章 36: My Charitable Professor - Pt 2.
I closed my eyes and held my head under the pillow. When I opened them five minutes later, I could see clearly again with the exception of a few bright spots. My head still ached, but it wasn't as debilitating – I could, for instance, sit up on the bed and finally examine my surroundings. The bright white hadn't been an effect of my tormented state: only my skin escaped the general hue – the entire room, everything bore the exact same tone of colorless light.
Sycamore walked in, carefully closing the door behind him – He, too, wore a white shirt that fell carelessly over his black trousers.
"Where are we?!" I promptly asked.
"Dear, I strictly conditioned giving you your medication to seeing you return back to sleep, didn't I?" he walked up to me, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Though you are now rid of the poison, you still managed to hit your head pretty hard against the floor..."
He caressed my head, moving the messy hair locks back to place. Meanwhile, I struggled with my thoughts.
"Now lay back down and hush – pray, don't make me regret giving you back your senses!" he smiled in a mild, harmless tone that didn't match his words.
"Poison..." I thought aloud "Falling... that's it!" My memories flowed back in vivid colors. The urgency soon followed as I remembered why I was fighting Team Flare. "The Weapon!" I shouted, immediately jumping forward.
Sycamore's arm held me on the air, encircling my torso – the impact itself was enough to push me back on the bed, which bounced comfortably...
The comfort, the whiteness, the peace and the silence... It was so misguiding and wrong! I looked at Sycamore with awe: How could he remain so calm?
"Yes, the weapon... Team Flare again, wasn't it, darling?" He smiled in a failed attempt to neutralize his irritation "I assumed that harming yourself so pitifully would be enough to quell that silly fancy of yours, if risking your own Pokémon wasn't enough the first time around! Yet you still want to give chase to them?"
He leaned down on top of me as I tried to move. His eyes were fresh, clear, untroubled by anything other than a selfish annoyance that I should still try to disobey him. It startled me!
"Are you mad?!!" I grimaced "If my Pokémon were hurt I might stop, but as long as I'm the one that's down, I would get up and fight a million times! I would fight until I couldn't move anymore..."
"No need to be so dramatic, then!" he laughed lightly, belittling my bravery "A pair of handcuffs and a few ropes should do the trick! Shall we test it?!"
I pushed him off angrily, he immediately held my wrists against the bed.
"We're going to die if no one does anything about it! In fact, the whole world is, except for Team Flare!" I reminded, appealing to his logic since I was sensible enough to know strength alone couldn't take me very far away from him.
"I am sure there are a lot of people on it right now, dear... A lot of whom are in the soundest state of health! We'd better hope they are more prudent than you in their endeavors though: getting attacked by a Pokémon wasn't your brightest idea to save the world!"
I recalled the attack in vivid details now – it was a surprise one! But why did they choose to ambush me, and what happened later?
"Where was I when you found me?" I asked, forcing my memory.
Sycamore merely smiled. He watched me with a commiserating affection, dropping his eyebrows in a pitying and amused expression:
"Done-up by a mere grunt! How could you possibly expect to take on Lysandre and the army he has prepared?!"
"It wasn't a grunt! And there were two of them, actually..." I frowned, pushing my memory "Admins! But I didn't even have time to use a Pokémon!"
"I know all about it, dear..." he sighed, hushing me "But it's pointless to discuss it now: You've been caught once, you will be caught again if you try: Drowsiness and slow reflexes shall last as a side effect for at least the remainder of the day! You can hope for a battle tomorrow, if you must really insist on it!"
"Tomorrow! By tomorrow we will all be dead!" I panicked. Sycamore's fingers tightened around my wrist, detecting imminent struggle "We don't have that much time! And what if they fail? How can you worry about me, when we're all going to die?!"
"There is no use in going after the weapon, dear..." he sighed tragically "I Don't believe there is anything you can do about it by now..." Surrender clouded his eyes. It felt cold and despairing!!
"But if we don't try, we..."
"We won't die." Sycamore interrupted, smiling faintly and quickly abandoning the despondency he had just begun to show "Darling, you offend me: Are you so indifferent you haven't even come to realize this isn't my room? The room I made love to you first?!" he mocked.
One of his hands let go of my wrist and caressed my face affectionately: "Nothing can reach you here. The two of us are safe now, and we will remain that way."
"What is this place?!" I asked, being fully aware from the beginning it wasn't his house - Up until that point, leaving was much more important than inquiring after it. Now I was curious... and not only that: a gleam of coward hope threatened to flourish.
"A special underground facility built specifically to guarantee our safety!" he peacefully declared.
"If that's so, then why aren't we sheltering other people?!" I felt sick again, pushing with all my strength to try and escape him.
He laughed, holding me back down with little effort:
"Don't be naïve, dearest: I never said we were completely alone in here..."
His face was mild again...
"Then Calem and the rest..." I began, moved to confidence by his unclouded expression... but I stopped halfway, scared of finishing it: His mocking eyes told me he would never twitch a single muscle for Calem's safety.
...And there it was: his smile never changed:
"They are out fighting... like you wanted."
My breath grew out of rhythm as despair took over.
"Why, dear..." Sycamore subtly got on the bed, sitting himself on top of my legs and holding me more effectively "Didn't you say someone must try and stop the Weapon? Then why the tragic eyes?"
As he had anticipated in his sharpness, I started to almost unconsciously struggle for freedom.
"No! They can't... They'll..." I at the same time attempted to move under him and keep myself from panicking "We have to help them..."
Sycamore merely held me and watched as I battled myself. The idea of death... it couldn't cross my mind! I tried to push it away, tried to hold it in...
"Where are we? How did we get here?! Where... where did you find me? Did you talk to them?!" I inquired... There wasn't even space to be angry at the Professor anymore: Despair made me so vulnerable that humility hit me like a train, I merely begged with my eyes, begged he wouldn't be so cold, begged for my own freedom knowing at this point I could not have it back otherwise!
His half smile remained as he struggled around with my wrists, completely alien to my drama.
"Why did you take only me?!!" I tragically pleaded.
"I didn't take you, dear..." he explained at last "they brought you here to me."
I processed the information...
"Wh... Who did? Calem? No... he would never do that!"
"It doesn't matter now – what matters is that you are safe with me! I won't let you risk your life going out there until this mess is cleared..."
"What if they fail?! What if they... DIE!!" I let it out, and my entire body began to shake in a panicked-induced overdose of adrenaline.
I thrashed – my limbs hurt from how hard I struggled against Sycamore's firm fingers, my spine ached and my bones exhausted themselves with trying to move my waist, where he had focused all his weight.
"Darling, you are losing it..." he casually warned.
"No! Let me go!! I can't... I won't leave them..."
"If you continue with this, I will have to administer something to make you quieter..."
"Please, please, please...!" again I pleaded with teary eyes, bringing my arms together and apart again, trying desperately to be rid of his grip "PLEASE let me go!"
His eyes shone in a distant trace of sick amusement. It made my chest colder still with fear and despair.
He arched forward on top of me, looking deep into my eyes with his poorly hidden smile, pulling my tired arms up and holding them over my head against the pillow with only one hand. The other touched my face... I was scared of him there: scared of his insensibility, of his almost sociopathic lack of care, of his thrilled amusement in such a dreary time... of how there was no pleading, no crying, no screaming that would move him! I was suddenly under the bothersome impression that I would be safer outside!
"Anne, dear..." he sighed, appreciating the silence fear put me in during those seconds. His breathing, though calm and barely audible, I noticed was uneven. His cheeks picked up a red color.
"No..." I murmured to myself in disbelief. His hand slid down my neck, taking its time as it felt its way to my breast. "No!" I screamed harder, failing to believe my utter terror could make him aroused...
The door swung open as he touched his scorching lips against my face... And though he stopped moving, it didn't send him flying away from me as it would have normally done.
"Professor Sycamore!" a very formal, very fearful voice called.
"Huh?!" Sycamore lazily replied, sitting up on my hips and looking at the door. He was still on top of me! He still held my arms against the bed! My eyes were still red, teary with trauma! Why the hell wasn't he scared? ...And why the hell wasn't anyone doing anything?!
I looked the indifferent intruder's way – and I couldn't believe my eyes!
"Everything is ready, sir, and Lysandre should be headed to the ruins this instant!" The flare grunt, in his flashing red suit, reported...
...To Sycamore?!
"Alright..." The Professor sighed with a casual annoyance "Please spread the word that I do not wish to be bothered in the next few hours..."
The grunt looked at me... I looked at him! I locked pleading eyes with a stranger, with the enemy... He knew, from that scene, what Sycamore would be doing to me in the requested time. He could see how devastated I was... how unwilling! Why did both act so naturally over it? Why would no one do something about it?!
"Yes sir!" The grunt bowed and moved away, closing the door.
To think I would ever sink so low as to hope Team Flare could help me against him...
"You!" I accused brokenheartedly.
"Where were we?!" Sycamore smiled, bending forward again and kissing my face.
"You and Team Flare?" I pursued.
His lips let go of me; he sat up with an upset sigh, as if, for an instant, he had really let himself believe he could just ignore my fit until it went away.
His eyes looked heavy, reflecting the trouble I put him through, and a small, apologetic smile stretched shyly through his face:
"Forgive me!" he said the word through a shaken voice "I planned on letting you in on it little by little..." a hand affectionately caressed my face as his eyes grew warm again "...Softly pour the truth out, as to not scare you, or stress your excitable little nerves more than the necessity demanded..."
He made it look like such intention made a saint out of him, and he surely thought so of himself – how charitable, the Professor! Protecting me from his evil truth! My chest cracked open with each second.
"...Now look at you! You look like you're about to cry!" his eyes narrowed, examining me with a distant trace of mocking pity and fascination.
"I can't believe it! You're with Team Flare!" I repeated in shock.
"That is a rather raw generalization of what this is about, my dear, although I can't quite deny it, can I?" And another upset and conformed sigh followed as he was forced to deal with something he had planned on postponing for later.
"Deny it!!" I echoed his words in awe "Team Flare knocked me down! Team Flare brought me here… because of you?! Because you told them to?!!" It started making sense.
"Ah, yes... For me, Lysandre was willing to make an exception..." He cynically smiled, and resumed his caresses on me.
"You and Lysandre...!"
Of course not only one of them would go crazy! Of course they were together – the two scientists, the research, the plotting, the coincidences... Why hadn't I even considered this before?!
"You were with Team Flare all along!!!"
"I was benefited by their advances, it is true... But I don't command them, dear: Lysandre does!" he smiled as if he conveyed the most solacing news.
The fossil Pokémon, bidding me stay away from Team Flare... It felt like it had always been there – the truth – and I was too obtuse to realize it! But there was still something that made no sense:
"Why?! Why would Lysandre condone this?!"
Sycamore laughed, sitting up again so he could look me in the eyes:
"He has run out of time, dear! We couldn't explore the energy released by a mega evolution, so he went on and found a new source of energy for his weapon... In short, the research is over! I'm no longer your Professor... and thus, you are all mine!"
His cynicism... His coldness, his selfish eyes: they had always been there, too. Why did I ever let him...
"How can you do this?!!" I naively asked, hoping I could tap into any fashion of feelings in there "How can you sacrifice both human and Pokémon, and for what?!"
He sighed – a small fraction of the reaction he ought to have in order to be called human himself:
"Something about beauty... Something about society growing corrupt as the years go by! Lysandre is building a new world – it is all he has ever talked about! I have tried to dissuade him before, but there's no use in that..." he shrugged "I kept from actively helping, too... but it was inevitable in the end, and I had always known, judging by his determination: The weapon is ready. Why show resistance now?!" He squeezed my arms, making a point and smiling in the process "...when you know it's pointless?!"
And down came his cruel eyes – he seized my lips and kissed me: never did his tongue burn so painfully against mine, never did it taste so much like bitter poison...
I struggled again, finding strength in rage to overcome my exhaustion.
"You're a coward!" I accused in the first opportunity I had of wringing free from his kiss "A damn coward!" I closed my eyes bracing myself, for I had yet to know his reaction when so directly offended.
"Coward?!" he repeated in surprise, sitting up again and holding my arms together. Then he smiled, little affected: "I am merely a professor, dear! A researcher! As such, I understand nature in all its exquisite dynamics. And though I am still made of flesh, and though I feel for beautiful Kalos - as do you -, I have also been fully trained in understanding the process of evolution and everything it takes to achieve it. Having studied it through, you can take my word for it: There are no brave speeches or honorable sacrifices in evolution, dear... There are no claps of glorious recognition and no rewards for the brave of spirit to collect: There is only survival and adaptation – survival of the flesh that is; not of the virtue!
I trembled under his grim eyes.
"So, no: I won't fight like you do, darling - for honor's sake! Nor will I let you do so, knowing how useless it is: What is honor? Where does it lie? Dissect a body and show me its dwelling site amidst the entrails, that then I might help you. Until then, from where I'm standing, honor is but a foolish human fancy, a mere fantasy of sorts. What have they achieved, the countless men that have died for honor? A premature ending to their gene pool, against one's own natural and strongest instinct: that of survival. Your instinct is to survive, no matter the cost – and that is nature!"
"You are wrong... You are totally wrong! We can do something! We don't have to die... I can do it! Let me try! I'll show you!!" I pleaded.
"However dreary the situation, I must admit I am generally happy, my dear. One must learn to see the silver lining: There will be no more running and no more hiding for you now! We will live the life we choose in Lysandre's new world, and I can finally say you are mine!" He smiled. pleased with himself as his hands moved to my waist "They have a need for a good Professor in their new world... I have a need for my darling thing with me! Once there, you will do as I say like a good girl, for no one shall interfere with us!"
"Never!" I held his hands, pulled his fingers, struggled with him as he attempted to pull my coat open. "I will never live with you there! I'd rather die than be stuck in that sick world of yours!!"
"It is not up to you to decide anymore..." he smiled calmly "Now relinquish these awfully black garments, do: they are but an unpleasant memory of when you decided to trample on my authority!"
And he lay down on top of me, holding my face between his fingers and kissing me passionately. I endured: closing my eyes, I could ignore any effect his skin, smell and touch had on me by focusing on escaping him – I stretched my arm as far as I could, feeling everything around the bed – a nightstand, drawers... but there was nothing I could use as a weapon. Though unwilling, I retrieved my hand, and began feeling his pants for something to help me escape.
"Naughty girl! What are you feeling for there?" He drew back to look at me and laugh, mocking my escape attempt by diminishing it to a mere topping for his amusement.
I stopped struggling – it was useless, after all! As I scowled at him, I calculated how little effort he put on his breath and on his arms as he held me down – how much of that was all he could do? What chance would I stand against him, when his least was my strife? I examined his charming, confident laugh... His beautifully blue eyes shining ecstatically as they watched me sink into surrender... In that defying light, I was decided!
My mother once got caught in a heated break-up argument with one of her many ex-boyfriends. As he squealed away, seeming suddenly too impotent to stay and argue any longer, she explained to me the wonders that a "vigorous kick to a specific place" could do... the situation looked as confusing as it gets for a seven-year-old such as I was, who could only wonder on mom being so tough she could beat up boys. Now I clearly understood it...
I held the Professor's shoulders by his clothes and pulled his torso closer to me – his eyes widened with a pleased surprise. As he supported himself on his knees, alleviating the weight on my legs, I administered the strongest leg thrust I could manage to his crotch – the effects were more than immediate, as Sycamore almost seemed to shudder before I hit him, realizing my plot while it was still on its tracks, possibly through the rage he found in my eyes where he expected would be an excited me embracing and surrendering to his feelings.
After that, it was easy to push the pain-frozen, French-cursing professor to the side and jump to the floor – he held the injured area with both hands, but still stretched himself to try and grab me as I ran.
Quickly reaching for my bag that lay on the corner of the room, I went for my pokeballs, and ended up seizing the first one that came to hand as Sycamore was already behind me, pulling me by the shoulder and turning me around. Luckily the bright, burning energy intervened, growing in the small space between us before Sycamore could take the ball form my hand. He prudently jumped back in a swift movement, and I walked a few more paces behind, stopping against the bleached walls.
The warm energy assumed Charizard's form, and the second his silhouette became clear, a scheming smile stretched across Sycamore's pain-filled expression. I couldn't help but feel slightly dismayed myself...
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット