ALEXANDER

Alexander Specter stood straight and tall outside his father's chamber, but inside, he was shaking. His Spirit Pokémon, Banette, floated silently, timid but determined, in the air alongside him. As he made his way from his room to the study where he knew he would find Lord Specter, he noted the absence of guards and patrols roaming the halls. He nervously fingered the dagger that he had hidden under his belt.

"It's time, Banette. Double-team, now," he whispered to the Ghost Pokémon. The little ghost seemed to flicker in the torch-lit hall, and one by one, swift shadows flickered around the stones, hiding in the darkness where the flames couldn't reach. It wasn't his lumbering father that Alex worried about. It was Dusknoir.

Alex raised a sweaty hand and pushed open the door to his father's study. Inside, he found Lord Specter speaking with Franco, his captain of guards. A warm fire was flickering on the edge of the room with a log poker lazily resting above the mantle. Both men looked up at Alex with startled looks on their faces.

"Father," Alex said, trying to hide the tremor in his voice. "I wish to speak with you."

Lord Specter's large figure was seated in a comfortable chair behind his desk. "Alexander, just a moment, we're-"

Franco interrupted. "It's quite alright, my lord." Alex felt the captain's eyes scour him, like he was seeing right through him. For an instant, Alex almost reached for the dagger. "I'll leave you to it." Franco and his Ninetails bowed to Lord Specter, and silently walked out of the chamber.

When the door slammed shut behind them, Alex's father spoke. "We were just discussing the search for Elli. I'm sorry, son, there have been no new updates. Your brother and I know this wasn't your fault."

Alex looked around the room. He could see Dusknoir's faint outline in a dark corner of the room, its red eye trying to pierce into Alex's soul. To his trained eye, Alex could make out the shapes of Banette's copies bouncing from shadow to shadow in the flickering torchlights. They were surrounding the room, just as planned.

"I'm not here to talk about Elli," Alex said sternly. His father took note of his tone, and Dusknoir seemed to stir.

"Then it is your Aunt, as I suspected," Lord Specter retorted. "You must be as surprised as any of us to learn of her treachery. I'm here to help, Alexander. Have a seat, and let me help you." He gestured with his hand for the seat across his desk.

Alex moved closer, but declined to sit. "Do you remember at my Aunt's... sentencing," he had wanted to say execution, "When I asked about my mother?" Lord Specter didn't respond, but Alex could tell he had expected this much. He continued. "My whole life, it was my Aunt Caitlyn who had told me about my mother and her family. Father, why haven't you told me anything?" Alex felt his eyes begin to water, and the words came out choked.

Lord Specter sighed. "Alex, you know if your stepmother ever heard me speak about your mother, she would take it out on you. I've tried to tell her to hold back, but there's only so much I can do."

Alex began to get annoyed. His father was changing the subject. He looked up around the room. All the Banette were in place. Dusknoir was still gazing intently at Alex and the real Banette at his father's desk. The trap was ready to be sprung at any moment.

"Don't change the subject, father, I'm a man grown now. Leo's mother isn't here. It's just us. I just want to know, for once... What was she like? Did she love me? How did she... leave us?" Alex already knew the answer. I saw her die in the Pool of Memories, he thought to himself. I felt you choke the life out of her.

Lord Specter dug his fingers into the arms of his chair, and Alex could see Dusknoir begin to stir in the shadows behind him. "She passed away of a birthing sickness, of the same kind as her mother when your treacherous Aunt Caitlyn was born."

Alex sighed and looked at Banette. The Pokémon's eyes were determined- ready, but scared. He had never taken on Dusknoir before, not even in a friendly spar. Neither human nor his Spirit Pokémon knew what to expect.

He nodded. "Sure, what my Aunt did was wrong. She tried to kidnap my little brother. She had a hand in taking Elli away from us. My Aunt Caitlyn has been treacherous. But was she the only one who lived with a lie?"

Lord Specter's voice grew dark and low. "What are you suggesting, my son? If there is another under my roof who has violence, treachery, and murder in their heart, you had best tell me now. Who else plots against my family?"

There was a silence that followed that weighed heavy on Alex's heart. The air was stiffening. Father and son looked each other in the eye for what seemed like eternity. "Only you, father."

In a flurry, Alex spun and drew the dagger, flinging it across the table. Lord Specter had tried to dodge it, but his large belly wasn't as nimble as it should be while sitting. With a sickening crunch, it lodged in the large man's left shoulder. Lord Specter cried out with pain.

When Alex looked up, trying to find Dusknoir, he saw that the ominous Ghost Pokémon had already made it halfway to Alex before it was pounced upon by a horde of Banettes. It was the result of the Double-team technique. It tried to blast and smack away each new attacker, but they kept leaping out of the shadows- an endless horde of zip-mouthed spirits. Dusknoir would have to find the true Banette in order to end the onslaught... but that was a task that only his brother had figured out in their countless Pokémon sparring battles.

"You... stabbed me," his father seemed shocked. The sight of his Aunt's head falling off her shoulders by his father's sword pulsed through Alex. He felt a rage swell up inside of him.

"You killed my mother," he said quietly. His father clutched at the dagger in his shoulder, blood had begun to well between his fingers. "Why?" No answer. "WHY?!"

His father's eyes scanned the room, wondering where Dusknoir was. Alex was thankful that Lord Specter's Spirit Pokémon was preoccupied. If it happened to break through Banettes Double-Team hoard, it could be over for him. He stammered out the words. "The Empress demanded it. She... She wanted all the Forrests dead. That's why I turned against Solomon at the battle of the Green River... That's why I had to do it." Alex considered the words carefully. Lord Specter's hand closed around the hilt of the dagger in his shoulder and he winced. "I did it to protect you from Empress Glamour."

What have I done? Alex wondered for a moment. What would I do if I had to choose between a wife and a son?...

Clink! Alex felt something hit his head and knock him out of his thoughts. He saw the hilt of the dagger clang to the floor. Lord Specter roared in anger.

"BLASTED KNIFE!" He yelled. The blade was still stuck deep in his shoulder. Alex realized that his father had tried to dislodge the weapon and throw it back at him. If the blade hadn't broken off the hilt, Alex would be dead.

He tried to gather himself, but there was no time. His father kicked the desk over with his thunderous legs, and the heavy wood knocked Alex to the floor.

SNAP!

Alex looked up to see his father's large figure standing over him, a leg of the mighty desk in his hands. The end of the leg was splintered and jagged. When his eyes met his father's, there was death in them.

CRACK!

Alex rolled out of the way just in time. He sprung to his feet, trying to put distance between himself and his father. Lord Specter was too large to engage in close combat. He was sweating and his mind was racing. He looked over to the fireplace in the corner, and eyed the long poker for the logs.

"COME BACK HERE, BOY!" his father's voice bellowed from behind him.

Alex leapt for the fireplace-

And felt himself hit the stone floor with a thump. His ears and head rang in shock. He looked behind him, and saw a shadowy arm grasping him by the leg. Dusknoir's arm was reaching out of a pile of Banettes. Alex twisted and pulled as he felt the floor shake and knew his father was stalking towards him, but Dusknoir's smoky grey arm wouldn't let go. It got dark, suddenly.

Alex looked up at his father, the sharp bottom edge of the dagger still poking out of his shoulder, glinting in the firelight, leaving his left arm limp. In Lord Specter's right arm, he held the long, menacing leg of the wooden table. "The Empress was right," he panted. "I should have killed you when you were a child. This is how you repay my good will?"

Alex pulled and tugged his leg, trying to break free of his father's Pokémon's grasp. His father laughed, knowing his son's attempts to break free were hopeless. "Let me tell you about your mother, son. She was a whore. Every night we were together, she cried. In her sleep, she whispered another man's name. She was promised to me, but she wouldn't love me." He raised his arm. "I enjoyed killing her." The wooden club fell with a sickening CRACK!

But Alex had tugged one last time. Sensing the incoming solid object, Dusknoir's arm de-solidified, and the wooden table leg broke on the floor. The Banette brigade seized upon the opportunity to smother Lord Specter's Spirit Pokémon, rendering it incapacitated again. Alex was free. He leapt up and was able to grasp the log poker from above the fireplace.

His father wasn't so nimble. Lord Specter was still lifting himself back from being bent over the floor when Alex whipped around the butt of the poker, hitting his father's right elbow. This time, his aim was true and Specter released his grip on the wooden club. Specter's weight stumbled over the ground, but Alex wouldn't let him regain his balance- he leaned back, then jabbed.

The metal end of the poker stabbed through his father's leg, and the large man crashed to the floor in front of the fireplace. Lord Specter rolled onto his back and cried out in pain, and when he opened his eyes, Alex made sure he felt the point of the poker on his neck.

They were both panting, father and son, but Alex knew his father was done... but still he had to know why.

"She was your wife," Alex whispered, tears in his eyes. "The mother of your son." Memories came flooding back of him and his father sharing meals, swimming in the lagoon around Mt. Pyre, and learning how to fight with a sword for the first time... and then the vision from the Pool of Memories of him ordering Dusknoir to snuff the life of his helpless mother "Why, father?" A single tear fell down and splashed on the stone floor. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't put this point through the back of your throat."

His father's eyes found his again... and then they darted away.

Alex heard a new voice, now. "That one, Dusclops!" came the voice of Leo, his brother. Alex spun around in shock to find his younger half-brother and Dusclops enter the fray. Dusclops was holding Banette by the throat... the real Banette, as all the others began to disappear around Lord Specter's Spirit Pokémon.

"My son..." he heard his father whisper. "Dusknoir, finish this."

Alex turned his attention away from his father. The large man was of no threat... only Dusknoir. Alex stepped back and crouched down, poker raised like a spear. He circled Dusknoir, trying to keep his distance. The ghost Pokémon wavered back and forth...

Alex lunged, and the poker would have found its mark if the Ghost Pokémon was still solid, but it wasn't. Alex felt himself drawn into the Pokémon's grip, to be choked like his mother was...

"BAAAAAAN!" Banette broke free of his brother's Dusclops rushed out of nowhere to take Dusknoir at unawares, but one Banette was not enough. Dusknoir grabbed the zipper-mouthed Pokémon with a giant hand and crushed its head. Alex saw his own Spirit Pokémon thrown and bounce on the floor like a child's doll, lifeless, before he felt Dusknoir throw Alex.

The world around him seemed silent. He saw his brother and his Dusclops attending to his father... his only remaining family.

SMACK! The ground could not even break Alex out of his trance. He landed next to Banette's body. He reached out a hand and felt the Pokémon's cold skin. Banette's head was misshapen and broken by his father's Pokémon. It fidgeted on the ground as its eyes flashed in rings of red, then blue, then yellow, then green, and then cold and blank and dead.

Alex felt himself begin to be tired, so tired. Dusknoir stood over him and he didn't know what would take him first: the tiredness or his father's Pokémon's strangling hands. He succumbed to either, it made no difference.

The last words he heard was his father screaming "Traitor!" and the intense heat of what Alex supposed must be the fires of death. Smoke seemed to fill his nostrils and then his throat as he felt himself carried away by the angel of death.