Seth looked like he was about to snap at all the 'mon grilling him, open his jaws and either bite them, or saying something bitingly sarcastic.
"Fine," muttered Seth, halfway collapsing, save for anything to collapse
onto. "Listen the fuck up. I'll spill."
He hardly looked at the Wayfarers as he spoke. It seemed he was addressing the corpse of Zoroark Fein more than anyone living.
"Like the kid here, I'm from a shitty wasteland of a region called Orre. Since before I was even a kid, it's been a worthless region ruled by gangs. I was forced, at knifepoint, to join the Snagger Gang – professional pokémon thieves – before I was even a teenager. There are no wild pokémon in Orre. Something tainted the fucking earth long ago, and they know not to come near, but humans were just too stupid not to settle the fucking place, they ran their towns into the ground, and now their kids don't got the cash to just up and
leave. Around the time I was getting ready to finally hit the bricks and leave the Snaggers in the dust, things started getting
worse."
He tossed a look over his shoulder, northwards.
"You know Blaguarro? Pretty much the same thing. Shadow 'mon in every goddamn alleyway, mines that dried up, some shady fuckers in the underground kidnapping people and terrorising the rest. They're an organised crime syndicate so powerful they pretty much run half the region; they call themselves 'Cipher'. They
make Shadow 'mon – strong pokémon that are so battle-crazed they can't disobey or refuse to fight. Half the folks in Orre are so sick in the head they either can't see the difference, or they
like it that way. Hell,
I couldn't always tell – it's
subtler in the human world."
Seth's voice sounded
tinged with Shadows, but he was so drained after the gruelling battle that no corrupted aura manifested as he talked about his past, and the truth. Had he not been so soundly beaten, he would certainly be consumed by the darkness, and lash out.
"I got caught up in it. Didn't mean to; just kinda happened. After that, I became a person of interest for Cipher. Ended up spending
years fighting them, guerilla-style, on my own. I couldn't trust anybody, and they weren't gonna trust me, so that's how it had to be. I stole Shadows, even tried to cure 'em, but Cipher destroyed the only thing that could. Burnt down the only forest in the region to do it, too. So I just kept fighting. And fighting. And fighting..."
The Lycanroc's voice hitched. There was a flicker of Shadow, dancing in little motes around his face.
"'Til I got unlucky. I was the best in the goddamn region, but everyone gets unlucky someday. They caught me, caught my pokémon, Shadowed 'em... Beat the shit outta me until they believed I didn't have anything useful left to tell 'em. But I held out long enough to figure out an exit. Thing is, before I could pull it off, they figured I was useful for one more thing."
Seth gestured to himself with a grandstanding attitude befitting a stadium heel – more of that attitude from early on in the fight. Did he just show off like a tournament trainer because it helped him
cope...?
"They fuckin' Shadowed
me, too. Turns out you can do it to humans. Fucks 'em up in the head something fierce, kinda like with pokémon – less empathy, more aggression, suggestibility to commands. They got pretty far with me, 'til about halfway through I broke my way out and made a run for it. Chewed my way through half their laboratory – and I do mean
chewed – before I found the
other fucked up thing they were workin' on."
He grinned in a way that almost seemed
smug, and gestured to the world around them.
"Portal to another world. They ran out of whatever the stuff was they were mining in Pyrite Town to make Shadow 'mon with, and I guess they figured the best next source was another dimension with renewable sources of Shadow energy. Until recently I thought Cipher's portal machine was the only way in or out of Forlas. Hence me thinkin' you fuckers were tied up with them to begin with."
He chuckled, self-deprecation seeping from his voice.
"I went right back to doing what I did before. Jumping Cipher goons and fucking with their plans. Only, staying under the fucking radar 'cause they didn't know what fucking species I turned into or nothin'. Couldn't let them know I escaped into
this world instead of Orre, couldn't let them know that so long as they had my boys, they had
leverage to threaten me with. Until
that motherfucker showed up,
dressed like my human self, and jumped
me. I freaked out. It was already gettin' harder and harder – the Shadowing messes with my fuckin' head, makes me paranoid, and some lizard asshole fucking took a fucking
photograph of me a few weeks back, and I started showing up in the fucking bounty posters, started thinking they were onto me... Yeah, I
freaked out. Iced him. Buried him in the nearest decent spot I could find. And then
you little shits showed up with the worst timing in the multiverse and beaned me in the head with a fucking rock."
Seth took a moment in his speech to flip his middle claw at Wes and Archie.
"Tried to scare you off, thought it might've worked. Stuck around watching the place, in case any Cipher peons came looking for Fein. Then you lot turned up in force. You know the rest."
Now, Seth collapsed to the floor, still not meeting anyone's eye.
"It's too late. One way or another, Cipher will fi
nd out now. There
's no way t
his does
n't
leak som
ehow."