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In the Name of Progress	By : Mizor4 Category: +M through R > Pokemon Views: 1452 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-One to One
- 2-Above
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Nausea woke Zoroark, almost driving her to find somewhere to wretch. She lay on her stomach, chin resting on the stiff white sheets of a hard cot. The weight of her own body, little as it was, only added to the dizzying unease roiling her gut.
A biting and unfamiliar pain deep in her upper back made her reconsider moving, so she remained still, taking slow, easy breaths, pausing to let her stomach settle, and hoping she didn't end up laying in her own sick. Any thought more complex than instinctive survival, who, where she was, returned slowly.
Unfortunately, she did remember eventually. The recovery room had little in it aside from her uncomfortable cot and a small stool next to the counter at the far wall, the same white painted concrete as her regular quarters. Nothing but a computer terminal, screen dark, sat on the counter top. At least they dimmed the lights while she slept.
Zoroark let out a small whimper, only sure it wouldn't bring up more a few moments after the acidic tickle in her throat passed. The gentle airflow from a vent in the ceiling stabbed icy chills into her back. They must have shaved a wide strip down the top half of her spine. She felt another strip removed from just below her ribs, uncomfortably bare against rough linen.
No machines connected to her, monitoring her vitals or alerting the scientists when she woke. They wouldn't risk any unnecessary harm or recovery time, so she could probably move without injury. Still, the ache tightened menacingly through her shoulders and along her spine.
Her eyelids squeezed shut, desperate to return to the pleasant nothingness of drugged sleep, but it only served to amplify the rocking, swirling turmoil that threatened to empty her stomach. With effort, she managed to pull herself far enough along the cot to let her muzzle hang off the edge. At least if she threw up, most of it would land on the floor. She didn't move again for a long time.
Gentle silence soothed her, at least for a time, a serene reprieve from the incessant electric buzz in her head that accompanied her link to the Aether Foundation's machine. She couldn't even detect the more subtle, passive corrections that didn't require a full connection, though even after all this time she couldn't always tell for sure.
Her mind was hers, for now – miserable, impotent, but hers. Not that she had anything to think about, really, but it felt strangely intimate, so wholly alone with her unmolested thoughts. They would notice her awake eventually, come for her, reclaim her. Only then would she find out what they did to her, and she knew better than to look forward to that. She tried not to dwell. It only encouraged her physical unease, and she should enjoy what she could from her small freedom.
At some point Zoroark fell asleep, because the sound of the door jerked her awake. A tall thin man entered wearing a long white lab coat. She had not seen this one before, younger than most, black hair neatly combed across the top of his head. Her brief examination took too long, and their eyes met before she could feign sleep.
The scientist closed the door quickly behind him. He spoke in a hushed but sharp voice. "You're awake. Good."
It couldn't start again so soon. Her back throbbed, and while not as bad as before, the queasiness made her want to curl up and yell. Listless tears trickled down the short fur of her muzzle. If the scientist noticed, he didn't show it. They never did.
"We don't have much time," the man continued. "I can take you away from this place. Will you come with me?"
Dread reached into her chest with his words. Was this some kind of test? Not now, not when her mind already limped through a muddling fog of exhaustion and hurt. Zoroark shook ever so slightly in the cot, eyes squeezed shut as if that would somehow bar the world from her, no choices, no thinking, no feeling.
"I need your answer, Sophi."
Zoroark's eyes snapped open to glare at the human. She hated this man, to come in and taunt her. It had to be a trick. He stood a pace from her, a smokey gray sphere with a silver band circling it held in one hand.
"I-" Her tongue adhered to the roof of her parched mouth, and it took her a moment to force words from her raspy throat. "I belong here." The human didn't appear to have water on him, just that sinister sphere.
He frowned, voice softening somewhat. "I know what they do to you." He spoke as if he wasn't one of them. "This device can hide you long enough for us to leave. I can take you to Unova where you'll be safe."
Zoroark eyed the sphere. "Why?"
"I don't have time to explain everything. What they do here it isn't right."
Zoroark laughed, or tried to, but only a hateful, grating sound made it from her chest. He'd be killed if Aether Foundation discovered him. No one would risk that to save her. Zoroark's large red claws ripped small holes in the thin cotton sheets. If she just lay here, and didn't answer, didn't think – it wouldn't be her fault if someone stole her, couldn't be. But what if it wasn't a lie? If she could truly leave. Dangerous thoughts.
"I'm going to use this device. It doesn't have the power to hold you if you fight it. It won't hurt. Please, let me take you away from here."
Tears warmed the fur around her eyes. She couldn’t fight him. She didn't dare hope, but she couldn't refuse what he pretended to offer. Brilliant red light filled her vision, and then she no longer had to exist.
---
Zoroark felt aware of the journey, in a vague, distant sort of way, like half listening to someone explain something uninteresting. Movement and people, maybe talking. It felt wonderful, no thought, no dreams, the merest remembrance of herself. Then reality crashed back around her, a flash of red light, and a gut wrenching twist as the world reoriented around her. She remembered laying down, her body remembered laying down, and now she stood.
Zoroark made it halfway to her knees, bracing herself against the cold concrete wall, before she vomited. Moving didn't agitate the ache in her back nearly as bad as she expected it to, but the powerful clench of her stomach tugged at pains she didn't know could exist.
A man's voice spoke somewhere, familiar, the same man from before? "Shit. Stay here, I'll be right back."
Like she were in any position to move. Only a thin spit of bile and what felt like the last remaining moisture in her entire body spattered to the ground in one terrible heave. She retched a few more times but had nothing left to give. Her muscles clenched nonetheless, trying to force her spine out her back. The two lesser wounds on her belly felt only slightly less awful.
Two humans returned, based on the sound of their footsteps, hurried on the concrete floor. Zoroark panted, too exhausted to react to a hand on her shoulder.
"Here," the same voice said.
Zoroark opened a bleary eye, and the human held a large cup out to her. She took it, not even looking to see what it contained before slumping with her back to the wall next to her small puddle of sick, and dumped cold water into her mouth. More of it splashed down her chest than her throat, but she didn't care, taking deep, wild gulps that threatened to bring it all back up. She couldn't stop herself.
The last drops trickled out, and the dregs of her sudden desperate energy failed. Breathing hard, she finally looked up at the two humans.
The first, the one who offered her the glass, was indeed the man from before. He no longer dressed as a scientist. Instead he wore an unremarkable red long-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans, his black hair combed neatly as it had been.
The other human, however, the one she hadn't seen before, wore a long perfectly white lab coat, the same sure expression she had seen on all the others. A deep hatred, so long controlled yet now bubbling to the surface, only restrained by her body's utter inability to do more than shake.
Her maybe rescuer spoke first. "This is Doctor Farren. He's one of our best pokemon specialists."
Zoroark's singular word came out as a hoarse bark. "No."
"He's not going to hurt you. He just wants to make sure you aren't going to reopen-"
"Do I have a say in this?" Zoroark choked out, interrupting him.
"Yes," he said slowly, "but-"
The ferocity she managed to force from her lungs surprised even her, words barely understandable through the snarl twisting her lips. "Then send him away."
The two humans shared a brief look, but the doctor eventually shrugged and walked away down the long, concrete hallway. They must be underground somewhere.
"Is there anything I can get you?" the man asked placatingly.
Zoroark felt slightly better, marginally less hateful, anyway. No one had ever done something because she asked before. "Who are you?"
"My name is Avery. I worked undercover at the Aether Foundation lab where you were kept. Though I guess I won't being going back there either." He flashed an encouraging smile.
Zoroark glared in return. "Why? They'll kill you."
"Hopefully not," he chuckled, far more carefree than he should. "Do you want to have this conversation now? We can talk in the morning, after you've had time to sleep. We prepared a room," he motioned to a door only two paces away Zoroark hadn't noticed. "It's not much, all we could do on short notice. I'm sure we can find you something a little more comfortable tomorrow." He actually looked a little sheepish.
Zoroark didn't want the chance for answers to slip away, but her thoughts grew hazy as if in protest. She might not even be able to lift herself from floor. "Sleep," she mumbled, trying to ignore both him and the sick on the ground beside her.
Avery offered a hand, and after some consideration, the thought of rest too enticing, she took it. He more than half dragged her to unsteady feet. Luckily her stomach seemed to cooperate, likely too tired with the rest of her.
He hadn't lied. The room had barely enough space for the small bed and table beside it. A single bare incandescent bulb jut from the ceiling, the entire room solid, unadorned concrete save for a vent set into the far wall. Zoroark liked the confined space. She had grown used to cells. Zoroark almost collapsed towards the bed and a small pile of blankets, so soft and inviting, but the steadying hand on her shoulder held her a moment.
Zoroark turned, and Avery the human drew her into a gentle but no less powerful hug. For a moment, Zoroark didn't know what to do. She stood, her arms limp at her sides, but the strong warmth of his chest, the way his arms curled protectively around her back, her face naturally nestled into his shoulder – she mirrored the unfamiliar gesture almost reflexively.
He spoke softly into the top of her head, soothing. "They'll never hurt you again."
Avery's shirt grew strangely warm just around where her eye pressed against him. Then she realized the tears falling unhindered down her other cheek. She instinctively tried to pull away, not show weakness in front of this unfamiliar human, but he held onto her tightly, and she didn't have the strength to resist.
Zoroark cried, not the quiet contained weeping that overtook her some nights, alone in an Aether Foundation lab, but the embarrassing full-bodied sobs of a broken soul. Her large claws bit at Avery's back, and had she the presence of mind, she would have noticed him wince. She didn't though, and he didn't pull away, letting her weep into his chest for what felt like hours, hard enough she almost made herself sick again.
Avery's hand stroked the back of her bristly shaved head and gently down her neck. His other arm held her back tight, supporting most of her weight himself. He didn't speak, for which Zoroark was grateful.
Eventually, once she had cried herself silent, Avery helped her onto the cot, her belly still slightly damp from the water she spilled earlier. It didn't matter. The moment her chin touched the bed, Zoroark fell asleep.
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In the Name of Progress