you. I'm Naoko by the way."

He gulps and prays that he won't make a bigger fool out of himself. "Gregory. The sceptile's Sally. Just how did you get here anyway?"

Naoko smiles and sits in front of him. "I drove. Your sceptile sat in the backseat with you in its lap."

Horror and mortification build up in equal parts. "I-she-oh," he sighs and looks at the floor. It's the only way he can keep her from seeing the bright red of his cheeks and the shame in his eyes. "I'm pretty lousy at first impressions, aren't I?"

"Very," she agrees instantly. "But don't worry about it. I guess we can make a few exceptions, given the current state of the world. A few people have done worse than fainting. It's probably the best scared reaction you can have to zombies."

He's intrigued and scared at the same time. "Zombies? They're definitely zombies then?"

She grins at something he doesn't understand. "Definitely zombies," she says, her face now flat. "They moan, shuffle across the floor, decay constantly and try to eat everyone and everything. One bite and you're gone. They're also pretty lousy with table manners."

He blows out a long breath. It all seems so unreal. He plays through every zombie film he's ever seen in his head, starts making little plans of survival and knows there's so many of them that logic say will never, ever work. Finally he reaches one conclusion and leaps out of his seat with a gasp.

"New Bark!" he shouts to the world. "I need to get to New Bark!"

Naoko gives him a look he doesn't understand. Finally she sighs and stands up. "Follow me," she says and leaves the tent.

He remains there a moment longer, stares at the empty space where she had just stood and decides that he definitely doesn't like her tone. It's almost like she's about to tell him that the town's overrun by the things. He doesn't want to hear it – he knows his heart will give up on every plan when he does. But he needs to follow her. Maybe it'll be something else. Maybe the roads will just be clustered with the things on the way.

Sally growls and nudges his side. "Yeah, yeah," he says and pushes himself to his feet. "I'm going after her. You coming?" He knows it's a stupid question; she would follow him to the end of the world if she needed to.

It strikes him like a kick to the stomach that they're in that very situation.

She's ready and waiting before he even finishes the question. He smiles at her, thanks her, pulls the flap of the tent up and steps into the outside world.

He finds it's not quite what he was expecting. Though he's slightly unsure just what he was expecting.

He's in a little camp in the middle of the woods somewhere. He sees a little campfire roaring nearby, something rather brown and crispy –smells like mareep – roasting over the open flames. A few people see him, force smiles and carry on about their daily toil. He forces his own smile back on his face, wonders just whether or not they're going to put up with him for long and searches out the only familiar face.

He finds her standing a little distance away, staring out into the dark expanse of the nearby woods. He calls her name as he walks after her, smiles as she turns around and nods for him to follow.

"You're not going to like what I've got to tell you," she warns him as she makes her way through waist-high weeds.

His heart sinks and freezes over all at once. "Just tell me then."

She shakes her head. "One minute. Follow me."

He watches as she climbs into a tree and starts to make her way from branch to branch. More than once he finds his gaze drawn and finds himself having to snap his eyes back to something else before she notices.

She glances down and barks a laugh. "Are you coming or not?"

He watches her a moment longer and decides she needs a quick, competitive defeat. He glances back at his pokémon. "Care to help me out here?"

His sceptile nods, grabs him and slings him on her back. She growls as he links his arms around her neck and without a moment's notice, leaps straight into the trees. He barks a laugh that contains less fear than normal and grins down at the woman still climbing up the slow way.

She leans back against the tree trunk and shakes a fist at him. "That's cheating!"

He turns around as much as he can and shouts back, "It's winning with style!"

He laughs at her curses – what does that one even mean? – and finds sunlight blinding him after a few seconds. Sally hisses again, clutches the tree and stares out at the landscape with critical, analysing eyes.

She makes a noise as he gets off her back to stand on the sturdiest branch he can.

Don't trust anything.

He takes her advice to heart. He knows her better than anyone – trusts her more than anyone. Even his own parents.

Holy shit.

He's almost forgotten about them under the haze of everything else! He nearly falls out of the tree from shock, pats his pockets like a lunatic, finds his phone and curses the lack of signal it gives him.

The woman appears on the same branch as him, a large, scowling psychic stood with her. He takes a step back, leans against the tree trunk and swears colourfully enough to rival her.

"What's happened?" she asks him.

He breathes with as much control as he can muster. "The end of the world?"

She laughs, quickly, emotionlessly. "Tell me something new." She sits down on the branch, stares out just above the treeline and pats the bark nearby her. "Take a seat. I would say I don't bite, but that's lost all humour these days, as you can imagine."

"I can't get in contact with my parents," he tells her, heavy hearted. He watches her reactions slowly; tries to look for any hint that might give anything away. "They live in Blackthorn."

No flicker that would tell him anything. Just some intrigue and maybe a little boredom. Like she's heard life stories so many times lately.

Given the state of the world, it doesn't surprise him.

"I don't know what's happened there, I'm sorry," she says, eyes downcast. "I still haven't found out what's happening with my dad yet. Whether he's dead or alive, or you know, eating people's arms for the hell of it."

He makes no effort to laugh at her joke. He sits there and stares out at the distant horizon, waits for her to tell him just what he wants to know and gets slightly more annoyed with every second she isn't telling him.

"So… New Bark," he says slowly.

She grimaces. His stomach plummets and he knows once again that this is going to be bad, horrible news.

"What's happened there?"

She sighs, cups her hands in her lap and plays with her fingers. He's vaguely aware of her pokémon talking to Sally. Judging from Sally's reactions, she's getting about as much information as he is.

"How long have you been away from everything?"

He shrugs, tries to figure it out in his head and wonders why it's so important all at once.

"Maybe a month," he guesses. It's been about that – really he's surprised it's only such a short trip, but supplies ran thin. "Why, what's happened since then?"

She looks up at him, eyes wide. Then again she looks down at her hands. He recognises instantly it's a nervous habit and he likes what she's going to say even less.

"You've missed everything then," she says with a paltry attempt of a laugh. "Where to start? Elm's dead."

He nearly falls off the branch from shock once more. Sally growls and curls up around him, rooting him to the spot whilst carrying on her own conversation. "When?" he all-but-shrieks. "How?"

Naoko growls and places a finger over his mouth. He turns bright red, brain thundering about a thousand miles a second and makes a tiny gesture to let Sally know it's okay.

"Not so loud!" the woman warns him. "Those zombies can hear, you know?"

He remembers all at once the aftermath at the pokémon centre. His ears are hot enough to cook food on as he focuses on making that a top learning priority. "Right, sorry," he whispers. "How?"

She shrugs. "Murdered. Don't know how, the reports all just said stabbed to death, but that could mean anything. That happened about… three weeks ago, maybe?"

He's upset to hear about it, but that isn't the main thing that concerns him. "What about the lab? The pokémon there? Are they okay?"

She plays with her fingers, not answering the question. He frowns, gets annoyed and clamps a hand over hers to stop her distracting herself. "Are the pokémon there okay?"

"I don't know," she tells him. "When this zombie thing broke out, New Bark got hit pretty hard. There's a lot of pokémon there. Somehow, the zombies just knew. They killed almost everyone that lived there. Now… well, they still live there, except they're not bothered as to whether or not their intestines are making a mess on the floor."

He doesn't have time for her humour. "And the pokémon?"

"Most of them died."

He falls out of the tree that time.

He's saved in equal parts by Sally and Naoko's own pokémon. Sally's underneath him before he can even register falling, using her own body to bear the brunt of the branches' wrath. The woman's psychic grabs them a second later, makes them hover unnaturally in the air and puts them down on land gently.

As soon as he touches solid ground, he falls onto it, clutches it, beats it and tears it apart. They can't be dead, they just can't! He's got his pokémon there! If they're dead… they can't be. They're protected. There's someone that will make sure they're looked after.

Except the world's over now and no one's concerned about their day job anymore.

On all fours he heaves the nothingness inside his stomach. He retches, his pokémon rubbing his back as the horror of it all runs around in his mind.

His pokémon might be dead.

His parents might be dead.

And he was hidden away in a mountain when it all happened.

The woman appears with her psychic nearby. They both watch him with the same understanding, somewhat pitying, somewhat guilty expression.

He stands up shakily, notices them, hates them for their expression and wipes the bile from his mouth. "I need to go," he tells them, legs unsteady beneath him.

Naoko grabs him by the shoulders and tries to hold him up. "You're not going anywhere at the moment. You haven't eaten in a while, you've just found out about the zombie apocalypse and you've thrown up possibly half of your stomach lining. You need to at least eat something before you make any rash decisions."

He knows she's right. He looks into her face, feels his stomach flutter a little more and tries to shut himself down emotionally. He fails. He feels like a teenager again with all the emotions and hormones he has running through his body at once.

He takes a breath and tries to think of things logically. His pokémon will be fine; they've survived worse and more. Herman has the habit of leaping out of his poké ball and would have let the others out to help them escape.

Gregory presses a hand tenderly to his stomach and tries his best to convince himself everything's going to be fine. "Okay. I'll eat something," he tells her. "But then if I decide to go, you won't stop me?"

She smiles as she leads him back to camp. "As long as you don't steal anything from us or lead the zombies here, I think we're cool."

Another town.

Another dead end.

In more ways than one.

Gwen sighs to herself and kicks the severed head of a rotting once-human down the street. It bounces a few places and lands with a wet splat that she's become frightfully accustomed to.

By her side a little pokémon clicks wildly as it scuttles between the mess and gore left over. The durant pokes the severed eyeball of one of the things, watches it fall apart from rot and gives the latest status report to its trainer.

"Thanks Ianto," she says, eyes not drifting from the approaching horizon. She considers how long it's taken her to reach Olivine. She's arrived faster than she thought, but she's not sure just how good a thing that is, for she can see the masses of rotting humans further in town, moaning and fighting over the fresh remains of what might have been a pokémon.

"Come on," she says quietly, gesturing towards the lighthouse. She can see the remains of previous battles laid out in front of her. People have obviously had the same idea. They could be alive, they could be dead.

Right now, she doesn't really care. As long as she can complete her goals, she finds that she doesn't care as to the fate of people she doesn't know.

Habit forces her to check her phone. Still nothing. She wonders why she even bothers to still charge it when really, she knows that they lack the signal to even make a phone call. But she needs the potential lifeline. Her parents could ring her at any time. They could let her know that they're still alive, that her brother's alive. That her mother's given birth.

Her pokémon hisses a warning for her. Instinctively she ducks low, hides behind the first cover she finds and watches with baited breath. Ianto perches atop the rock, camouflaged against the grey mesh of stone. They watch as one of the things shambles in front of them, eyes clouded, legs rotting and exposed, lungs half-eaten.

It makes no noise. It confuses her that they only moan when they see food – her – or when they're around others of their kind.

It's like they're talking.

She shudders. It's a scary thought – what would they talk about? Weather? How hungry they are? – and she wishes she could banish it with all haste.

The thing keeps moving, eyes unseeing. Slowly and slowly, it heads towards the water's edge. With the laugh building in her throat, Gwen watches as the thing shambles towards the side of the dock. It falls into the water with a mighty splash and she's lost to the giggles.

"Stupid thing," she says as she watches it flail against the currents. A single cloyster floats atop the sea, opens its shell and pierces the thing in the head with a spike of pure ice. Gwen watches the cloyster hiss at the remains of the thing, close its shell and swim off somewhere else into the sea. She wonders just whether or not wild pokémon know how to deal with the things properly, or if that was just a lucky – maybe even experienced? – shot.

She takes a deep breath and stifles her giggles. She clutches the baseball bat she robbed from someone's corpse in her hands and advances towards the lighthouse once more. Her thoughts drift to her purpose here and she wonders if her friend ever made it to this city. He always did love Olivine after all, maybe he came here before everything went bad.

Or maybe that's his blood smeared over the white paint of the lighthouse.

She turns away with the thought, tries not to imagine his face crushed under the hordes and attempts to think of happy things.

Things like kittens and puppies.

Being ripped apart by snarling, dead humans.

She sighs and scuffs her shoe against the stairs beneath her. Even her thoughts have been ruined by the things. She wants to go back to the way things were. Before the world changed. She wants to talk to her family – she wants Lily back – and she just wants to know everyone's okay. But she knows that people being okay nowadays is something that's almost never going to happen.

She tightens her grip on her weapon as she approaches the huge doors to the lighthouse. They're already wide open, exposed and unnervingly painted in blood. She glances down at Ianto, gestures and makes sure he understands before creeping into the place.

It's dead. Not in the sense of the word of getting up and eating you, but in the sense that it's actually at peace. No sound whatsoever.

It makes the hair on the back of her neck stand rigid.

Smears of blood paint the floors. Little chunks of meat are splattered against everything, even now slowly dripping from the walls. There's a chandelier of intestines hanging from the ceiling and the receptionist seems to have been torn open across her desk and then beaten back to death with her telephone.

Ianto hisses something by her feet. She nods, understands his meaning and feels a little shudder pass through her.

The things are on the top floor.

She takes a deep breath, gags on the smell of rot and something which she doesn't want to identify and turns back around. Her gut screams at her to leave the place; she obeys and leaves the dank room as quickly as she can.

It's when she gets outside that she can hear the screams.

They're coming from further ahead. Someone's still alive! There's people – living, breathing, not eating-your-face people!

And by the sounds of it, they're being eaten.

She throws Rhys' poké ball out before her. It explodes with light and reveals her pokémon just as she leaps onto its back. A quick tap of her feet and its charging towards the sounds, her durant scuttling alongside with deadly speed.

She smells the things before she sees them. They smell like they've been left in the sun for so long and a few are still falling apart even as they continue to shuffle. Quick taps on her rhyhorn command it to do exactly as she wants. Some explode into flames. Others drop, crackling with electricity. The luckier ones are just trampled by her pokémon. Her durant ploughs through them alongside her, his whole body a weapon. He spits little globules of poison that land on their faces, hiss away wildly and reduce their skulls to a weeping mess of liquid bone and brain.

She sees the screamer and directs her pokémon towards him. The things turn round at Rhys' roar and several explode as lightning bursts into them. A few more move away from the remains of someone they were eating. Ianto barrels through a number of them; zips from face to face, covered in gore and tearing through their skulls as if they were nothing more than air.

She crouches unsteadily on her pokémon's back and slaps the few she can reach with her weapon. When the time is right, she leaps off it, bat brandished high above her head like a mighty sword. The first thing turns around just in time for her to cave its face in with all the energy she can muster.

The things notice her and start to swarm. She blows a breath, hair floats up out of her face and drips lazily back on her nose again. A little tiny smirk grows on her mouth and she smacks the nearest thing in the shoulder with her bat. The thing groans and stumbles back; she takes its head off with a well-timed swing.

Her eyes widen as its head shoots off towards the sea. Just like that, her attention is back on the game. Another thing lurches towards her. She darts backwards, spins around it and kicks it as hard as she can in the back of its legs. They snap forwards, bring it down to her level and she slams her bat down into its face.

One appears behind her, its breath stinks up her air and makes her hair curl. Rhys takes care of it before she even manages to move. The thing drops to the floor, half its torso and face missing. Her pokémon roars again, slams the ground and makes pillars of stone erupt from the floor. She nods at it, crouches down and gets ready for the next attack. The floor beneath her rumbles; she grips it and her weapon as hard as she can.

There's a lurch and suddenly, she's airborne.

She spins around in the air, kicks a few things in her ascent and focuses on where she wants to land. A little shift in her weight, lean forwards here and she angles just where she wants to go.

She lands on one of the things, knees driven straight into its skull. Its friends – maybe they were friends – stumble back in surprise. It gives her the time she needs. She takes her bat and rams it through one thing's stomach. Ancient, decaying matter breathes into the air and makes her gag. She turns her head slightly, tries not to throw up and has to stumble back.

In that instant, the tide is turned.

The thing falls to the side, taking her weapon with it. She screams after it, suddenly defenceless and feeling incredibly exposed.

Ianto leaps out of the ground and charges into one things' skull. He hisses wildly at them all, raises his backside and wiggles it twice in the air.

Gwen's eyes widen and in the space of a heartbeat, she's on the floor, hands above her head. Lightning crackles above her; the smell of charred flesh dances all around and she feels decayed, rotting blood and body parts rain down on her. One or two straggles shuffle around, still somehow alive. Rhys roars once more, strikes the earth and spears them on pillars of stone.

She pulls blood-stained brown hair from her face and surveys the damage around her. Total carnage, but somehow, she's still alive.

She checks herself to make sure she hasn't been bitten. No breaks in her skin – that'll leave a bruise – and nothing that seems like it will make her one of them.

She finds her bat, pulls it out of the squashed remains of one of the things and tries to shake off most of the gore. She sighs at the state of it, shakes her head and tries to see if she can find the people she tried to save.

One's dead. She can't change that – she brains them to make sure they don't come back anyway. There's a woman trying to bring life back into another one of the dead and one man huddles in the foetal position, shivering violently and whispering nothings to the air.

"Hey," Gwen says unsurely, tapping him on the shoulder with her bat. "You okay?"

He stares up at her, eyes wide and streaming tears. "I-I," he garbles weakly. He lifts a shaky hand to her which she steps away from. She frowns at him, trails her eyes over his body and tries to see if there's anything she should be wary of.

There!

She takes a step back and raises her bat all in one movement. It's not much, but there's still a tiny bite on his hip. It bleeds freely, pouring blood all over the floor. His other hand presses over it, shaking wildly as he tries somehow to stop it all from bleeding.

"W-wait!" he calls after her, even as she's starting to retreat. He gets unsteadily to his feet and she's on guard, rhyhorn and durant both behind her, facing down the new threat. "I'm not hurt. It's not a bite. Just a scratch from one of your pokémon."

She glowers at him. Survival instinct is one thing, but she won't have her pokémon blamed for anything. "Don't lie to me," she spits. "If either of them did that, you wouldn't have a hip left."

He says something that sounds like nothing but a gargle of his own saliva. He tries to step towards her, but she falls back, warning him, "Stay back! You're going to be one of them."

His face twists into a grimace. "No I'm not. And what are you going to do if I was? Kill me?"

She falters at that. Killing the dead is one thing. The living? She's not sure she can do that.

He lunges for her weapon.

She realises she might not be able to kill him, but she can hurt him.

She twists out of his grasp, brings her bat up and smacks him with all her might between the legs. He screams a pitch she doesn't think she can reach herself and doubles over on the floor, clearly in agony and almost definitely never able to have children again.

She steps back from him, frowning, watching and wondering just what she can do now. She can't kill him, can she? It's so hard – so easy. Snap the neck. Bash the brains. Have Rhys crush him.

She shakes her head against the thoughts. She can't bring herself to kill someone else, despite everything.

But she can't just let him turn into one of those things either.

She wants to burst into tears, just because she doesn't know what to do.

Surprise colours her face as the woman she saw before walks up to them both, produces a long, thick chef's knife and calmly thrusts it into his throat. He gags, chokes on his own blood and convulses on the floor, bleeding even more as the woman removes her knife, wipes down the blood on his jacket and stares at him.

In fact, that's all she does.

She just stares.

"Hey," Gwen says, inwardly hoping this time things work out better. "You hurt?"

The woman blinks as if returning to reality. Her hair is long and matted, stained bright red through dye and blood both. Bright blue eyes dance in her skull, brimming with unshed tears. She wipes an arm across her face and leave behind a smear of dirt in its place.

"More than you know," she says cryptically. "But no bites or scratches. I'm not going to become one of them. Thanks for the rescue. I owe you one."

Gwen shrugs modestly. "It was nothing."

The woman shakes her head and places both hands on Gwen's shoulders. "It was amazing, is what it was. Just where the hell did you learn to move like that?"

"Before…" She bites her lip and tries to hold back the flow of tears she knows will come with remembering her family. "Before I became a trainer, my parents made me do ballet lessons. I was four when I started."

The woman stares at her in stunned surprise for a long moment. Then she throws back her head and barks a laugh. "Saved by ballet? Fuck. I knew I should have done that when I was little. Well, thanks for the save. I'm Jessica by the way."

"Gwen." She glances around at the carnage around them. "Were they…?" She finds she can't finish her own question. Were they what? Friends? Travel buddies? A couple of couples? Whatever she says just feels stupid and generally useless.

"We were travelling together," Jessica says. "We were going to try and brave the sea; go to Cianwood. It's an island, right? Maybe this thing hasn't reached there yet."

Gwen turns around and points out to the ocean. "Over there? What about the water pokémon? If they get it, they can travel across the ocean. I don't think the things can swim though. One fell in earlier and just splashed until a cloyster pierced its brain."

"That's possibly the most awesome thing I've heard in a long time," Jessica tells her. She tucks hair behind her ear and stares out towards the sea. "So, I don't suppose that you know what's going on in Cianwood?"

Gwen bites her lip and shakes her head. "No idea. Sorry."

"Figures," Jessica sighs. "Well, safety in numbers, right? Mind travelling with me?"

Gwen eyes the blood still dripping from the woman's knife and barely manages to repress her shudder. She doesn't like the fact that the woman can kill normal people so easily, but at the same time, she knows that she needs someone that can.

"It's okay," she tells her. "But I'm not heading towards Cianwood."

Jessica sighs and taps her knife against her hip. "I figured as much. Going there was only a last ditch effort anyway. We've been holed up in the Battle Frontier for so long now. Everything's run out over there and there's only so much amusement you can get by using everything available to attack everything."

Gwen's eyes widen with inspiration as she climbs atop her rhyhorn. "They've got a rollercoaster there, right?"

The woman nods, watches Ianto scuttle into place on Rhys' head and Gwen feels just a little like the woman's looking at her more than her pokémon. "Yeah. I haven't seen whether or not it's working though. Riding it at this sort of time is a bit pointless though, don't you think? All the noise would attract those things."

A devilish smile crosses Gwen's face. "Who said we'd be riding them? I've always wanted to watch one of these things on a rollercoaster. Maybe the sound would attract more of them."

The woman stares at her, open mouthed for what feels like eternity. Finally she throws her head back in a laugh. "That's an amazing idea! Fuck it, we've so got to try that out!"

Gwen smiles and pats the saddle behind her. "Jump on. Rhys won't bite. Fastest transport there is. He crushes everything in our way too."

"Brilliant," the woman says. She sheathes her knife, climbs atop and links her arms around Gwen's waist. "Ready when you are, driver."

She nods and tries to ignore the sudden dryness in her mouth. "S-sure," she says nervously, suddenly very aware of the other, rather warm body pressed against her own. "Come on Rhys. Straight ahead!"

With a mighty bellow he takes off, leaving behind nothing more than a dust cloud and streaks of dead human on the floor.

What none of them notice, however, is the large pokémon sticking to the shadows, face half exposed and rotting legs not hindering it in the slightest as it skulks after them soundlessly.

"Please! You've got to save me!"

Liam regards the man with a cold stare. The dead are grasping for him as he hangs off the metallic fire escape of yet another abandoned apartment building in Viridian. He does the math; figures out that with the crowd down there, it would take them maybe ten seconds to rip the man apart, feast on him and just generally reduce him to bones.

He smirks darkly and presses his foot down on the man's hands.

"What! Hey! No-no! Not that! That hurts! Stop!"

Liam barks a laugh over the man's screams. He watches with cold delight as the man falls off and to his death. The things beneath him moan in glee; within seconds the man in nothing more than a cloud of red; body torn apart and fought over by the hungry animals.

Liam makes a show of checking his watch, even though it no longer works.

"Four seconds," he says to himself. "New record! You motherfucks sure are hungry today, aren't ya?"

He leans over the safety of his railing, dangling his body just low enough to taunt them; just high enough that he's out of their reach. An insane laugh escapes his mouth as he watches them all try to reach for him, then give up and try to feast on the remains of what was once a man.

Liam jumps a few rungs up another ladder, squats down and watches the things for a little time. He needs to see how long it takes. He counts the seconds in his head as the things continue eating.

They get bored two minutes and three seconds in.

At four minutes and six seconds, the man shuffles back to life – or something like that – bones exposed, organs falling out and his face missing the lower part of his jaw.

"Huh," Liam grunts to himself. "Don't like your food when it goes bad, do ya?" He pokes his head through the largest railings, watches a few moan and groan for another meal as others shuffle off in another direction, seeking more obtainable food. He pulls free his gun, mimes shooting a few in the head and finally settles for spinning it on a finger. "You stop eating exactly half way between them dying and them coming back to life. There's got to be something there."

He laughs and bounces to his feet with a shrug. "But, I'm not a scientist. I don't care. You fucks are dead anyway." He makes it to the roof in less than a minute, drops his backpack and searches around for the one thing he needs. Eyes sparkling when he finds it, he wrestles with the pin, pulls it loose and casually tosses it back down onto the street.

"Fire in the hole," he remarks, bored.

Then the grenade explodes with enough force to send him off his feet.

He laughs as he pulls himself off the roof and sits there for a moment, feeling the building shake. Little bits of gore rain down everywhere and he plays spot-the-body-part. Bits of brain, stomach – ooh, an entire eye! – and little things that may have been toes come down from the skies above.

"Eh," he grunts, back on his feet. "I'd give that a four at best. What do you think?"

His pokémon regards him with a bored look. Blonde hair covers most of its face and drapes down over its body, revealing only what appears to be a red dress. Its skin is purple, like its covered in frostbite, and two piercing red eyes haunt from beneath its hair.

"Who cares?" the jynx grunts. "The dead are dead again. The very least you could have done was kept a few to see how long it takes them to starve to death."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Do you really think we've got time to watch one of those things die from hunger?"

"I do. You are far more likely to die before me."

He scowls at the pokémon. "Thanks for that. Remind me why I keep you around again?"

She fires a little ball of black, soul-sucking energy into the street below. It hits one of the things and shatters it on impact, splattering everything nearby with the remains of its torso. It looks back up at the roof in something like surprise before it shudders and drops to the floor, bones breaking one by one by an invisible hand. It screeches in unholy agony before finally its skull splits in two; brain and rot leaking out and onto the street.

"Oh yeah," Liam grunts. "There's that."

"Are we leaving yet?" the pokémon remarks. It sashays over to the other edge of the roof and stares down. "I am bored of this place. Everything screams in the same way when it dies for the second time."

He shrugs and flicks the stud in his tongue against his lips. "Soon enough. We need to get ready for real combat soon though." He points across the road at the remains of a torn-up bench. "See if you can pick that up and start bashing some of these mothers with it."

She gives him a bored look as she completes the task without much thought.

"Awesome," he says happily. "Seems like you're up to scratch. All we need now is for Eve to be able to take a number of them down without effort and for Tyrael to do the same. Then we're good to go.

"After all, it'd be a shame if we died before giving Kelsi exactly what she deserves."