The Void She Filled

Chapter 6: The Internet Explorer Conundrum

How Team Plasma found and captured Kyurem, I had no idea. Each of those feats alone require an impressive amount of skill and cunning. Regardless, this explained how they were able to fire those beams of ice onto Opelucid this morning. Team Plasma must be utilizing Kyurem's power against its will, using their hoses and Arceus knows what else. Anger instantly flared in my chest as my dismay reached its ultimate peak. I knew the members of Team Plasma were no saints... But how dare they?! Just seeing how much they were making this Pokémon suffer for their own selfish gain made my stomach churn.

This just gave me all the more reason to hate them, and to take them down for good.

When Kyurem sensed my presence, it fixed me a lifeless stare, its face frozen in the form of a menacing snarl. All I could do was return the gaze, trying to suppress my overwhelming feeling of pity. Naturally, my heart jumped in fear at such an angered and beastly creature, but intellect told me Kyurem could do nothing to hurt me. It was utterly trapped and powerless. And, realistically, there was nothing I could do either right now to help it— nothing that could be done by me alone. As much as it pained me to leave Kyurem like this, my best chance of freeing it was to take down Plasma's leader first. With a final look of sadness, I took a couple of steps back, trying to reign in my erratic breaths.

A split in the road... Two options to choose from. I suppressed my growl of frustration. I've always preferred completing one path in its entirety before going onto another. But I didn't have that luxury on a time crunch. I just had to pick one and pray that it took me the right way. My eyes darted between the halls, trying to determine if one proved fairer than the other.

And my conclusion was... not at all. Both paths looked exactly the same, right down to the floor tiles. The end of each held a glowing green warp.

Just pick one! I screamed at myself. The longer I stalled, the more likely my choice wouldn't even matter. Clenching my fists, I picked the warp on the right, praying that this decision was the right one. After a disorientating series of spins, I found myself in a separate chamber. I'm not sure who or what I had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't him. Not the man that I have despised the most ever since I first ran into Team Plasma...

*       *      *

"Colress?! Oh, not you!" I snarled ferociously. His abode looked like something out of the future. There were bright and shiny control panels with blue chairs circling the front half of the perimeter. A blue steel floor emblazoned with the Plasma logo sat under my feet. Dual silver pillars, serving as the room's supports, were surrounded by a digital blue light. Finally, the center had a white staircase, leading up to a small blue platform that looked like the ship's helm.

Colress himself was currently standing at the top of this helm, turning around to look down at me with a smirk of interest. Arceus, I hated this man more than Team Plasma itself... And that's saying something.

His "outfit" (if you could call it that) was dorky at best, and tacky at worst. He had an annoyingly pristine white lab coat that covered his black undersuit. Cyan blue stripes outlined his figure and ran down the middle of the shirt, cuffing around his pants. To finish the ensemble, he wore white gloves and glasses, and had short blonde hair contained by a blue...sash? A lock of hair? Whatever it was, it curled around the back of his head, forming a loop on his right upper forehead. Who had an accessory as geeky-looking as that? I swear to Arceus his head looked like some tacky and outdated internet browser. The resemblance was almost uncanny.

But, beyond wacky wardrobe tastes, his overall attitude simply disturbed me. I had run into him a handful of times on my journey, and his perspectives were deviously deceiving. At first, they even sounded admirable to me. He told me once...