Pathos「Pokemon Fanfiction」

Eight

Chapter Eight: The Weight Of A Heart

He wasn't sure how much time had passed ever since he'd been kidnapped; he didn't know how many more days he had until he was dead, and honestly, he couldn't bring himself to care any further.

All he knew was that he needed to get out.

It was risky—downright stupid—to even try and leave the room when Takeo was there. Despite the pounding in his head, he retained enough sanity to at least know that he wouldn't be able to outrun the soldier.

Use your goddamn head, he tried to tell himself through a haze of pain. You're not stupid. You'll figure a way out of this.

Yet, as the cold metal of the handcuffs dug into his hand, he found that situation becoming more and more desolate. Sure, Takeo wasn't in the room now, but he'd mentioned that he'd be returning soon. He had to think of something before then.

Avis wondered why he hadn't thought of planning something before. He chalked it up to the cloud of panic he'd been thrust into when he'd woken up.

"You're being pretty quiet today." The voice interrupted him from his thoughts, and he looked up to see that his enemy had entered the room with his Hypno beside him. "Have you accepted the fact that you're going to be stuck here?"

There was confidence in his tone. He let his face fall into a blank stare, one with all the emotion of drying paint, and tried to study his former captain as best as he could.

Takeo was a confident type of person. He figured that it was that that had led him to become a captain. But he was strangely emotional too; the complete opposite of him, and that led him to be irrational. He'd noticed mood swings too, in the time that he'd been kept in the room.

—shit. If he'd been able to do this from the start, he wouldn't have to go through any of the torture the rat's Hypno had put him through.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" He was pretty sure that the words were hurled at him in a victories sneer. "Afraid that I'll break your other arm? Or do you now know that trying to act more like your brother is the best choice?"

That was it, he realised. He had to use the man's mood swings to his advantage.

"I'm not Aiden," he mumbled, his voice low but harsh enough to make Takeo recoil for a moment. "I may be forced to act like him, but I don't like it."

"Eh?" Takeo's voice was gruff, and he could see that he was getting angry again. He swallowed down a gulp of saliva that had been stuck in his throat at the fear. "And I thought you were getting better. Why are you so damn stubborn?"

He pulled at his restraints and let out a snarl. "And you can shut up. No matter what you say, my brother is dead and he's not coming back—and I am not going to replace him!"

There was a moment of silence, and Avis wondered for a moment if he'd gone overboard. Something in him had snapped when he'd been in there, and he'd long lost the patience to hold in his anger at the wretched man.

"You really piss me off," Takeo growled. "You're going to die either way. Why not make this a little less grievous for the both of us?"

"You want to know why?" he spat. "Because I don't want to be compared to him any more, and I don't think anyone ever bothered to see that."

The man was getting angrier now. Somewhere between the initial panic, he managed to remain calm—because this was normal. If anything, it was just a more painful version of the countless comparisons his parents had made between him and his brother.