Unadulterated rage and despair pierced the air like a dagger.

Shin had no clue how long he had been walking for, nor did he care at all. His surroundings began to urbanize and become completely unfamiliar to the usual abundance of plant life that had grown around his hometown. Rows of buildings seemed to stretch on endlessly in both directions and cast shadows on the asphalt with the faint orange glow of the streetlights.

Not far behind him, Anonymous followed hastily behind his friend as he kept a worried gaze at the boy's angered face, hair bristling uncontrollably. Anonymous' expression held great amounts of distress for the boy and his well-being; he did his best to suppress the increasing amounts of dread the hung around him from the unknown territory. Somehow, the streets gave off an unsettling aura to him, as if an evil spirit had haunted each building, each looming object tucked within the cover of night. The pup wanted nothing more than to escape immediately.

Anonymous desperately yipped at Shin's feet as if he were begging him to turn around and go back home to his mother. However, Shin, blinded by his own fury, kept storming forward. He breathed grudgingly to himself as tears fell like a broken stream, mumbling to himself. "A monster...! He's not a...! How could...?! Why would she...?!"

Finally, Anonymous bared his fangs and bit firmly around the material of Shin's sneaker, causing him to jerk to a stop. He whipped his head to face the Pokémon with a vexed look. "Stop it, Anonymous!" the boy snapped, agitated. "Just leave me alone!" Anonymous growled defiantly in response, letting out a short bark as if he were scolding Shin. Shin grit his teeth. "I'm not going back there! She doesn't want either of us, she doesn't get either of us!"

He flung himself around and flounced back on his trail, gaining some distance. Incoherent whispers soon began to escape his mouth before he caught sight of the Rockruff bounding in front of his path, halting him. Shin did his best to find another method to get Anonymous to back off, but his mouth began speaking other words. "You and Dad... Both of you can't be like what Mom said! Dad would never force those Pokémon like that! He would never beat them up! He would never inject them! Dad wasn't a monster!" A lump in his throat suddenly crushed his voice into a pulp at the morbid memory of his mother's words:

"...Your father was killed by a monster."

Shin could feel each pulse of his heart begin to collapse. His face was stale with dark circles, deprived of even a drop of hope in the entire universe. "Dad... can't be...!"

The child didn't know why he was telling this to a Pokémon who wouldn't even understand his situation. He didn't even know why he was saying these things at all at the moment. It was as if the heat of his body started pushing the words right from his brain and out of his mouth, an inevitable erupting volcano that cried tears of obsidian and molten magma rivers.

His wet violet eyes then focused on Anonymous, who had pacified his stance to cautiously study Shin's abrupt change of behavior. Was his mother right? He found himself asking nobody. Had he been, for his whole life, surrounded by monsters he had never cared to acknowledge? The thought possessed him, sapping his essence away from its sheer morbidness that he wanted nothing more than to cease.

But at that moment, it dawned on him. Who was ever born a monster? Did one become one so simply by doing an appalling deed? Did they ever really want to in the first place?

And just because of Anonymous' collar, the Pokémon had been deemed as a twisted mirror of someone else's mistakes?

It wasn't his fault. He refused to believe it was true. Anonymous could never be like those demons his mother had explained to him before, not after Shin had spent so much time with him teaching him about the world. No, he was a being with a heart and soul, like any other Pokémon. Anonymous was a Rockruff, just like how his father was human... Just like how his mother was human... Just like how he was human. The poor pup had probably understood what his mother had said, never noticing that none of her words were true about him. How much the boy wanted to assure his friend gutted him from the inside. How much he wanted to give back to the pup for being there for him as another individual suffocated his chest.

He needed to know. Anonymous needed to know the truth.

"Anonymous... You're not--"

"Well well, what do we have here? Some fresh meat?"

Shin gasped, jerking his head around. As a flash of bright blue and white hit his eyes, he jumped back towards Anonymous, who cowered behind him, and stared at the figure before him. The man was hunched over in an unhealthy posture, draped in baggy jet-colored clothing. Shin couldn't tell if he was smiling or frowning as a black bandana draped his face from his stumped nose. His scabby arms were placed on his hips to tower over the boy. "What're you doing out here all alone, little buddy?" he jeered, nearing his face to him. "Don't you know this is Skull territory?"

Shin watched as three more people entered the scene from the darkness of the alleyways. While one of them shared the same resemblance to the man in front of him, the other two, females, let their spikey fuschia hair bounce behind them proudly as they let their giant necklaces dangle from their collarbones. One seemed to have narrower eyes than the other, giving her a more menacing appearance that made his heart jump. "What's wrong? Litten got your tongue? Talk, dammit!" The other male violently shoved the child back, causing him to fall near the startled Anonymous. The gang laughed.

"You gonna cry, kid?" one of the girls taunted, stepping forward. "Go on, I'll watch." She leaned down to Shin's height until she was inches away. Shin scooted back hastily and grabbed Anonymous' rough brown pelt, pulling him closer to his body. The group studied the Rockruff, letting out airy snickers. 

The first man pushed past the woman, earning a grunt of annoyance from her. "That Rockruff your's?" he asked gruffly. The boy swung a protective arm up in front of Anonymous. He gulped as he saw the man peek over his little barricade and examine the pup, shooting up after a few moments with a chuckle. "He even gave it a collar! We got a real badass trainer here, don't we?" They all began howling with laughter again, and suddenly, one of the women grabbed ahold of Shin's hair, painfully yanking it so that he would stand up. 

Shin winced sharply and began to whimper. "Stop it...! Just let us go!" he pleaded, shutting his eyes tightly at the burning sensation on his scalp. 

The woman holding him gave small glances at her fellow grunts and leered slyly. "No way. We're having way too much fun," she replied, pulling him closer. He felt her clutch his arm tightly with her sharp polished nails, that is until the first man spoke again.

"Maybe if you do something for us, we'll consider letting you run back to your dump." The others looked at him curiously, and soon the man seized Shin's shoulders and thrust him towards Anonymous. The boy watched the cloth over his mouth shift into a wide grin.

"What are you...?" Shin could only stare at him with morbid despair when he next spoke.

"Hit it."

The boy's eyes widened. 

"What...?!"

"Are you deaf?!" the man yowled into the night. "I said hit it! And mean it!" 

Shin felt himself backing up, words crumbling as they made their way through his trembling lips. "No! I can't!" he cried. The other male vigorously rammed him forward, resulting in Shin's vision going black for a few seconds.

"Do it or we'll bash you open until you're broken bones!" he growled, cracking each of his knuckles. He snickered lowly eyeing Anonymous. "And we'll make sure to get rid of the scrap too."

Shin was completely consumed by fear. Rapid palpitations almost broke open his chest.

No... This can't be happening to me... I'm having a nightmare... This isn't real...!

He tried to speak out once more, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't force any words out. They all seemed to sputter and die on the ground with no meaning or significance tied with it. His body tried desperately to hold back any rash decisions. It seemed to be imploring him to fight back, yet praying for him to submit to the man's orders. It was as if his brain had been submerged in cement, crushing his thoughts and emotions under the weight of a thousand boulders.

All at once, his mind had reached a heated supernova, taking with it the universe of his conscious thoughts. It was completely white, with trillions of amalgamated thoughts warping around like boiling atoms. Blank, yet in pure discord.

It pained Shin as he gazed into Anonymous' unknowing, pale irises.

Anonymous...!

His arm retracted.

I'm so sorry!

There was a hard strike upon his hand.

Anonymous tumbled down onto his side, eyes shut from the sudden impact on his muzzle. He shivered and whined quietly.

Shin's hand quivered at the weight of what he had just done. He looked down at his now dirtied palm, sodden in unforgivable sin, placing the other over his mouth.

What had he done?

"Anonymous—" was all he could manage to utter before he was abruptly dragged back towards the gang by the hair and thrown down onto the icy earth. Then, blow after blow struck his back, stomach, and appendages until the world seemed to go numb around him. Darkness filled the edges of his sight along with the blurriness of tears.

This was the end, he thought to himself. This is how he would die:

A monster.

But...

It was at that moment that a savage howl filled his ringing ears. Ravenous growls followed shortly and he watched as something large and muscular from the ground leaped towards the attackers and the impacts cease.

Through the blurriness, he saw scarlet and ivory bombarding the heated presences above his body...

...He caught a glimpse of two beady red moons glaring with limitless power, burning its image into his head like undying flames.

There were screams and panicked shouting, bodies colliding with each other, and then hurried footsteps fading quickly into the night.

Shin laid there for a while, unsure if he should move, or even if he could move, and shut his eyes. Luckily, he felt his elbows and knees push him up and the dizzy feeling in his head settle into his body. When he reopened his vision, he spotted Anonymous, landing on his fore paws and panting heavily in the direction that he heard the gang run off to. He seemed to have dark droplets staining his fur coat, however, it was difficult to see in the poor lighting. Shin pulled himself over to his friend.

"Anonymous?" Anonymous turned around, startled, and Shin held out his hand. "Are you alright?" He moved forward, but the Pokémon suddenly shrank back, his tail between his hind legs. The boy but his lip, surprised. "What's... wrong? I'm not going to hurt you." he stammered, attempting to hold out his hand again.

He watched Anonymous glance at his hand in what looked to be sheer horror. Thoughts seemed to flash before him as his eyes were lost in a deep barrage of thought. His pupils shook, yet his expression stayed fixed at his mortified state, unblinking. Then he stepped back, and his ears flattened just as they did when the two had first met.

Shin flinched.

At that moment, Anonymous hurtled in the other direction, not daring to look back at the boy. Shin felt a chill run down his entire body as he watched his friend get farther into the distance. "Anonymous! Wait!" he cried fretfully, dashing after him.

It was agonizingly difficult to keep up with how swiftly the Rockruff could run, but somehow, the adrenaline of losing sight of him forever continued to propel him forward despite his lack of speed. He felt his hot breaths as they flew past his cheeks and the rapid pants of his lungs grow in agitation. The boy kept calling out his name in hopes of getting the pup to stop. "Please, Anonymous! I'm sorry!" No reaction. He only kept running as if he knew which paths to maneuver onto each time, until, as Shin dreaded, the Pokémon began fading into the surrounding vignette of the twilight.

The world seemed to fog around him. "Anonymous!"

Shin found his legs slowing to a falter and dragging behind him like dead bags of weight. His energy seemed to be whisked away from his tiny body like a spirit stolen by a demon. The child's eyes hastily darted around the area, searching for any signs of movement, any signs at all. He begged for his friend to be hiding away somewhere, that he would find him and talk, calm each other down. They would hug and apologize, and find a way to return home to finally live together once more. He could almost see it happen before him, playing out as if consequence was an unfamiliar myth to the world.

But there was no life around him. Everything seemed to stand still in the musky eclipse of darkness... as if Anonymous had never existed.

A harrowing twinge electrocuted his heart at the terrible realization, yet his legs kept moving forward

Soon, a tall structure dwindled into view. Two large ocean-blue doors under a minuscule cover sealed it safely shut as the dimmed checkered windows refracted the glow of the lamps in the distance, and a large, flaxen star that had been pristinely cleaned and polished was presented in front of a green metal banner on the center-top of the building's large roof.

Shin could only stare at the one living soul before him: A tall man suited in an onyx uniform and cap, both glistening in golden patches and black labels. He stood tall and prominent as he surveyed the area with his steely gaze. The only source moving an atom of his body was the faint wind that tossed around his short curly brown tufts that hung from the bottom of his had.

How Shin wished he could be that poised and confident. Something inside yearned to be just like him, with a sense of duty and purpose.

Without thinking, he hesitantly stepped out of the shadows that hid him and into the light of the building. As soon as he did this, the man looked over to where he stood so cowardly, slightly surprised at his presence. He ambled over to the child and bent down to his level. "Hello there," he greeted kindly, yet with a sense of duty in his voice. He examined Shin's state, finally resting on his nervous gaze. "Are you alright?"

Shin didn't answer. He couldn't find the words nor the strength to even speak a whisper to the older man. The only sounds he could process were the brisk wheezes from his lungs that struggled for oxygen. His entire figure trembled and he could hear himself screaming, suffocating with each breath he took holding onto his pride.

The policeman cocked his head, concerned. "Are you lost?" Shin nodded silently at his question, causing the officer to offer his chalky hand. "I see. Why don't you come inside and we can call your parents to get them to pick you up?"

It was at that moment Shin felt something collapse in his chest. Familiar feelings that he never thought would acquaint themselves again began to flood into him as if a dam of concrete had burst. It swelled into his essence and tarnished all the light that had once touched it. He felt the evil tendrils clasp around his heart and drag him down into the abyss of loneliness

And when the boy looked down at his tainted hand still dotted with cream-colored fur, he realized that those tendrils, those dark feelings of hunger for someone in his life, the pains forcing him to submit into the starless sky that was his own isolation... were him all along.

This... Everything... It was all his fault.

And as he was lead without a sound up the stone stairs and into the station knowing too well of what he was about to leave behind, he understood that he would never succeed to calm the silent war within his mind, not after what he lost.

He couldn't forget it

He would never forget this night.

Not for anything.

_______________________________

Anonymous gazed dolefully as his friend was lead into the station, the heavy doors clanking behind him. As soon a relief for his safety struck him, he could immediately start to feel his heart shattering with every heartbeat that drummed into his ears.

He ran away again. Why did he have to run this time?

Why must he run from everything?

Why did he do it?

The questions kept pounding in his brain.

As if it were intuition, he began to recall the morbid screams of Shin's assaulters as he sunk his stoned claws into one of their shoulders. The ripping of cloth, the warmth of crimson, the utter blankness of his mind as his limbs and hair began to morph... They were unsettlingly familiar to him. It was as if his escape all of those years ago was replaying on a screen right in front of him.

And that numbness. It was the same numbness from when he attacked that human. He wouldn't call it bliss. Was it instinct? Something that those other humans injected inside of him? Anonymous remembered how those humans had called him "special", that there was a great potential inside of him that he knew nothing of.

That he would eventually become a beastly monster.

Did they mean this feeling? That transformation?

Was Shin's mother right? Was he a monster... like they all had said?

...What would Shin think?

Anonymous knew he wanted Shin to be happy; to make that boy smile was all he ever wanted in his life. In fact, it was the first desire that he had ever experienced since he ran from that wretched hell.

How odd. It almost seemed like yesterday that the pup had broken free from that place.

How dark it was in there. The humans never had any windows leading to the outside. They never did talk about what happened when they left the specimen rooms, if ever. The Pokémon found it sad, now that he had experienced the beautiful land that they called Alola. The trees were gorgeous with their lush feathery fans, and the flowers that blossomed in the spring always burned with the liveliest of hue. All he saw back in that lab was darkness, and the shadows of the bubbling tanks and whirring machines seemed to eat him alive every day. The only sources of color were the occasional blinking lights from the strange appliances they sometimes had other Pokémon hooked up to.

As much as he didn't want to, more memories came barging into his head like uninvited guests, and before he knew it, he could feel that same burning passion to be free from it all that he had felt on the night of his getaway. How intensely that feeling engulfed his being, it was as if he had been possessed. It still blazed through him even when he had finally reached the open door of the lab. The fresh wind had hit him unexpectedly as he ran, which barely caught him off guard as he sprinted by the buildings.

He even remembered spotting that police station as he blew past the lifeless streets. Who knew it would be useful for saving Shin one day. It was even thanks to Shin that he knew what a police station was at all. The more he pondered about it, it was thanks to Shin that he learned about so many magnificent things.

Then, a sense of repugnance crossed Anonymous. Why did those humans have to take away all of these wonderful experiences from those other Pokémon back at the lab? It was horrible to let them waste away in such a place rather than enjoy the crashing waves of the ocean on the shore and the marvelous blast of colors from the sun. Any other human would have loved it, he thought. They would find it such a treasure to see such sights.

But those humans... all they saw was their work. All they could perceive was what was right in front of them, and yet, despite this, they did not care.

They did not care if the one before them was screaming in agony at the needles piercing through their flesh.

They did not care whether they separated mothers from children and brothers from sisters.

They did not care if the soul before their eyes had collapsed in an exhausted heap of bones, unmoving for eternity.

They did not care at all.

Those humans... Those humans who attacked Shin... they were the monsters. They were what he, and the rest of the world, should be running away from.

And yet, he ran away from Shin, the only human who truly cared for him for once in his terrible life. He had long since forgiven him for that strike. How much he wanted to assure the boy gutted him from the inside. All Anonymous wished for, now, was to let the boy know that it wasn't his fault.

He needed to know. Shin needed to know the truth.

Anonymous heaved a sigh, trotting away from his hiding spot to take a walk around the quiet town. He had enough time, and he was sure needed it before he headed back to Shin's house. The pavement felt cool beneath his roughened paws, and the gentle breeze kissed his fur back. It was quite tranquil, to say the least since he last traveled around the place.

So it startled him when his eyes suddenly settled on an isolated silhouette behind the coned illumination of a street lamp. It seemed to be staring right into Anonymous' soul, causing the Pokémon's ears to stand up straight in alarm. The figure appeared to be checking something in its left hand before it looked back at the pup with a now poised stature.

"Long time no see, Project A."

Anonymous flinched at the hoarse voice as if a pit of hellfire had been lit under him.

He then watched with his widened eyes as the figure pulled out a horrifically familiar weapon from the insides of his tattered musty coat.

"Where did you think you were going?"

A sharp pain hit his side along with the abysmal ache of liquid ice cold bullets entering his body, and the world around him faded into a silent vacuum as he continued to fall and fall, images he once cherished so dearly retreating from his existence.

"We told you...

...Not this time."