Smirking Shadows

Grey walked through the woods, practicing his energy control as he moved under the light of dusk. Meditite followed closely behind through the air, using its psychic senses to monitor the surroundings.

It had now been 12 days since he crossed the river to escape the 'minotaurs'.

With his inhuman abilities he was capable of jogging through the woods at 40 miles per hour. He jogged about half of the time, and spent the rest of the time walking, practicing his array strokes on the bark of the local trees or Energy control.

Since leaving the river behind he had traversed over 5000 miles (~8000 km).

Over this entire period of time he had never once found another living thing in any of the caves or burrows he stayed in. These dark areas were like forbidden zones to the living. Not even the bugs you could find in these wilds would wander into them.

Despite the warning bells that rang in his head due to that, those were still the only places he could possibly stay in and safely move between worlds without the disturbances of the wildlife.

Over the past few nights he had run around doing chores at the Pokemon Police Academy, earning enough money to travel. He took leave for pokemon training and purchased a bus ticket to the Laramie Ranch.

...

"NOBODY IN THIS BUS BETTAH MOVE UNLESS YA WANT HOLES IN YA!"

"HAHA, YEAH, AND MAKE THAT DOUBLE"

"NAH, TRIPLE"

"NO! NO! QUINTOUPLE~"

"That's five you idiot, not four!! WE ARE THE GRUNT QUARTET!"

Four voices rang out in a loud voice, and four people stood up from their seats with automatic weapons that appeared from seemingly nowhere.

Each of them were muscular guys who wore sunglasses and the classic tourist-like shorts and T-shirts. With excellent showmanship they each tore off their floral T-shirts to reveal plain white T's with a Red 'R' on them.

"Team Rocket Grunts!"

"Ichi!" "Zwei!" "Tres!" "And Sei!"

"We's is here to steal you's Pokemon! Hand them over real nice-like or this is gonna get Nasty!"

An old man next to Ichi stood up, "Now young man, there is no need to do this!"

Bang!

"I told you! Nobody move! Or do I need to make another example!"

The old man collapsed to the ground as blood pooled under his feet, the woman next to him had blood spattered over her face from the wounded man screamed. I made up my mind to make a move once the gun went off and dashed towards Grunt called Sei.

The man noticed me and shot at me, but the bullet had little effect on me and I quickly made it to him, forming a blade on my two forefingers I stab into his eye and through his head, killing instantly.

"Shit! He must be a Psychic Pokemon Trainer! Everyone, take out your pokemon and keep shooting him to wear down his energy! Machop, Go!"

"Drowzee, Go!"

"Raticate! Go!"

Red Light flew at me from their pokeballs as the light transformed into pokemon that attacked me.

Machop flew straight at me through the air, seeming to be preparing to bring down a chop on my head. Drowzee appeared on the far side of the bus, casting waves of psychic energy towards me. Raticate ran swiftly on all fours down the bus aisleway, a quick attack?

I did not feel the need to fight them head on at all though. I jumped up, placing a hand on the roof of the bus and a foot on one of the seat frames, I launched myself at Machop while deflecting the waves from Drowzee. At the instant we came into contact I steadied myself on a frame, deflected his chop to the side and threw him heavily into the nearest Grunt.

Getting back my momentum after the throw I launched myself towards another Grunt, strengthening my fist, I punched him in the head. This instantly resulted in the bones of his head flying out like shrapnel together with his blood and brains into the side of the bus.

At that instant Drowzee's eyes seemed to dim and it fell backward, seemingly unconscious. However, Raticate still chased after me, and Machop and the Grunt under him hurriedly tried to get back to their feet despite spitting blood.

The bullets continually hitting me together with the energy for attacks began to wear on me slightly, so I sought to end it quickly. I launched a series of psyblades at the last Grunt standing.

However, suddenly, Raticate jumped out to block it for his trainer. Unfortunately, I have no pity for murderous thieves, and so it became a psyblade storm which tore Raticate into pieces along with his trainer behind him.

"You! You dare to defy Team Rocket! We may have been gone for awhile, but to think we would be thought so little of, to be defied on even a small Operation like this. No one can defy the glory of Team Rocket and live, NO ONE!"

The Grunt Ichi ripped off his Team Rocket Shirt, revealing a vest lined with explosives, he reached into his pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a dead-man switch.

I rushed over to the man but despite being faster than a normal human, the grunt still managed to flip open and press the switch before I reached him.

In the instant after he pressed it, I still followed through with my full power tackle, and we both smashed through the window and into the air. After we flew a few meters I felt a huge pressure coming off of the Grunt and heard an incredibly sharp and terrible noise.

As incredible pain ripped through me as my body was blown apart.

...

Am I alive or am I dead? I am conscious, so I should be alive...? It was only a fake body that was torn apart after all, I should be fine...

...

How long has passed? Such a strange feeling, to feel like nothing. To see, hear, feel, nothing. Did I survive or did I die? Am I still me? Or am I now mere fragments of myself?

...

My awareness finally returned to me completely and I was able to look out into the world from my Spatial Node in the Pokemon World. Using the innate powers of the node I was able to 'see' the surroundings of the node, but my energy was too weak to properly form a body.

Looking out from the Node I could see the Bus turned over not too much further down the road, tipped over on its side. There were still some anguish and the like, but some passerby people and their pokemon seem to have just arrived and were helping people out of the partially burning bus.

Over on the ground by the busted out windows I saw the now owner-less Pokeball of the Machop. Burning a bit of my remaining energy I managed to forcibly move the spatial Node over to it and collect it, and then I did the same for the Drowzee Pokeball.

Team Rocket won't be needing these fellows anymore, and there is nothing particularly wrong with stealing from thieves. A pure psychic and a pure fighting type both walked right to me, what right did I have to deny them a better trainer?

I used what little remaining energy I had to imprint on the two Pokeballs and assimilate them into the mental space, and then returned to the other world.

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In the dark corner of a small burrow, an abrupt movement stirs dust into the air. Looking at the source of this dust one would see a dim silhouette, an evil incarnate of darkness. It opens its eyes and they shine bright red as though windows to the depths of hell.

It is the duty of the Shephards to ensure that Humans remain within the Mid-land circle. Any dereliction of duty on the part of a Shephard is a capital offense, none can be allowed to enter the outer-circle and harvesting must always be on time.

Although this may seem harsh, their race is naturally long-lived and do not require the sleep that humans do, so them this is an easy detail to attend to. Their spiritual senses can also pick up movement over large swathes of land, so any attempts at escape from their captive "tribe" are inevitably doomed.

Even the strongest of the Humans kept there, their chieftains, always rely upon Qi and Origin Energy as their strength. Even at their strongest they would barely match up to one of the lowest tier Therian, and even then they had no way to harm the ethereal bodies of the Therians with their primitive energy methods.

The humans are some of the most precious livestock in the territories. Easy to handle and able to free-graze with minimal management. You need not worry much about safety issues, even a child could handle them.

Their emotional intelligence is high and their logical intelligence is just good enough to produce small amounts of Spiritual and Mental energies without giving rise to a threat.

The perfect livestock, with some torture/slaughter they produce a very high yield of negative energies. Keeping intelligent creatures suppressed makes their residual spirits just fall apart all the better. Tender, like meat falling off the bone.

Each Tribal chieftain is carefully raised by their owner shephard. By purposefully inciting other humans to run or fight, the chieftain and shephard are able to both cow the humans into submission and pull a higher yield.

The chieftain, in exchange for his services, is the only human allowed to live to an old age. Making it a position coveted by many, and allowing many to overlook or excuse themselves from their crimes against their fellows.

This day, in particular, the Chieftain had done especially well in his work. A small group of six, an experienced hunting group, sought to escape away in the night. All the shepherd needed was to lie in wait for them to walk into his gaping mouth.

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Over the time Grey had been cultivating, ever since the battle with the minotaur, Meditite had been cultivating along with him. Practicing constantly in both fighting and psychic techniques.

The strength of Meditite had skyrocketed, even faster than his own. It's previous losses motivated it greatly and brought it huge gains. Not to mention that its master was irregularly strong for his cultivation stage, and the environment on this world contained denser energy than the Pokemon world.

When he met Meditite it was at best level 5, but now it had already reached a major threshold. A formidable Pokemon at level 20. For Meditite to break through any further would require Grey to break through to an Official Pokemon Trainer.

Today, like every night, it stayed on watch for its master Gray as he traveled between their worlds. After its previous failure and its newly increased strength, it was now determined to prove itself worthy of its master. Night after night it was disappointed with lack of opportunity, at most there would be the occasional stray animal.

Tonight was destined to live up to it's expectations though. In it's meditation it sensed a small group of humans moving hurriedly through the forest nearby.

Humans!! Like his master!!

Although there were plenty of humans in the pokemon world, his master had yet to find a single one in this new world they inhabited. His master deeply and obviously desired to find other humans in this world, and here the opportunity was, passing him by as he was in a deep sleep.

The humans moving through the forest seemed to be startled by something, it appeared as though they were being chased by something...

Well, this was not an opportunity his master would want him to let pass by. Furthermore, they were all approaching the resting place of his master. If he did not stop them, they could potentially find the master and then he would be in danger.

Meditite thought, there should be no problem with beating the creature and saving the humans. So long as it is not one of those big hairy things, as there are just too many of those things. It is not worth the danger to his master.

The thing pursuing them finally cam into its field of sight, a silhouette, a shadow figure, nearly invisible to the eye as it moves through the night.

The creature was ethereal, a thin and unblemished humanoid shape. With fingers, nail-less, that came to a sharp point. Glinting red eyes and numerous short, sharp, needle-like teeth.

The sight of such a creature, which instilled such fear in those humans, brought excitement to Meditite.

A worthy enemy!